The number of builders and small companies offering steel full suspension bikes over the past few years has multiplied exponentially. John recently connected with UNpaved Cycles, a small company, over Instagram and asked them to share their Vertigo and new Victor frames. The following information is sparse but what we’ve see from UNpaved has our Pavlovian response kicking in. Let’s check out what UNpaved has been up to!
Michiel from UNpaved laid it out:
UNpaved is/will be the small batch version of project12 Cycleworks. I started building frames as sort of a therapy after I burnt out as an architect and that somewhat escalated. While I love building custom frames it is also a lot of hard work for not a very healthy paycheck. I also felt that my “therapy” ended and it is time to move on and combine everything I learned the last few years in something fresh.
The plan is to bet on 3 horses: Vittorio.cc (a classic Dutch bike brand we acquired last year) for the (mostly Rohloff) travel bikes, Unpaved as a logical continuation of project12, and then project12 itself, which will be just a couple of amazing custom bikes a year.
Right now we have built a couple of Victor prototypes that get ridden hard the coming months. The Vertigo was not in the books for another year, but when Jason asked for a p12 Vertigo I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. So we are working hard on the final details and plan to build the first 2 prototypes in Februari. Depending on how it all goes we plan to open the orderbook after summer ’24.
The Victor is a modern geometry capable XC short travel fully. 130mm fork at 65.5 HTA with 99mm of travel in the back. (the working title was Long Travel Soft Tail) I am riding my project12 Victor on the local flowy Dutch XC trails but it has also been a lot of fun on the trails in Finale Ligure and in the Alps. See the above muddy photo…
Vertigo will be it’s bigger brother for a 130/140/150mm fork at 64.5 HTA and 123 or 140mm travel in the back. What we think should be a true All Mountain bike (like my Cannondale Prophet was an All Mountainbike!) Capable yet pedalable, the bike you take for big days out in the Alps. I would love to do Hans Reys Alta Rezia Freeride tour again on the Vertigo.
We’re excited to see more from UNpaved, so stay tuned as events warrant!
