Fiftyone Assassin
The Irish framebuilder gets its hands dirty with gravel
Over the past six years, Fiftyone has forged a reputation for making some striking custom road bikes in its native Ireland, but the Assassin marks a departure for the framebuilder. First up, it’s a gravel bike; second it’s made in Asia. But there are compelling reasons for this.
Gravel bikes are made from increasingly complex tube shapes that can’t be fabricated with the tube-to-tube method Fiftyone employs in Dublin. To hit the gravel high notes, a largescale factory had to be employed to execute the company’s ideas, of which there are quite a few.
The Assassin fits both 650b and 700c wheels, with a maximum tyre size of 47mm in both cases; both chainstays are dropped to afford tyre clearance, preserve stiffness and allow space for double chainsets as well as 1x. Rack and guard mounts abound, including up the fork legs; under the down tube is a rubber bash guard; the fork has internal routing for a front dynamo. It’s all bob-on the latest gravel trends, and yet there’s one thing that marks the Assassin out as unique (to the best of my knowledge): radically changeable geometry, courtesy of flip chips.
Flip chips are alloy inserts in the dropouts that can be removed and ‘flipped’ – from a high to a low position at the fork, or across three different fore-aft positions at the rear end. Flipping these inserts changes the position of the wheel axles relative to the frame (because it’s the chips that locate the thru-axles), thus a few flourishes of an allen key sees the Assassin go from 75mm trail in the ‘low’ position to 87mm trail in the ‘high’ position, and 1,047mm wheelbase in the ‘short’ position to 1,062mm in the ‘long’ position.
In a sense this is nothing new – the GT Grade and Rondo Ruut gravel bikes have flip chips in their forks – however this is the first time I’ve seen front and rear flip chips on a gravel bike, and although the changes seem tiny – mere millimetres – the effect is significant.
Flippin’ ’eck
All things being equal, longer trail and wheelbase means slower but more stable handling, while shorter trail and wheelbase means faster but twitchier handling. It’s why a size-comparable road bike has around 58mm trail and 990mm wheelbase, whereas an enduro mountain bike might have 130mm trail and 1,200mm wheelbase. What the Assassin is trying to do, then, is to do it all.
Want to sell your possessions and bike round the world? Go long wheelbase and long trail, the best type of geometry for stability and comfort over heavily laden miles. Want to ride fast, technical trails? Go short trail and short wheelbase to shoot through those chutes. That’s fine in theory, but does it work?
Simple answer: yes. Swapping between the Assassin’s extreme geometries was like going for a coffee with Dr Jekyll, then downing pints with Mr Hyde. The long, relaxed setup was cruise ship stately, but changing to short trail, short wheelbase left the Assassin like a possessed tractor.
To best describe it: bowling down a steep, rutted track in long setup I just held on, relaxed and leant back a touch. But repeating this in short setup I had to concentrate hard, almost fighting the bars as the ground tried to knock the front wheel off line. But if that sounds undesirable, it’s not.
Swapping between the bike’s extreme geometries was like going for coffee with Dr Jekyll, then downing pints with Mr Hyde
While long setup might be at times sedate (hence why Fiftyone says long setup works so well for bikepacking) it also allows the Assassin to roll over gnarly stuff without landing like a shopping trolley off a skate ramp. And while short setup might sound unruly, the payback is being able to ride twisty singletrack at speed, which on this bike is hugely rewarding. Short setup also means the Assassin is much more adept on the road than it otherwise might be, climbing without the languidness of a longer, slacker bike and taking turns with nippy aplomb.
Yet while the Assassin is highly adept at many things, it doesn’t excel at any one. For example, it is competitively light at 8.91kg but it could be a chunk lighter without the extra mounting hardware and flip chips. Although in short guise it’s much more responsive on the road than in long mode, it could be even shorter – there are gravel bikes out there with trail figures under 60mm and wheelbases very close to 1,000mm.
These aren’t criticisms, just observations, and ones that cement the point. This is a jack-of-alltrades bike, and where gravel is concerned that’s only a good thing. Want to bikepack to Scotland then race Grinduro? The Assassin will oblige. Want to keep up with the chaingang? You might need different tyres but the Assassin can do it.
The greatest gift of gravel is variety, and to take advantage you need utility and versatility, which the Assassin has in spades. Plus it delivers on the thrills too.
