The name Chris Boardman is synonymous with track cycling, so it should come as no surprise that Boardman Bikes have launched a proper track bike. They’ve done an urban fixie before, but the new Performance series TK Pro is built for the boards, a more affordable version of the limited edition TK/20 we featured last summer.
The TK Pro is as straightforward as they come, but it has some nice touches. The smooth-welded aluminium frame could easily be mistaken for carbon, and although it’s a track-legal machine, it ships with Tektro R340 dual-pivot brakes, so it can do double duty as a lightweight commuter. Better yet, the rear brake line runs internally so there are no cable stops to spoil the frame's clean lines. The Boardman TK Pro also sports a tapered full-carbon fork, and despite the relatively modest Mavic CXP-22S clincher rims and Truvativ Omnium chainset, it weighs in around the 7.5kg mark.
We had a quick blast on the TK Pro at Newport velodrome and whilst we didn’t cover ourselves in glory, the bike proved more than capable. A size medium has a taller-than-average (for a track bike) 150mm headtube, which means the average club racer won’t have to resort to a hideous positive rise stem to achieve a usable position, and all but the most extreme of setups should be catered for. It’s a proper race bike though, with a 74-degree head angle (size M) and 30mm of fork rake across all sizes.
At £799.99, the TK Pro is more mid-level than entry-level but we were impressed by the frameset, which looks to be ripe for upgrading with a set of deep section carbon tubulars for some scratch race mayhem.
