Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

France’s Victoire Cycles have been in the custom bike game for more than a few years now and each new frame is a further expression of their style. They’ve made plenty of road bikes during that time; this silver model is a fine example of their approach.

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

It’s only when a frame builder has completed more than a few frames that they start to develop a style of their own, regardless of whether their bikes are road bikes, mountain, or commuter bikes, and the Clermont-Ferrand workshop has made many of each.

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

Their bikes are the exemplification of the French form and culture: elaborate, refined and functional. It’s the considered details you’ll find here that other cultures aspire to, like the brazed-on stainless steel ridges that will protect the head tube from cable rub.

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

After discussion with their customer, the team at Victoire conceived this design as a classically-inspired sportif-racer, a fillet brazed assembly of stainless steel Reynolds 953 tubes executed by their builder, Romain Thouin.

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

Their customer wanted a bike to handle long distances in the saddle, as he competes in events such as the l’Etape du Tour, the Ronde Van Vlaanderen or l’Ardéchoise. The geometry was tweaked towards a horizontal top tube with a more compact triangle.

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

For extra responsiveness and increased power transfer, a 34.9 mm bi-oval downtube was chosen to stiffen the bottom bracket, while the shaped chain stays soak up road buzz. The fork is a Columbus Futura unit which accepts the flat-mounted disc brakes.

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

Germany’s Tune Components provided the Smartfoot crankset, seat post and stem, resulting in a final dry weight of 7.8kg. The wheels are Bontrager’s Aeolus 3 clincher set, completing the build with a SRAM Force22 groupset.

The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce

The final request form the customer was that the frame to be finished with a light-coloured paint and Victoire responded by with a silver coat, deftly masked to reveal slivers of the fillets around the joints. Magnifique!

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The Silver Metallist: Victoire Cycles Argent Veloce