Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

Sven Cycles Super Light

Sven Cycles Super Light

13.9lb, or 6.3kg, isn’t a bad old weight for a steel road bike now, is it? With his latest build, Weymouth’s Darron Coppin has silenced the naysayers who claim steel is generally a heavier frame material than aluminum or carbon fibre. It’s as thin as a rapier but built with the age-old dependability offered by Reynolds tubes.

Sven Cycles Super Light

Darron has an extensive portfolio of quintessentially British bikes: his 3-speed Roadsters are based on “the type of bike everyone rode to work on back when everyone rode to work.” One of his tourers, equipped with waterproof Carradice bags — another English staple — won the Best Touring Bike at the 2014 Bespoked Bristol Show.

Sven Cycles Super Light

The main frame is built with lightweight Reynolds 953 tubes, while the seat stays are Reynolds 921. The latter aren’t heat treated like the 953 tubes, so they were ‘tweaked’ by re-profiling them to give them a more ovalised shape, similar to the MAX tubes by Columbus. He tells us, “it gives the bike a very light profile from the rear with no compromise in stiffness.”

Sven Cycles Super Light

Darron maintains that this is not a strict ‘weight weenie’ build. “I didn’t want the bike to have a weight limit on the components. I had a seat clamp custom made from carbon but apart from that, everything else is off-the-shelf.” The highly-rated EE brakes work a treat on the Fast Forward wheels, which are laced to DT Swiss 180 Carbon hubs.

Sven Cycles Super Light

On the 20th February 2015, Darron is teaming up with Reynolds to present a discussion evening about the custom bicycle at Brooks England’s B1866 store in Seven Dials, London, at 6.30pm. It will be an invaluable experience for anyone who is considering a custom frame, or fans of free craft beer by the Purity Brewing Co.

You can get in touch with Darron and Sven Cycles via his website.

Sven Cycles Super Light