The winter bike has to bear the brunt of bad weather and worse roads, coming up extremely second hand by the time the spring sunshine has warmed away the arm warmers.

All this aside, the Condor Fratello, featured in an earlier blog, is a shining example of the potential of a winter bike.

Key features of which are: ‘proper’ fixed mudguards, sturdy tyres, a smoothly functioning groupset, strong wheels and, above all, a riding position as close as possible to your favourite/summer ride.

Bearing all this in mind the Le Sportif winter project bike has started to take shape, so let’s begin almost at the beginning.

Pete Levy of Levy Bikes Works has limbs of steel and joints of brass, inspired by the bikes of the ‘90’s. A long time riding companion and follower of Le Sportif he understands the weak points and desires of the cyclist and proposed a winter iteration of his ‘Fast Road’ frame.

Tweaking the design to extend the back end to accommodate the requisite mudguards a final frame design has now been agreed and is under construction.

Unlike the standard mythology of frame builders Pete is explicit about the build process, you can follow the technicalities of the build at Levy Bike Works.

So far so good, the frame is under way, as yet all other matters of equipping the bike are under consideration, balancing budget and performance - watch this space!

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