Goldhawk Rodax is designed for urban riding and beyond

New steel flat bar bike designed in the UK

Goldhawk Bikes is a new UK brand specialising in flat bar steel bikes, designed for a clean, uncluttered look.

The bikes are the brainchild of Jeff Rutland, an engineer who has previously worked in the aerospace and energy fields.

“Building relationships between design and manufacturing is core to making a great product and I am really pleased with what we have achieved.  From a design perspective, I essentially wanted to create a flat bar bike, with road/fast/head down geometry," he said.

"However, having ridden too many generic bikes that just copy race frames, I found they were simply too uncomfortable.  The Goldhawk geometry IS head down, but not too much (in my opinion anyway),” added Rutland.

Goldhawk uses SRAM Apex 1 groupsets, which come with hydraulic disc brakes

Goldhawk’s initial bike is the Rodax. It comes with clearance for 50mm tyres, SRAM Apex 1 gearing, an 11-36 cassette and an own brand 48 tooth external bottom bracket chainset. Tyres are Continental Gatorskin 28mm. Goldhawk quotes a weight of 11kg, including pedals.

“I ride the hell out of mine (8000 miles and counting on the Goldhawk ‘1’ demo bike and probably 1000 miles on earlier versions to get the geometry right).  I don’t go racing, I’m not in a club, but I ride every day for the sheer pleasure of riding for myself,” continues Rutland. Goldhawk says that its bikes are designed for urban riding, longer excursions and also for gravel and light off roading.

All Goldhawk’s bikes are assembled in London, using Reynolds 520 steel tubing coupled with a carbon fork and feature 1x drivetrains. Prices start at £1400 although there’s the option to spec a custom build as well.

>>> Icons of cycling: Reynolds 531 tubing

Colour-wise there are just two choices on offer: Sprint Red or Flint Grey. You can visit the Goldhawk shop in Camden or shipping can be arranged too, with test rides available both at the shop and on shipped bikes.

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Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.