- Alex’ Audax Bike -

Alex’s Audax Bike is my personal favourite of the past year. 2024 presented me with some incredible builds to create, and it’s never an easy task to land on a favourite. If a bike doesn’t stand a chance to become one of my favourites, I wouldn’t entertain building it. My goal is always to build bikes I would want to jump on and ride myself, whilst meeting the goals and expectations of my customers. I think this is what excites both myself, and my customers - they know they’re going to be riding something that I’m proud to have built and they will be incredibly proud to ride!

The brief for this bike was to build something which will be reliable and comfortable for long days in the saddle, but at the same time have the stiffness where required to also make it efficient when the pedals are being pressed on. Dynamo lighting for hassle-free night time, and day time visablity in all conditions. A custom stainless steel rack for those big days, or multi-days when you need to carry extra food, clothing and spares and full mudguards for, well, mudguards are always going to be useful here in the UK.

We initially planned on the rear light being mudguards mounted, but in the end settled on it being frame mounted so Alex could easily take off the mudguards if we have a good streak of dry weather in the summer months. I’m really pleased with how the dynamo routing turned out, we kept the entries and exits really neat using Campagnolo EPS grommets and for the rear light, made a custom stainless steel reinforcement plate to accommodate both a Di2 and EPS grommet.

The frame features classic Feather details such as the integrated seat clamp and custom hourglass seat stays which are usually made for gravel bikes but have been found to increase comfort when in the saddle, so it made complete sense to use this design feature within a bike like this. I have only ridden the bike around the carpark at Feather HQ, but it is incredibly smooth and silent. Alex has confirmed this following his first few rides over the Christmas holidays.

The frame tubes used for this bike are a mixture of Columbus Spirit HSS, Spirit, Life, Zona and XCr with a couple of T45 aircraft tubes for the bridges.