PRODUCTION PRIVÉE SHAN 5
settings,” Damien says. “But you also need a compliant frame because you are riding a lot of off-cambers, rocky, tricky sections, and you need confidence the chassis can provide this.
“The stiffer the frame, the more difficult it is to carry it all along the day. If you’re an athlete it’s different, you’re training six days out of seven, you want to hit your lines to the millimetre and you’re strong enough to hold your bike.”
Ironically though, the physical properties of steel give it far greater
stiffness than aluminium, Damien explains. “So the stiffness or flex of a steel frame comes from the geometry and the cross-section of the tubes,” he says. In other words, steel tubing is thinner.
Production Privée is certainly a brand to keep an eye on then, blending modern construction techniques and materials with old-school steel.
And it’s not done as a marketing quirk, a trick to catch your attention in a crowded market – Damien wants to bring genuine performance improvements, as well as style, to modern mountain bikes.
The new bike is made in Andorra from custom-designed MCS 4130 heat-treated steel tubing from Taiwan, and a full carbon-fibre swingarm with T700 and T800 lamination. All tubing sets are custom-made in shape, thicknesses and heat treatment, but it’s the lamination that controls the level of stiffness/response. Production Privée has used a single-pivot design, with the shock mounted in the middle of the down tube to take advantage of the steel’s flexibility, generating 140mm of travel. The bike is designed around a 150mm-travel fork, but you can bump that by 10mm if you want to.
The carbon-fibre rear end is currently made in Asia, but Production Privee’s goal is to bring that in house with thermoplastic moulding. The brand’s founders love ’60s and ’70s motor racing, which inspires the multiple colour schemes on offer, and the frames are sprayed in Andorra with solvent-free paint.
You can currently buy a rolling chassis with Öhlins RXF36 M.2 Air fork and TTX2 Air shock, Crankbrothers Synthesis Carbon wheelset and Highline 7 dropper post for €4,710 directly from the PP website. There’s also a frame and shock only for €2,440,83, or a frame-only for €1,915.83. All prices exclude VAT.