Kyklos Featherweight: First ride review

Kyklos Featherweight
Cycling Weekly Verdict

Its price is going to be hard to swallow for some, especially as there is no heavyweight brand behind the scenes, but it's an ace ride. It wafts up hills, canters on the flat and eats downhills for breakfast. In my opinion, it's amazing and shows that Kyklos won't just be a flash in the pan.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Great ride quality

  • +

    It is light

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Price

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

Hannah Bussey
By Hannah Bussey
published

The Featherweight is the middle brother in the Kyklos range. Its younger brother, the Feather, got the thumbs up with its pairing of compliance and stiffness, so we're pleased to discover riding the Featherweight also impressed. It's especially good for a long day in the saddle, yet ready to lead the gallop.

The Featherweight is a combination of monocoque and tube-to-tube assembly from a high carbon modulus T1000 mix, and at 960g for the frameset it's most definitely worthy of its name.

My small frameset was decked out in SRAM Red and FSA SLK carbon finishing kit along with a pair of Edco Albis Optima wheels, which all helped keep the build weight down. But even when riding with Mavic Askiums it was still incredibly sprightly and is a climber's dream.

Its race geometry feels nothing short of brilliant. I needed to add a couple of centimetre spacers to the 115mm oversized head tube, as I wasn't after a ‘slammed' position. The ride is responsive, without being twitchy thanks to the combination of stout forks and front end geometry.

The slender wishbone seatstays and fat chainstays flow seamlessly into the oversized BB30 housing, which leads to a barely there road buzz, a planted feeling when descending and eager response when climbing.

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Hannah Bussey
Hannah Bussey

Hannah is Cycling Weekly’s longest-serving tech writer, having started with the magazine back in 2011. She has covered all things technical for both print and digital over multiple seasons representing CW at spring Classics, and Grand Tours and all races in between.


Hannah was a successful road and track racer herself, competing in UCI races all over Europe as well as in China, Pakistan and New Zealand.


For fun, she's ridden LEJOG unaided, a lap of Majorca in a day, won a 24-hour mountain bike race and tackled famous mountain passes in the French Alps, Pyrenees, Dolomites and Himalayas. 


She lives just outside the Peak District National Park near Manchester UK with her partner, daughter and a small but beautifully formed bike collection. 

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