Li's Richard Sachs Road
A Richard Sachs frameset has always been alluring but what has been keeping people away from ordering has always been the long torturous lead time. The renowned framemaker has been known for his frame building skills that lives by his code - everything by hand, no fancy rigs nor machines.
Photo Credit : Silca
The maestro has been known as a character who is not afraid to share his opinion and actually had an acronym that has been synonymously linked to him. His frames are regarded as art pieces while the owners of Richard Sachs have mostly praised the riding quality and how balanced their ride feels, there are still many bashful over his frames for how a lugged frame is commanding such a high price and long lead time as well. Nevertheless, we think that his frames are a beauty.
The owner of this Richard Sachs waited for five years for his frame to show up on his doorstep and had literally forgotten about the order he placed. Having commute to work on a daily basis on his Brompton, the frameset came at impeccable timing as he was looking for a bigger commute as well as the occasional chill Sunday ride.
Li's frameset was built with Columbus Pego-richie tubing. A choice that is available only at a selected handful of builders across the globe. The choice of colour on the frameset was an interesting combination too. A dark maroon/burgundy colourway with the Richard Sachs logo in bright celeste green as contrast matched perfectly. The paint scheme was done by the collaborative work between House Industries and Richard Sachs himself , ultimately finished by the talented and skilled Joe Bell.
Given the frameset is made in USA by an renowned American craftsman, we wanted to build the bike up with mostly American brands as well. As majority of the bikes these days are in disc brake variant, the future of rim brake bikes grows towards being obsolete. It was a great feeling to build up a rim brake bike again let alone a Richard Sachs and Li was agreeable to the Sram Red eTap groupset in rim brake option. We were lucky that the groupset was available locally by the local Sram Distributor!
Adding in a different element, we opted to use a different crankset aside from the Sram Red (which only the AXS variant was available locally). The Appleman 2XR has been garnering alot of interest and we thought that is quite a good match given the clean branding on the crank arm as well as stellar reviews by good folks who shared their experience of owning and riding them.
The choice of handlebar, stem and seatpost were down to a handful. ZIPP, Ritchey, Enve and Easton were the contenders and ultimately, Li went for Enve.
Given that the frameset would be the Columbus Pego-Richie, Li wanted a carbon wheelset to reduce some weight to it. Without breaking the bank, the decision of the Farsport Kaze rim in 35mm depth was chosen to complement the classic steel bike aesthetics. With the White Industries T11 hubset as the choice of weapon for the hub department as well as the Sapim CX Ray as the spokes to be laced with, we do think this wheelset will last a long time while providing a good solid ride experience when it comes to comfort, weight and stiffness in the wheels performance.
The end result for the build looks balanced but we were gutted to not have the owners' exact saddle height and his preference for the stack height prior to completion. The complete bike photo with the long seastpost revealed was something that we felt unfortunate to share with but the bike is still a beauty and we hope you enjoy this read!
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BUILD SPEC
| Frameset | Richard Sach Road |
| Headset | Cane Creek |
| Wheelset | FarSport Kaze 35 laced to White Industries T11 with Sapim CX Ray |
| Tyres | Continental GP5000 |
| Groupset | Sram Red eTap Rim |
| Crankset | Appleman 2XR with Sram Red Chainring |
| Bottom Bracket | Cane Creek Hellbender 70 |
| Handlebar | Enve Compact |
| Stem | Enve |
| Seatpost | Enve |
| Saddle | Selle Italia Flite Boost |
| Grips | Cannondale Knurltack |
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