Custom carbon fibre bikes are few and far between, but Dublin based FiftyOne Bikes has seemingly cornered the market with one-off specials for sporting stars.
Last year it built MMA fighter Conor McGregor a custom black and gold machine, and now it's built a much bigger bike to suit Anthony Joshua’s 1.98m / 6ft6in, 113kg / 17.8 stone frame.
Joshua and his training team have earned a reputation for hard-work and a no-nonsense approach to fight prep, and his bike is emblazoned with his 25 hour, 8 days a week motto. The custom carbon machine also features a hand painted lion's head on the head tube, to symbolise his Great Britain representation.
Just as Joshua isn’t satisfied with one world title — he currently holds the WBO, WBA (Super), IBF and IBO titles — it seems he isn’t satisfied with just one slogan either, with the bike also sporting his second-to-none (2-2-0-1) and ‘Stay Hungry’ slogans.
This FiftyOne custom is no ordinary carbon bike and is one of the first to feature FiftyOne's new manufacturing process. The brand has partnered with Irish start-up PlasmaBound to bring a new process that's all about the joining of tubes, where the joining ends of the tubes are treated to a ‘controlled polymer ablation’ process.
The system works by using high-voltage electricity and compressed air to create ‘excited’ air. This removes unwanted epoxy (the resin that bonds carbon together), but is unlike sanding or machining in that it's non-invasive or destructive to the carbon fibres themselves. This makes the frame significantly stronger with no adverse effect on weight, and testing has shown an increase of 21 percent in shear strength — handy given Joshua's heavyweight standings.
The bike will be on show at the North American Hand Built Show in Sacramento this weekend, so if you're there, be sure to check it out.
