Our first generation Palace frame won awards from the press, and plaudits from customers, and the Palace R takes the very DNA that made the frame great and runs amok.

The class leading geometry which made the original such fun in the turns remains at the heart of the bike, but from the ground up, everything else has changed. A completely new tube set sees the frame losing up to 150 grams whilst offering a more refined road feel thanks to wall thickness and shaping revisions (our 58cm test frame hit the scales at 1170 grams).

At the heart of the new frame is the FlareSquare seat tube: wide and square at the BB to add resistance to oomph from the crank. The formed tube profile allows for thinner seat tube walls – dropping the grams – whilst preserving the handling. Asymmetric sculpted triangular to square chainstays retain large tyre clearance whilst moving to a standard threaded BB for a more reliable and user friendly set up. Maintenance friendly, external cable routing remains for mechanical shifting but removable guides and ports allow for super clean electronic shifting installs.