Small, compact, elegant, it seems it wants to fly over all types of ground, here is the VICTOIRE VOYAGES of Elisabeth. Built at BEAUMONT (dpt 63 France), the CYCLES VICTOIRE VOYAGE range includes all made to measures bikes designed to allow you to discover a territory, a region, a country or why not cross a complete continent. They are solidly armed to become according to need, more or less big carriers on all king of grounds.
Strong of a long cycling experience and several trips in complete independence, Elisabeth goes on travel most often over periods of a 15 days. Since 12 years she has already crossed many countries such as The Netherlands, Italy, Czech Republic ... Member of the Cyclo Camping International, she will ride her new bike across several French regions and plans to leave thereafter to discover the Denmark.
Made to measure, like all CYCLES VICTOIRE's bikes, the frame is designed for the 1m58 of its owner. To start, a blank sheet. There is no point of similarity with her previous bike. Elisabeth wants a bike easy to handle, easy to step over, but also without any risk of "overlap".
What is "overlap"? It is when the foot on the pedal, crankarm right or left in front, comes in contact with the front wheel when the bike turns. A constraint removed on the bike of Elisabeth thanks to the expertise of the team Cycles VICTOIRE. They have combined a suitable geometry, a fork with a large bend and the use of a wheel set in 26 ".
The choice of the 26" wheels diameter offers a lot of advantages. In addition to a lower centre of gravity and a lower top-tube making it easier to get on the bike, it is also easy to find spare parts all around the world : rims, tubes or tires in 26" are a global standard.
The bike, dedicated to travel, combines handling ability, comfort and load capacity. It is made of TANGE CHAMPION Double Butted steel. The tubes are of a small diameter allowing to keep at a light and reactive frame not to penalize the size of Elisabeth. This secret recipe is the result of the craftsman's long experience, we will not have more information about the frame built.
This frame is full of little tricks. At the front, the upper tube is slightly curved for ease to get on the bike. It is also very useful in case of emergency stop to quickly put both feet on ground without shocking the crotch. The space inside the front triangle remains enough space for two bottle cages.
At the rear, the binding of the brake is to the International Standard - IS -. It allows the craftsman to attach the brake caliper with the rack together on the same fixing point. The whole is fixed with a screw of 6mm instead of 5mm. An aesthetic choice, reducing the number of eyelets on the frame. Same mounting standard -IS- for the front brake caliper on the fork which in the idea allows in the event of failure of it to replace it with its rear counterpart.
On the left seatstay, the fixation of the kickstand is "handmade". The craftsman rejected the idea to mount a kickstand by pinching mechanism, this system under the weight of the luggage could turn over itself and be a risk. This is how Cycles Victoire designed an attachment point to directly plug the kickstand to the frame. In case of, a reinforcement has been applied to distribute the load between the weight applied to the kickstand, the stress of the load and the disc brake.
The rigid Reynolds steel fork - 1 "1/8 - fits into a reinforced straight headtube. This fork, hand-crafted, is also a masterpiece of Elisabeth's VICTOIRE VOYAGE. The offset of 55mm goes beyond the usual values of a travelling bike, but it is essential data to remove this famous overlap (foot coming in contact with the front wheel). To counterbalance the strong offset that makes the steering quite lively, the headtube angle of 71 degrees is softer than usual, so Cycles Victoire gets the ideal performance : a predictive steering, even with huge load.
The fork incorporates the front luggage rack. It is a VELO ORANGE rack, modified to be fully integrated and welded to the fork. It is welded on the T-fork, the legs and front dropouts. The tray is equipped with a double rod positioned forward. Thus, whether a bag or a luggage is used on top, it comes against the rod and not the handlebar. This keeps the necessary space when the rider's hands are in the high position on the handlebar.
About components, the transmission is mainly from the Shimano 105 - Series 5800 11-speed groupset. The crankset from is a 50 / 34T models with 170mm crankarms. It works in team with a wide cassette 11-32 in order to climb everywhere. To stop the machine, there are TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes (Cables) activated by the Shimano 105 brake levers.
Elisabeth believes in Gilles Berthoud product's range especially for mudguards, handlebars and saddles with the Marie Blanque model (Col Marie Blanque - Pyrenees - 1035m). The front light is a Bush&Muller LUMOTEC IQ2 50 Lux model powered by a Shimano dymano hub. It is located at the front right of the luggage rack so that the halo of light is not cut by the presence of a bag or luggage. All of the electrical wiring goes through the fork and frame.
The "cockpit" comes from the VELO ORANGE's catalog. The bike is equipped with the Velo Orange Dajia CW handlebar, the Velo Orange Tall Stack stem. But also, from the same catalog, the seatpost and the headset.
Regarding the wheelset set-up by CYCLES VICTOIRE, as seen, it is a Dynamo hub from Shimano at the front and a DT350 6-hole disc at the rear. The rims come from the catalog RYDE (ex-rigida) in 32 rays. Tires are the emblematic Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tour equipped with the technology Smartguard 7 and UNPLATBAR, it is a sublayer of 5mm of rubber preventing from all punctures.
The Victoire VOYAGE of Elisabeth is a very nice bike that will soon be highlighted on the road of France, Denmark and probably Poland. Good ride to the Little Queen..Elisabeth.
Website Cycles VICTOIRE : http://www.victoire-cycles.com/
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