It’s finally here – all hail Shimano Dura-ace 9200. But what’s new besides its semi-wireless nature? From the top (take a deep breath)… Lever hoods point inwards slightly, offer 4.6mm longer reach, are slightly taller and shift buttons are longer and wider spaced. Shifting is a claimed 58% faster at the rear, 45% faster at the front; the front mech has a 33% smaller frontal area; the groupset is now 12-speed; brake pads are 10% further from the rotor to reduce noise, and lever control offers 13% more modulation; the dual-sided power meter accuracy has improved from +/-2% to +/-1.5%; the disc rotors and chain are now shared with Shimano’s toptier mountain bike group, XTR; brake bleeding is possible without removing the calliper from the frame thanks to a new bleed port; and there is a raft of new gear ratios and crank lengths (see spec box). Plus rim brake groups will exist but wired only, not semi-wireless, and mechanical shifting is no longer an option, period (the same is true for the new Ultegra too).
So which bits matter?
The changes I could instantly detect lie in the ergonomics and brake feel. The slightly curvingin hood position offers a more natural hand position, and although I prefer the smaller hoods of the outgoing 9100 for looks, the general feel of the new 9200 levers is great.
It might seem strange to cite this first, but it’s the thing I noticed first and I think the thing any prospective Dura-ace 9200 customer will notice first. Lever ergonomics is paramount – just ask Lizzie Deignan and her bloodied Paris-roubaix bars. So well done Shimano, and further praise for the tweaked button positions and spacing. Shifting is now that much easier in the drops, the buttons easier to reach, and you could almost reliably find the right gear wearing oven gloves.
What is much less noticeable – to me at any rate – is the addition of the 12th sprocket. Other riders will disagree and they’d no doubt be right, but my cadence is not nuanced enough to feel the difference. I never find myself searching out smaller jumps with existing 11-speed cassettes. That said, I’d make the same judgement of Sram (12-speed) and Campagnolo (12, or its 1x Ekar, 13-speed).
Beyond that, the other major improvement on offer here is the braking – the Dura-ace
9200 discs now finally feel on a par with what I’ve long held to be the best road discs in the business: Campagnolo.
To achieve this, Shimano has adopted its Servo Wave tech from its mountain bike groups. What that means is a clever set of brake lever pivots makes initial piston travel quick before slowing it down as the pads contact the rotor. This reduces the length (in time) of the free stroke while increasing modulation – that is, the speed and intensity to which braking power is applied. The result is the brake feel is much less binary and is now smoother and more controllable. On the bike it’s a marked improvement.
However, I can’t say the 10% increase in pad distance helped as much with brake noise as Shimano wants to suggest. As is so often with discs, what sounds perfectly set up in the workshop can end up pink-pinking away mid-ride, and wet weather braking still elicits performances from the elephant orchestra. Again, though, I’d level this at Sram and Campy too. What is it about disc brakes and noise?
Need to know?
The rest of the changes here are much less apparent. That half a per cent accuracy increase in the power meter? Honestly I’d never have noticed, but it’s nice to know, and I did find pairing the dual-sided meter to a Wahoo head unit to be incredibly painless.
The increased shift speed? I’d say Dura-ace 9100 felt immediate enough already, although an interesting touch is the system now goes to sleep after 15 minutes and it takes a button press to wake it up.
The charge port is is now located in the rear mech and has a much more satisfying interface than before, and Shimano assures me it has been rigorously tested to guarantee against corrosion and water ingress. Plus it means there’s no longer a need for mismatched bar plugs as the junction box has now been subsumed into the rear mech. Which all brings us back to the wireless thing. As a user, will you notice?
If you fit Dura-ace 9200 to a bike, yes you will. The wiring is much simpler as only mechs and battery are hardwired – the levers pair wirelessly (although interestingly they have plugs to be hardwired too). And if you are a shift freak you might just notice the additional shift speed, since signals travel faster wirelessly than through Shimano’s wires. But beyond that, I’d say it brings next to no functional difference when riding.
In terms of weight, all this new tech has added 35g to the groupset, but at a claimed 2,439g it’s still the lightest electronic disc groupset out there (Sram’s top tier is 2,518g, Campagnolo’s 2,505g).
Which all begs the question, is Dura-ace
9200 worth it? If you already have a 9100equipped bike, I’d say probably not – again the fault of just how good the 9100-series is. But if you’re buying a new bike, Dura-ace 9200 is the best groupset Shimano has made yet.
The brake feel is much less binary and is smoother and more controllable. On the bike it’s a marked improvement