Sizzling on the heels of their Ouray all-road bike comes the Taos, a flexible gravel bike with the identical monocoque “nude” carbon body building however a give attention to delivering next-level traction.
Impressed by the wide range of terrain round Taos, New Mexico, their newest creation matches enormous tires and makes use of a dropped-stay, closely sloping body design to absorb chatter and hold your wheels planted. It additionally replaces the Chebacco as their inventory providing, although you’ll be able to nonetheless get a full customized Z-series gravel body if you would like.
An all-new body
Just like the Ouray, the Taos’ body is a full monocoque design, made in a single piece of their new European associate manufacturing facility, and comes with a waxed end sans paint.
This design offers them full management over the whole bike’s trip high quality in ways in which tube-to-tube or lugged building can’t. They usually do it with such precision that each UD layer you see is strictly the way it comes out of the mildew, completely positioned and completely purposeful…there aren’t any added beauty layers, ending, bonding, overwraps, or filler.
Which is why they provide it with a nude end that has nothing however a sturdy wax coating over it. That makes it lighter, with a claimed common body weight below 1kg, but it’s robust sufficient to resist the weather and some knocks. As a result of it’s a gravel bike, high-impact zones are bolstered, and rubberized protecting shields cowl the underside of the downtube close to the BB and the chainstays.
About that traction
With the one-piece building, Parlee is ready to tune the carbon fiber used within the seat tube, high tube, and seat stays to be extra compliant on the saddle than a typical gravel bike. They declare it has 20% extra compliance on the saddle than is typical. When you really feel that as extra consolation, it additionally means the rear tire has extra constant contact with the bottom, which interprets to higher traction because the wheel skips much less.
The Taos matches as much as 700x50mm (2.0″) tires, which maximizes the tire patch and quantity, additionally aiding in grip and luxury. They are saying all of it provides as much as a motorcycle that provides higher traction than anything available on the market.
It’s additionally quick…
The underside half of the bike is stiff for environment friendly energy switch. Whether or not you’re grinding up a climb, hammering for the end, or simply making the miles disappear as shortly as potential, it’ll benefit from all of your watts.
Delicate aero touches assist with this. The highest of the downtube is a subtler model of their wind tunnel-proven Recurve design, and all cables and wires are hidden contained in the stem and body for a full stealth look. Parlee isn’t making any aero claims for the Taos, nevertheless it’s designed with single-day races like Unbound, BWR, and so on., in thoughts.
As such, it has three bottle cage mounts (two contained in the entrance triangle, one beneath) and high tube bag mounts, plus their first-ever inner downtube storage compartment. However that’s about it. You possibly can strap extra baggage to it, nevertheless it’s not supposed for fully-loaded bikepacking.
…and versatile
The Taos’ geometry is suspension corrected. Its fork has a 425mm axle-to-crown measurement, just like fashionable gravel suspension forks. Add any 30-40mm fork you need and geometry barely adjustments.
Preserve it inflexible and you need to use the flip-chip dropout to vary the fork offset from 45-51mm. Whereas it’s billed as a gravel bike, Parlee is aware of many riders like their bikes to tug double obligation, and this one’s suitable with tires all the way down to 700×32. Change the fork offset to regulate the dealing with to fit your tire dimension and wishes.
Geometry & requirements
The Taos is obtainable in six body sizes, every with the choice for normal or tall head tube setups. This, together with full customized element builds for each bike primarily based in your match knowledge, guarantee virtually each rider can discover a excellent match aboard the Taos.
The bike comes with built-in headsets for stealth routing, and so they use the widespread headset requirements so you need to use any widespread setup from FSA, ENVE, Token, Deda, PRO, and so on.
Additionally they use a typical spherical seatpost and T47 BB. The entrance brake comes normal with a 160mm rotor because the smallest dimension, which helps you to simply swap to a 180mm rotor with none particular adapters. The rear brake sticks with the widespread 140/160 sizing.
Spec overview
- Development: One-piece, UD (uni-directional) carbon monocoque body and fork
- Design: All-road geometry with modular Flex-Match system
- TT Slope: Sloping, 15-21 levels (size-specific)
- Tire Clearance: 32-50mm (measured)
- Seatpost: 31.6mm, spherical, 0mm or 25mm offset, replaceable exterior clamp
- Cabling: Full inner routing, digital drivetrain solely
- Backside Bracket: T47, inner, 85.5mm width
- Drop Outs: 142mm thru-axle, UDH (Common Derailleur Hanger) suitable, 140/160 rear rotors
- F. Derailleur: Braze-on, detachable, consists of 1x blanking panel
- Commonplace End: Nude, waxed carbon – Parlee Paintlab customized paint accessible
- Fork Specs:
- Full carbon
- Built-in crown race
- Hidden cabling
- Flat mount disc
- 100mm thru-axle
- 160/180 rotor suitable
- Suspension fork prepared geometry
- Headset: Built-in IS52 higher and decrease, stainless bearings
- Flex-Match Spacers: Included ENVE, FSA, and PRO brief and tall high caps and common match cap
The Taos will probably be accessible by way of Parlee’s supplier community with all kinds of builds.
