Sabbath Silk Route

[niloc]

I am starting to think about replacing my tourer and wondered if anyone has any comments on the Sabbath Silk Route, either as a frame or a complete build

[keyhavenpotterer]

I have the September, and am really pleased with everything about it. Most comfortable bike I have ever ridden, fits me perfectly so their geometry has to be spot on. It's a very elegant bike, understated yet I have had more comments about " that's a nice bike" than any other I have owned including a titanium Merlin. There is a lot of detail in the frame set that does not really show in pictures.
So, hopefully someone will come along who has a Silk Route, but in the meantime I can vouch that Sabbath's high quality understated approach produces a very fine bicycle.

Brian

[Chodak]

Niloc, I have had the Silk Route since last November. I rode it through the winter, done hostel touring winter and summer and long day rides in all weathers. I had it 'made to measure' at no additional cost via Paul Hewitt, with carbon cyclocross forks rather than steel touring forks as I only carry rear panniers and do more trail rides and quicker day riding with the local club, so the steel forks would have been an unnecessary weight. I whisk the rear rack off to do long day rides and put on an SQR saddlebag.

The whole set up is reasonably light (26lb / 11.7kg with 30mm marathon tyres, computers, bell, SQR fittings for lightweight tours but without the luggage and lights). It's utterly stable and planted with or without panniers on. On day rides, it doesn't compare at all well with my Burls Ti audax bike for either ease of riding or comfort, as the whole set-up feels a bit harsh by comparison to the much more compliant audax frame, even though the audax bike has much narrower tyres, the difference is absolutely in the frame and forks, not the pneumatics. I've done 100 mile day rides on the Silk Route and been tired but ok at the end of it, but I do get more more vibration through the bars and the back-end than on the audax bike as it's a lot stiffer. On tours it's pretty damn fine, especially with two panniers on, it seems to make more sense laden.

It's my first tourer, so have no experience of other tourers to compare it to, so not sure how atypical this description is. I can say that as the Paul Hewitt custom fit and made to measure service from Sabbath were both 'free' (I paid Paul £50 for the fit, but he deducted this from the cots of the bike), I'd tend to go for that compared to the standard measurements of the off the peg frames. Sabbath do a CAD service, but I think they charge for this.

Here's a couple of piccies with the AQR Trax weekend luggage and lights on. The bike has no transfers as I elected to do without all but the laser engraved logo on the headtube.