The Blue Thread: A Texas-Bound Sarto Raso TC with Forged Carbon

Some builds start with a free-wheeling chat. This one started with a clear idea and a single destination in mind: Venice, Italy. The client — a gentleman in Dallas-Fort Worth — had done his homework. He knew about Sarto’s Tri-Composite carbon fiber, about its Forged carbon junctions options, about the factory tucked away in Veneto. He’d studied wheel data the way some people study stock tickers. And he had strong opinions about every component that would eventually find its way onto this bike. What he needed was someone on the other end of the line who cared as much as he did.

In our experience, that’s how the best builds begin. Not with dry specs, but a bunch of fired-up enthusiasm and lots of great ideas. From the first call through to delivery, we guided every detail through our Regroup Custom process: liaising directly with Sarto on geometry, finish, and frame specifications, sourcing each component to the client’s exacting standards, and building the complete bike at our workshop in Tempe.

The frame is a Sarto Raso TC in the brand’s blue Tri-Composite finish, a special-edition layup that weaves metallic copper filaments through the carbon fiber. It runs across the stays, down tube, top tube, seat tube, its filaments helping to minimize vibrations across the frame while creating a blue thread that catches light differently at every angle. Up close, it’s mesmerizing. From a distance, it looks like nothing else. But that’s not the only augmentation on this Raso. The frame also features Sarto’s Forged carbon, a super-strong composite of carbon fiber pieces deployed across the frame at key stress points — the bottom bracket, the head tube, the seat tube and down tube intersection. The effect is as structural as it is visual: Forged looks like a beautiful pattern in its own right, speckled like marble. And it’s incredibly strong. Just right for certain areas of the bike, where the rider expects to put down a lot of power.

The drivetrain is SRAM Red AXS, paired with a Quarq power meter and a 48/35 chainring up front, mated to a 10–33 cassette at the back on 165mm cranks (the client originally specified 170’s with their fitter back in Texas however the client’s hip mobility had decreased significantly since and a fit check with Barry during a Regroup Fit session at delivery pointed the client to go shorter for increased hip happiness and longevity). Beneath it all sits CeramicSpeed’s BB Alpha, the Danish brand’s newest bottom bracket. It’s a complete redesign built around hardened stainless-steel bearing races and grade-3 silicon nitride ceramic balls, all hand-assembled in Holstebro, Denmark and backed by a lifetime warranty. It’s the kind of component most people never see but always feel.

The blue thread continues at the rear derailleur, where a CeramicSpeed OSPW in blue echoes the Tri-Composite weave of the frame. It wasn’t planned that way from the start — but when the color landed perfectly, the decision made itself. Busyman bar tape with a blue inlay ties the palette together from cockpit to cassette.