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For almost a decade, 8bar’s Kronprinz road bike has been an affordable option for riders looking for a quick, no-nonsense ride that won’t break the bank, but is still customizable. Now, a modern updated Kronprinz Carbon is better than ever with fully internal cable routing, bigger tire clearance, and a return to classic seatpost setup. 8bar describes it as a timeless modern road bike in a sea of look-alike ‘moving spaceship’ aero bikes…
8bar Kronprinz Carbon affordable integrated road bike
The Kronprinz has always been 8bar’s affordable road bike, opening more cyclists up to longer and faster rides. It was their first departure from fixies and singlespeeds as the Berlin bike brand broadened its horizons (and gearing) almost 9 years ago, and was also their first bike to get a full carbon frameset. Now, its latest disc brake edition gets a modern and integrated overhaul after 5 years.
But while many modern road bikes have gone down the full aero and fully integrated avenue, 8bar has opted for a bit of integrated simplicity in their upgrade – giving the bike internal routing while trying to retain as much classic looks and ease-of-use as possible.
What’s New?
Tech-wise, it’s the fully internal cable routing through the headset that makes the most striking difference in the new bike’s profile. You can debate the ups & downs of this style of routing (and we did with many of our mechanic friends, here), but it’s undeniably here to stay. The downside of course is that it limits mechanical groupsets. 8bar says you can build it up with a mechanical 1x, but any build with a front derailleur is electronic-shift-only.
The new bike also adds more tire clearance to add more comfort and bleed over to a bit of all-road capability with room for up to 32mm tires.
It also goes back to a conventional seattube design with a hard-to-beat external clamp to secure a traditional round 27.2mm seatpost.
Tech details
The approximately 1000g 8bar Kronprinz Carbon frame features a directional carbon layup and thin flattened seatstays to boost rider comfort without losing overall efficiency. And it comes in five sizes (XS-XL).
It gets flat mount disc brakes (160mm front/140mm rear), 12mm thru-axles, and a pressfit BB86 bottom bracket. As for cranksets, you can mount a max 46T ring for 1x setups (45.5mm chainline) or up to a 53/39T road double, and the front derailleur tab is removable.
The full carbon fork has a tapered steerer to fit inside a straight 1.5″ headset to allow the cables to enter the frame through the upper headset cup. The bike gets two traditional sets of bottle cage bolts, but no other mount for cages, racks, or fenders.
8bar Kronprinz Carbon – Pricing, options & availability
Officially, most options of 8bar’s new Kronprinz Carbon are on backorder, but what that really means is you can get discounted bike if you pre-order now. Framesets are being offered for 1500€ including the headset, or 1870€ with a carbon bar & carbon stem for fully integrated internal routing. Complete builds start as low as 4072€ with a SRAM Rival eTap AXS 2x 12sp build (with small & medium frames available now).
Backordered framesets are expected to arrive in mid-April 2023, and backordered complete bikes from the first of May. In addition to the standard black frameset, there will also be a “Purple Glitter” version when more stock arrives this spring.
For those looking for a more classic ride, and even more affordable too, the Kronprinz also has a steel version with framesets from just 640€, and customizable complete bike builds.
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