During last year’s MADE show coverage Black Magic Paint had one of the most eye catching bikes of the bunch. This year is only a little bit different.
This year there was no Black Magic Paint booth among the vendors at Made but the team did have bikes in attendance. One of those was a bike you’ve seen before on Velo and will likely see again. We featured it in our TRP Vistar review because it’s my Enve Melee reborn.
That means of course at the heart of this bike is the TRP Vistar groupset. Last year this was the talk of the town because it was the first groupset to integrate a Classified rear hub into a working system. There was no more extra button needed and it all worked exactly like you’d expect any modern groupset to work. This year the hype around it was a little more subdued as Shimano now boasts the same capability.
Hype or not though, the basic premise is that this is a 1x drivetrain. Classified claims a 1% aero benefit and I appreciate that there’s no crosschaining and I can run the K-Edge Race chain guide just in case. There’s still 24 gears though as the Classified hub has a 30% reduction available that acts as a front derailleur. The aero chain ring is fun too although there’s no aero benefit.
Outside of the groupset the bulk of the rest of this build is Enve. Obviously that starts with the Melee race bike but the theme here is aero and I’ve leaned into that at every opportunity. The wheels of choice are the Enve 6.7 which save roughly a watt compared to the 4.5 wheels but are also a 23mm internal width vs a 25mm in the 4.5. Tires are Schwalbe Pro One in 28mm.
The big aero saver though is the Enve SES Aero Pro one piece bar. This is the Tadej bar and it matches the bike but I actually chose it again because of the aero advantage. A handlebar is somewhere you can make big aero gains primarily through a more aero position.
Both Trek and Enve claim around 10-watts savings with a move from a 40cm bar to a 37cm. On top of that Enve claims the one-piece bar saves about half a watt compared to a two-piece and that the aero bar is 2 watts faster than the Enve AR bar setup that was on this bike previously. All said, I am going to claim a 12.5 watt advantage from the handlebar. Plus it looks stunning as painted by Black Magic.
As is befitting a bike like this, there are also color details. Right now it’s using Rapha Brevet bar tape that’s since been discontinued and, for what it’s worth, doesn’t hold up. There’s going to be Silca Nastro Cuscino bar tape in its place soon. Other color details come from Chris King with a turquoise T47 bottom bracket and front rotor lockring that match the Ford Blue on the bike almost perfectly. No color involved but the other touch point is the Cadex AMP 3D which represents the lightest 3D printed saddle available.
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