REGROUP CUSTOM
PHOTOS
Daniel Koeth
WORDS
Adam Eggebrecht
TYPE
Road
FRAME
Bugatti Factor ONE limited-edition aero road — No. 56 of 250
GROUPSET
SRAM RED AXS with THM carbon crank arms, Bugatti-branded Carbon-Ti 48/35 chainrings
POWER METER
SRM ORIGIN PM9 power meter
WHEELS
Black Inc Bugatti Hyper 62 (1,298 g per pair)
SADDLE
Selle Italia SLR Carbon, wrapped in Alcantara
COCKPIT
Factor integrated one-piece bar system
TIRES
Continental Grand Prix 5000 TT, French Racing Blue sidewalls
DETAILS
CeramicSpeed OSPW and T47 ALPHA bottom bracket; Bugatti-branded Carbon-Ti disc rotors; Factor travel bag
This one started with a text message. The client is a longtime fit client of Barry’s — one of his biggest fans, honestly — and one night he messaged him with something that had clearly been sitting on his mind for a while: I just realized I’ve never actually bought a bike from you. Since you’ve moved shops, I’d like to support you. What do you have?
Barry didn’t have to think very hard. He knows this rider well, and he knows he likes to go fast. There’s a bike coming from Factor, he told him, and it’s going to be a collector’s piece.
That word was chosen carefully, because this client is a collector in the fullest sense. He bids on pro bikes — the ones that get auctioned off for charity after a rider wins a race or a stage — and owns machines from a number of different professionals, along with a serious collection of pro jerseys. He’s also a genuinely avid cyclist, which matters. The collection isn’t a substitute for riding; it sits alongside it.
So Barry pointed him at the Bugatti Factor ONE.
If you follow this stuff at all, you’ll have seen the launch. Factor built the ONE to be the fastest bike they could make within the UCI’s rulebook — then Bugatti came along, and the two of them asked what would happen if the rulebook went in the bin. The answer is a fork stance 147 mm wide against the UCI’s 115 mm limit, a fairing shaped to steer air around the front brake, and a spec sheet that reads like a fantasy draft: SRAM RED AXS, Black Inc Bugatti Hyper 62 wheels at 1,298 grams the pair, an Alcantara-wrapped Selle Italia saddle borrowed straight from a hypercar interior, and Continental GP 5000 TTs with French Racing Blue sidewalls. Two hundred and fifty of them exist worldwide, each one individually numbered.
And here’s the detail I keep coming back to. Our client rides a size 56. The bike that came through for him is number 56 of 250. Nobody planned that — it just arrived that way — and it makes an already rare bike feel like it had his name on it from the start.
His plan for it might be my favorite part. He’s going to ride it once, just to get some kicks, and then it’s going on display — at home, in the office, wherever it ends up earning its wall space. Some people will hear that and wince, and I understand the instinct. But this is a man who owns bikes that won stages under professionals, and he looks after those the same way. Factor built this thing as a statement as much as a machine, and a statement deserves an audience.
When Factor imagined who these 250 bikes were for, they were imagining exactly this rider. The bike is headed to precisely the right home — and it got there because of a fit relationship that goes back years, and a shop that Barry’s clients wanted to see win.
FEATURED
Experience whole-stage aerodynamics and speed known only to the world’s premier bike races, the Factor ONE delivers ridiculous levels of innovation for the rider seeking hyper-radical performance.
