Introducing your LaVita bike
Your LaVita
For those of you who are making your first investment in a road bike - congratulations! For those who need an upgrade, welcome back! Here we have some important details about our bikes. We're an open book, so if you have any further questions, be sure to get in contact.
Comfort & Fit
LaVita, and indeed the new popularity of gravel and bike packing bikes, are designed for all-day comfort on touring rides and lightweight to be fun and fast on the road. Our carbon frames are stiff yet compliant, reducing road buzz and giving confidence downhill and in corners. The reduced weight from aluminium/alloy frame bikes make your LaVita more manoeuvrable and less work when climbing hills.
Your frame size is mainly determined by your height.
TABLE OF HEIGHTS TO FRAME SIZE.
We can tweak the fit by offering a shorter stem as a free option - this brings the handlebars 20mm closer. We recommend this to smaller riders who may have a shorter body relative to leg length.
Your handlebars are set to a default comfortable height when riding with your hand in the top position (where your hands are on top of the handlebars). If you want a more racing position, you move to the 'drops' (the bottom of the hook on the handlebars). It's easy to lower the handlebars by up to 20mm by moving the collars from below the handlebars to above them if you do want a more racey position.
Tyres
Once your riding position is set the biggest comfort choice are your tyres. Choose the Gravel configuration for 40mm wide gravel tyres; super comfortable over gravel and off-road surfaces and might be preferable on rougher roads and for touring.
When you chose the Road configuration we fit premium Continental 28mm Ultrasport 3 tyres.
(Other tyres are available; drop us a line to know what you'd like. The LaVita chainstay gap is around 55mm; we recommend a maximum tyre width of 45mm to avoid clearance issues in very muddy riding.)
As the only difference between Road & Gravel is the tyres, why not keep a spare set of wheels and pop the appropriate set on for today's ride? Disc brakes and through-hole quick releases make it easy to swap. Just one bike will do!
Style
All our frames are fully carbon and designed around the latest touring/gravel style. We love classic straight-steel road bikes; we evoke their style with a modern twist; oversized front handlebar area and downtube (the tube from handlebars to pedals), with narrowing tubes around the rear wheel, like the wide head of an arrow to the lighter tail.
Our flagship colour is iridescent blue/purple - the colour changes depending on the light angle.
We offer a bespoke painting service if you'd like to further make it your own.
Reliability & part selection
We've tested and researched every part on our bikes; you may not have heard of the brands but we know and trust them. We know that if we supply faulty equipment we'll very quickly get a bad reputation, so we have to work even harder than known brands for your satisfaction.
We have UK stock of all parts; in the unlikely event of a warranty or maintenance issue, we'll get you back on the road in no time. All frames and components have a one year warranty with us and we'll work with your local bike shop to get you going again.
Disc Brakes
We've chosen only disc brakes for all our bikes because rim brakes can be difficult to maintain and hard on your hands in the wet, downhill and when touring with the weight of panniers.
It's very important to bed in disc brake pads. We do this for you on all our bikes for dependable braking from the first mile.
Groupset (Gears, shifters, derailleurs)
Our Sensah Empire shifters are designed by ex-SRAM engineers and this is their third version of their 22 speed set; making good shifters is really hard and we've monitored the evolution as they've improved over the two previous versions. All of our groupset parts are compatible with other branded elements, which is great comfort blanket for touring different countries for long periods of time.
Years of research and development have gone into these parts; the cassette is premium quality, tough and long lasting with a low friction coating, and also very lightweight. The cassette is fully swappable with 11 speed Shimano & SRAM brands (meaning you can shift to your Turbo without any effort!).
Any more questions? Drop us a line and we'll be happy to have a chat.