Berk PROTO-TYPE Composites

[Berk]

Build the new prototype frame, really happy how it turned out

My aim was to copy the position from my road bike and to make a frame which can take up to 45mm gravel tires, but still looking like a road bike as much as possible (so that it won't look funny with road wheelset). Once I built it with the Sram Force XPLR groupset I decied to put on some silver graphics (which are the same as on the groupset) so that it isn't an all black project again.

Some photos of the road setup, will soon make some better photos and will most probably put on a different wheelset (to save some weight, those are quite heavy and with standard inner tubes etc.), anyway, it came in at 7.55kg as on photos. With some lighter wheels it should be around 7.2-7.3




And this is how it looks with Tufo Gravel 40mm tires and some basic DT swiss E1800 wheelset (painted the graphics since they were not stickers)



With this (heavy) wheelset it is 8.2kg

[Lunn]

Looks nice Berk Got my saddle today, very excited! Gonna try it asap!

[merlinaspen]

That is a good looking gravel bike. Looks like a normal racing bike. Very well executed!

[Bianchi10]

Looks fantastic!

[Berk]

Thanks to all! Will make some more better photos outside as soon as the weather here in Slovenia gets a bit better

[wheelsONfire]

Only thing i would say tube shape/ layup and organic ride feel is prio 1 when it comes to gravel. For certain a round seatpost (27.2mm). It make no reason sacrificing any comfort for aero shapes in this case. You can never gain anything (on the contrary) from having a less flowing bike that doesn't run over shitty roads over miniscule aero gains. Really shitty gravel roads is banging you up terribly. I would go as far as say i would use a 10mm travel fork (built in in HT) where lower HT bearing is placed.
Mostly a suspension to reduce shatter from the surface. Some crop of gravel bikes seems to be aimed at road bikers really looking for nothing more than fat tire clearance road bike.

[Berk]

It depends on how you look on gravel bikes. Personally, I got a gravel bike, and saw that I enjoy to do some weekend rides around my home (I live in a hilly area next to the mountains) where there are a lot of really nice gravel roads.




This road for example starts less than 2km away from my home and it continues like that for 14km in one direction

So of course there are compromises if you want to make a frame to cover more needs.

I don't ride on gravel where I would not enjoy the roads, I skip all the shitty gravel roads since in my opinion if I would need a suspension gravel bike on the roads around my home then I should just build a nice MTB to get a stable ride. Just my opinion, of course suspension helps, but then again that isn't a road oriented bike and if you only need it during the weekend for a 1 or 2h long fun gravel ride and the rest is standard road use then it makes more sense to skip that suspension and gravel specific design. During the week I mainly go to my work with a road bike, which is a bit more than 50km per day only on roads, so I'll see how I'll like the idea of one bike to do it all, will sure update you, it is a fun project for me to explore that a bit.

We also have a lot of customers who send really nice photos from different areas of the world, and it is great to see them because only then you get an idea how different "gravel" in our eyes is. There are soo many different needs and I am sure we'll see many different gravel/road/hybrid bikes in the future. Also if you compare an average cyclists you see that it isn't like 20 years ago, when a cyclist was the skinny guy who had the smaller chainring in the front 39 and in the rear a cassette with max 26T, in some "extreme cases" you had a 28T cassette and it was already a sign of weakness . What I wanted to say, there are many riders who aren't extremely skinny cyclists and you also have to adjust the equipment to those needs, that is why we see road bikes with 32mm tires etc. which is great since everyone can find the perfect bike for their own needs and most importantly to enjoy the ride or just the look of the bike,..just my opinion

[Lunn]

Finally got it on the bike over the weekend, looks great! Cant wait to ride with it, thanks Berk!

[Fideliojbc]

Is there any way in the Berk website to find out about the size?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Berk]

@Lunn
Thanks, hope you'll like it!

@Fideliojbc
It is really hard to make some generic rules and we usually avoid that because it depends from each rider - if in doubts you can email us and usually we have a few emails so that we can recommend you a specific saddle. Most customers already know which width would they need because some bikefitters told them what would be best for them. We also have a lot of customers who were told to use a specific dimension but in the end it turned out that a completely different dimension suits them better etc.,...I also have to mention that inside EU we offer test saddles which are shipped after a deposit which is returned once we get the test saddle back

[bikeboy1tr]

I am not sure if that question was about saddle sz or frame sz as I was just looking at the Berk site for frames and wondering about sz and geometry metrics so I assume an email is required to explore frame sizing and geometry.

[Berk]

Hi, sorry for my late answer, the best way is to drop us an email, thanks!

Got some better photos made by @lukasvetic to present a bit the company, how it looks like at the moment.

Gravel bike at the meeting room



Although there is winter time in Slovenia I already managed to make quite a few rides with the first gravel prototype and will soon create also a road specific bike with the same tubing

New color options







Trimming station with our Kuka robot




Workshop




Hope you all had a great start in 2024 and we'll give our best also in the future

[spokenwords]

Love the news colors! Great images too.

[CLEAR]

can't wait to go back to the shop... will be back this year

[CLEAR]

can't wait to visit the shop again.. will be back this year