Many of you will remember Slyway, the Italian recumbent brand that focused on aluminium highracers. A decade or so ago, their excitingly coloured look was unique and aggressive. Later, Slyway showed off a carbon trike with an even more stunning look, clearly inspired by the Formula 1 cars and also called Formula. However, a few units were a one-off order for a single customer and production of subsequent units would be so expensive that no further trikes were ever made.
The owner of the Slyway company, which is now an Italian recumbent dealer, is Stefano Bonazzoli, an avid recumbent rider who participates in many cycling events and races. Not the recumbent ones, but usually racing against classic road cyclists. In recent years, mainly on a carbon highracer from the Dutch manufacturer M5. Stefano, however, continues to keep busy with development and a few weeks ago he showed a prototype of his carbon highracer, which is really sick. The name of this new machine is ULTRA and Stefano built it in this configuration:
SRAM RED 2×11 speed mechanical drivetrain
SRAM RED 172.5 mm crank set with 52 and 36 teeth chainwheels
11-30 teeth cassette
SRAM bar-end shifter TT500
KMC X11SL gold chain
T-Cycle Elite power side pulley with ceramic bearing and 8 mm titanium pivot
T-Cycle return pulley
SRAM RED hydraulic disc brakes with 160 mm rotors
pair of Zipp 303 firecrest wheels
Continental GranPrix 5000 tires in size 700×28
Since then, he has ridden it for more than 1000 km in challenging mountain conditions and extreme altitude.
You can follow the development of the ULTRA higharcer on the Slyway FB page here.
Stefano promises to produce frame sets, and I wish for all of us that the development will be successful and enthusiasts from all over the world will be able to order one of the beautiful carbon frame sets soon.
Link to the video showing the prototype.