Review: SwiftCarbon Ultravox Ti

The founder of SwiftCarbon, a South African named Mark Blewett, was having a coffee in Xiamen, a Chinese port city across the strait from Taiwan. The former road racer was in China on business. He was well into his second career as an industrial designer who made gym bags. While drinking his coffee, a local came in on a BMC, which seemed out of place. Blewett couldn’t believe such a high-end bike just showed up in such a seemingly random spot. He asked the man about the bike and learned the factory where it was made was nearby. Blewett later got a tour. He realized that he, like the Switzerland-based company, could make bikes, too.

Blewett collaborated with Dutch designer Rene Baretta. They came out with the SwiftCarbon Ultravox, which debuted at the Taipei International Cycle Show in 2012. The Ultravox was the new company’s all–round race bike. It’s designed to climb well and behave well in sprints. They paid particular attention to handling, which is governed by the bike’s trail. “Rake, wheel diameter and headtube angle define the trail,” Baretta said. “I don’t like the trail to be too relaxed or too twitchy. So, I have a certain sweet spot I use. When you turn the handlebars, you want the reaction to be continuous, the same, throughout.”

I tested the SwiftCarbon Ultravox Ti (Team Issue) in medium, with a sweet-spot trail of 60.5 cm. I had heard people at SwiftCarbon highlight the bike’s stability with the story of the Drapac rider, a member of the Australian pro continental team that rides SwiftCarbon bikes, who felt comfortable enough to take a hand off the handlebars and wave a team car ahead while bombing down a hill at speeds faster than 90 km/h. I admit, I didn’t go to those lengths to test the bike. But on my favourite downhill corners, I did find that balanced reaction in the turns. I could switch in and out of them smoothly.

Blewett is now based in Xiamen where his bikes are made, working closely with the factory where the carbon fibre is laid up and baked into frames. The Ultravox Ti uses four types of carbon fibre: Toray 700, 800, 1,000 and Mitsubishi-Rayon 40. Neil Gardiner, head of marketing and communications at SwiftCarbon, stresses the application of these composites isn’t paint-bynumbers. “There’s a human factor. The composite engineers get a feel for it,” Gardiner said. The blend allows engineers to tune the frame, giving it stiffness for power transfer, compliance for rider comfort and a lightness for speed. The Ultravox has plenty of stiffness in the head tube and bottom bracket so each pedal stroke feels efficient. The ride feel is also quite good. The compliance isn’t in the realm of an endurance bike because the Ultravox, after all, is a race bike. But the bike doesn’t have a harsh ride. It’s easy to spend long hours in the saddle.

An esthetic flourish that Baretta added at the head tube and the bottom bracket is certain boxiness. Of course, squaring up tubes is nothing new on a carbonfibre frame. On the Ultravox, it adds to the race-oriented feel of the bike. The spec also speaks to performance. The SRAM Red 22 gruppo brings its lightweight components to the machine. The rear derailleur attaches to a titanium hanger, a more stable surface that is supposed to make for better shifting. The Easton EA90 SL wheels are solid and work well for group rides or races.

I tested the 2014 Ultravox and the 2015 model will have the same geometry. But the frame is constantly getting refined in little ways, as engineers use better production techniques. For example, the frames in early 2015 will be made with an expanded polysterene and bladder system. The round after that will likely be made with a new bladder system filled with glass fibre. It’s the kind of tinkering that can happen when the founder of the company is just down the road from the factory.