Upstart UK brand Bowman occupied a small corner of the Taipei bike show and we caught up with head honcho and bike designer Neil Webb so he could show us a few of the frames heading our way soon.
Neil’s take on stainless steel in the form of the Layhams has been a big success for the brand. Mixing contemporary road geo with classic slender steel tubes with a £1,333 price tag (complete with carbon fork) has certainly proved popular.
So for 2017 the firm is adding a disc version complete with neat flat-mounts, Di2 routing and external removable cable guides, too.
Like all Bowman frames Webb has also reverted to a threaded BB shell for creak free running however you choose to build it. Pricing isn’t yet set but Webb thinks it should only be around £100 on top of the caliper brake Layhams.
The original aluminium Palace impressed us here at BikeRadar and its aggressive road-race cum crit competing :R version has pretty much sold out on pre-orders alone. We’re sure the bargain price of £579 helped.
Webb gave us a sneak peek of the new aluminium disc race machine. With seriously increased tyre clearance and the same adaptability for drivetrains as the Layhams, the as-yet-unnamed aluminium chassis looks the business, and we’ve already put our order in for test rides on both the stainless and aluminium test bikes.
