Caledonia doesn’t fit in a box nicely, and we like it that way. It was conceived on our Thursday night rides—routes that often play fast and loose with ‘road ride.’ As we tried to stuff bigger tires into our R5s and streamline our Asperos, a new kind of bike was born.
When we design a bike, we start with our library of tube shapes. These shapes are tubes we’ve used on other models that we know to have various qualities—aerodynamic, stiff, ultralight, etc.—and they help get us to the refinement stage on a bike more quickly. In the case of Caledonia, we wanted durability, lightweight, and aerodynamics to be in balance and selected a package that achieved the performance demands of this kind of race bike.
Caledonia uses a standard round bar, stem, and seat post, giving riders the option to build their ultimate ride without compromise. Integrated accessory mounts and hidden fender mounts keep the bike’s refined lines so you can ride with lights and computers in a downpour and still look fast. Because we all know if it looks fast, it probably is.
Rather than designing multiple versions of the bike with various fit profiles (R5, R-Series, etc.) like we’ve done in the past, we designed a system that enables a broad range of fits on a single bike while maintaining the aesthetic and functional cleanliness we demand. Modern road riders are looking for bikes to handle long-distance, high pace, no limits, and offer maximum fun. By placing lower modulus carbon in key areas to mitigate the brittleness of hi-mod fiber—the Caledonia delivers performance, comfort, and speed. Oh, and you can fit a 34mm tire in there. Or 31mm with fenders.