F.R.O. Import - importazione bici e componenti - import bikes and components

PACE

The only European bike worth riding. Well, for sure Mountain Bike Action issued quite a strict verdict in 1991. It was the caustic Zapata Espinoza's MBA, not the modern (and sometimes quite diplomatic) magazine you can find at the newsagent's nowadays. A verdict reserved for a stunning British bike, in square aluminium tubes, extruded in-house and then machined to obtain a sort of external double butting.

The Pace RC 200 had character in spades, and breathtaking looks, enough to overshadow a Klein Adroit, even thanks to its futuristic cabon fibre suspension fork. We obviously have one of these gems io our museum. A Pace can't certinly be missed.

We put quite a lot of effort at it, but finally another masterpiece of Adrian Carter's is back to Italy. However you shan't see that with the well-known shape resembling the robot of a 1953 sci-fi movie anymore. The new steed has the slender profile of a beautiful steel 29er. What??? A steel Pace?

As Adrian says, “As I see it the 2011 mountain biker just loves to ride offroad trails, a trailrider out riding with his friends in the woods, having a quick ride on the local trails when he has time after work or enjoying a weekend adventure in the hills. generally he's not a focused XC racer, he's not a downhiller or other niche competition rider- he simply enjoys riding cool bikes on cool trails. And these guys have a choice- either hardtail or full suspension, so when I decided to design a short travel hardtail to add to the range carbon was out because its just too XC race orientated (not to mention 'harsh', unforgiving to ride and expensive). We already made a long travel hardtail (the Rc325.5) for more hardcore hardtail trailriding and I decided the short travel should be steel becuase its the most comfortable to ride and gives more feel and trail feedback.
 
Also importantly I wanted an opportunity to design a beautiful looking frame, handcrafted with lots of nice details and features combining modern materials and geometry with a few classic retro touches. Something the big companies just can't do. A frame you would want to hang above your fireplace as much as you want to hammer the local trail with.”

Well said, we could add.

However, it's not ordinary steel the one we are talking about. Oversize Reynolds 853, obviously with anti-rust treatment, custom Pace double butted steel rear end, chromed and then painted to make it furtherly resistant to corrosion. All this is suitably matched with a segmented rigid fork and, in the near future, with a one piece stem-bar combo. Coherently with the Pace phylosophy, another breathtaking frameset, able to damp vibrations much better than a carbon fibre bike, but also to let you drop the other guys at a local race or, better, to allow you to enjoy a day in the woods, maybe without shifters or gears. Yes, because, thanks to the proprietary adjustable dropouts, the RC 129 can be easily converted into a single speeder. Just in order not to leave any riding alternative out of your spectrum.

We have started with this jewel, but the Pace range includes gems for everyone's tastes: long travel hardtails, XC and AM full sussers, and even the RC104, an 26” version of the RC129. And, if you are fast enough, you might still be in time to get one of the limited edition Morris Cream coloured RC129, for the year 2011 only.