Mrazek bikes

goosey

Anyone had any experience of riding one of these?

http://www.tenerife-training.net/Images/Mrazek_BOH_RD_large.jpg

:shock:
I'd be interested in any tales!

synchronicity

I have a small fleet of Mrazek Bikes...

What can I say? Their aim is to be different. to not follow fashion. I think they've achieved that. Some people say that they ride as well as they look. If you don't like the way they look, you won't like the way they ride. And vice versa.

The very first person to rent the Mrazek road bike told me "it is the ugliest bike in existence" to my face without knowing I was the Europe dealer...

Other people LOVE them to bits. I've had several requests to buy them after people try them. But usually they are out of people's price range. Still, I think for what they are (handcrafted & custom painted), they are worth the money.

Mrazek make just 500 frames a year. I own 6 mrazeks in all. They're beautiful & bulletproof. they ride like a dream. The lay-back suspension affords some give in the seatpost. Here's some other photo's for you:

http://www.tenerife-training.net/Mrazek ... BOH-rd.jpg

http://www.tenerife-training.net/Images ... _small.jpg

EDIT: photos slightly too wide to display.

goosey

You'd think if there was any real advantage in doing away with the traditional two triangles in the frame some company with millions of dollars to throw at R&D would have exploited that by now??

robjdixon

that mtb looks awesome

Sea_Green_Incorruptible

goosey wrote:

You'd think if there was any real advantage in doing away with the traditional two triangles in the frame some company with millions of dollars to throw at R&D would have exploited that by now??

Didn't they say the same kind of thing about Dyson vacuum cleaners when they first came out?

hopster

Really very ugly bikes IMO. Synchronicity you say they are bulletproof, can you tell me why you say that? How many years have you been using them? I can't see any reason why a road bike should be anything but a diamond frame. Taking the seat tube out just means you have to add a huge amount of material elsewhere to ensure the frame remains stiff and as for the ridiculous over hang where the seat post goes, well that's just asking for trouble. If you look at how much material is added to a car when the roof is removed to ensure the body remains rigid then the same applies to removing tubes from a diamond frame.

Monty Dog

The only reference to them I've ever seen is from this guy in Tenerife - being sold at inflated prices on ebay. The frame just looks like a poor imitation of the the C4 Joker, which has been around for over 10 years - there's nothing innovative about the Mrazek AFAIK - to get the best advantage from this design it would need to be made from carbon or titanium where the modulus of the material would provide natural relience and vibration damping.

synchronicity

Bikes these days are all about fashion. The fashion changes just like anything else. Just look at sloping geometry. Carbon seat stays. Ergo bars. Compact cranks. White carbon. If you want to be a fashion victim, go with the flow. I could go on and on, but I don't read magazine adverts anymore - I just ride my bike and visit the local bike shop on a weekly basis.

Mrazeks have never claimed to be light bikes. They are designed that way on purpose to provide vertical compliance. No one said they had the best strength-to-weight or stiffness-to-weight ratio :!: If you want to argue that, you don't understand the design philosophy of Mrazek. Having said that, the tubes are fat, and so they are suprisingly stiff laterally.

Mrazek is art. And like art, whether it pleases you or not is very subjective. It's your choice, and there are thousands of other "cookie-cutter" frames to choose from.

I say they are bulletproof, because they are relatively thick walled & I know that only one has ever been sent back to Mrazek broken (a MTB). That's all the worldwide dealers, not just me. You can argue about car roofs, but the fact is, some like to drive with the wind in their hair. They don't care whether or not weight has been added to the car's windscreen supports and rollbar...

I can see three reasons why the majority frames are diamond shaped.
1) Because they're easier and therefore cheaper to manufacture.
2) Cause the UCI bans every other shape out there. THere have been plenty of other superior designs that have all been banned.
3) That's the current fashion, and so is the light-weight craze.

synchronicity

robjdixon wrote:

that mtb looks awesome

Thanks man. 8)
I'm thinking of putting a coil shock in there, because the lockout feature of the current one is broken...

Would you like to see my other Mrazek MTB :?:

Oh, and since the original thread was about RIDING experiences, please PM me if you'd like to be put into contact with people (clients who rented them for a few weeks), have ridden them and can speak about them.

In the mean time, look here for reviews by Mrazek riders:

http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Frameset/pr ... 1382.shtml
http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/2002_Full_S ... 8172.shtml

goosey

Didn't they say the same kind of thing about Dyson vacuum cleaners when they first came out?

...and that's top of the list of things I wish I'd never bought