The Vars rode as if its stiffness, smoothness and speed had met in the middle, been melted down together and recast as one
outliers in the morphology department (see p24 for an extreme example). But most agree custom is nice if you can get it. As for me, I’m a pretty bog standard human and happily ride a 56cm, and while this Vars test bike wasn’t made to fit me it nonetheless felt wonderfully familiar in a classic race bike way. Trail and wheelbase err towards the short for quick handling, while low stack height affords a low-slung position. Add in truncated kamm-tail tubes and deep wheels and you have one incredibly rapid ride.
Smooth as…
But this was only the second thing I noticed, because the first was just how smooth the Vars was. To use that well-worn phrase, it rode like a trombone through Lurpak.
Potholes still thunked and torn surfaces chatted, but for everything else the Vars fizzed along to the satisfying whampf of deep wheels and thiss of tacky rubber on tarmac. It sounded
great, it rode even more beautifully, and once again I was left thinking tyres.
The Enve SES Road tyres are 29mm wide and tubeless, and the Enve wheels they’re mounted to measure a huge 25mm internally. This combines to make a lovely, high-volume U-shape profile, which when run at Enve’s decreed 55-60psi (check its online pressure chart) leant the Vars a preternaturally smooth character. And this I can corroborate – with tyres pumped to 80psi, the Vars became noticeably more buzzy.
Yet even in such an un-recommended state the Vars’ ride quality still shone, and that speaks to the frameset. It’s plenty stiff through its spine, the front end steadfast in sprints while the BB and chainstays felt like they funnelled power efficiently to the rear wheel. But more than this, the Vars had a very distinct ride character best described as harmonious. It rode as if its stiffness, its smoothness and its speed had all met up in the middle, been melted down together and then recast as one.
If there is a chink in this armour it’s that many would love their bikes to weigh 6.8kg, not 7.3kg. But custom bikes do tend to be heavier because of how they’re made – they flat out use more material than monocoque moulded frames due to the wrapping of tube-to-tube joints. But with the Vars the result is worth the grams spent, because this is a bike mixing it at the sharp end in design and spec, but in a breakaway all of its own when it comes to ride quality.