Bob Parlee, who died last year, was regarded as a visionary in the bike industry for his pioneering techniques in carbon-fibre manufacturing and for his insistence on – and lifelong adherence to – the highest possible standards. As a tribute to their founder, leader and friend, the US company is making 25 limited edition versions of its new flagship Z-Zero GT bike with everything curated especially for Bob. According to the brand, the brief was to "start with the best possible road bike, the new Parlee Z-Zero GT, then source the best possible components without regard to cost. Hand it off to the most skilled painters and mechanics and give them time and space to make something beautiful." Each will be custom made to its new owner's measurements and, says Parlee, “we won’t ever make more of them”. As expected, the bikes will be reassuringly expensive, priced at $29,990.
I spoke to Parlee’s CEO, John Harrison, at a pre-launch event at bicycle. in Richmond, south-west London. “When Bob passed away in October last year we decided right away that we wanted to build a bike to celebrate what he did. So many bike designers around the world would still say that he influenced the way they think about the material [carbon-fibre]. He was only in the industry for 25 years but he shaped so much of how we understand carbon. So as we were launching the standard version of the Z-Zero GT, we decided to do a special version for Bob. Twenty-five units, one for each year.”
Harrison says the team started by making a list of all the things Bob loved or was inspired by. Serendipitously, Campagnolo was putting the finishing touches to its new Super Record 13 groupset and, says Harrison, Campagnolo was Bob’s favourite. “When we were chatting with the marketing executives at Campy they were like, oh, this is perfect. Making something with soul, with passion – they’ve been amazing to work with.” Campagnolo supplied 25 of the first sets of PWM Super Record 13 [the version with the power meter crankset] for Parlee, and the result is stunning.
“Bob was always nuts about wheels, wanted to get us into the wheels business. We never did, but he was always nuts about them anyway,” continues Harrison. “So we collaborated with Partington and they made these R-Series wheelsets especially for us with the gold leaf branding and gloss cover.” Hand-built in Geelong, Australia, the Partington R-Series includes carbon spokes, carbon rims, carbon hubs and, according to Parlee, is one of the most precise ever made.
Also from Australia, the leatherwork – bar tape, saddle and saddle bag – is all custom made out of kangaroo leather especially for Parlee by Busyman, and they’re integrated into the colour scheme. “Bob was really into the touch of things, the tactility,” explains Harrison. “Even with our frames – we started out with raw carbon and just a clear coat, because for him you should be able to feel the carbon. You should look at it and want to go up and touch it. That was his definition of how something should look.”
The frame is nude carbon at the rear, white for the front end – Bob Parlee’s favourite colour if a bike was painted – and features a candy blue that, says Harrison, “really explodes in the lights but is kind of subdued out of the light”. The ends and insides of the fork legs are painted in the colour. And then there’s the gold. “We chose the gold just because we thought it would look cool. When we showed the gold to Isabel, Bob’s wife, she thought we had done that intentionally because Bob used to do gold lettering when he was in the boat business. One of his early jobs was doing the signs on the back of boats in gold leaf. So she loved it and it all worked. Honestly it was an accident, but a happy accident.”
Additionally, says Harrison, “even the hardware, the bolts are all colour matched for us and individually milled out of titanium especially.”
Finally, Harrison points out the letters ‘RTFB’ under the down tube. “That was Bob’s answer to most things in life. How does the bike ride? How do I feel? I’m having a bad day, what should I do? Ride The Fucking Bike.”
Harrison concludes: “The bike was about celebrating Bob and the partners he had worked with, and he used to say his favourite thing about the bike business was all these amazing people who were so good to work with all over the world. So this is about the best of the best, it doesn’t matter about the cost or how many we sell, it’s just to make something really special and we’re very proud.”
The Parlee Z-Zero GT in its ‘standard’ version is, in the brand’s words, lighter, faster and better than anything it has ever made before and uses the first ever fork that Parlee designed and manufactured in-house at its factory in Beverly, MA.
“One of the technical challenges was that we wanted to keep the very narrow head tube,” says Harrison. “It’s a signature part of the bike and our design message [the Z-Zero has been Parlee's flagship model for around 12 years]. To do that in a closed architecture – integrated cockpit, internal routing – on the front end is hard. So we ended up designing a D-shaped fork steerer to make sure we dialled in the same quality and we’re making it in the same factory where we make the frame. We always designed our own forks, but previously we had them manufactured outside. This fork alone has 182 pieces of carbon-fibre in it. We’ve always been about complex layouts to dial in every minute amount of detail so that it rides like a Parlee. That was a huge part of this new bike.”
The Z-Zero GT also features UDH for future proofing – “many of customers will ride these bikes for many years” – and 40mm tyre clearance. It also uses a T47 threaded bottom bracket.
“Overall the frame is 182 grams lighter than the previous generation. It’s just sub-900,” says Harrison. “Obviously that differs depending on the geometry and size, as it’s a custom bike, but that’s based on a 54cm.”
He continues: “So we took weight out, shifted the bottom bracket to T47 – wanted to keep the aesthetic of the Z-Zero, which has been the name for the flagship model for around 12 years, but support the future. It has the same ride characteristics. We almost abandoned the project because we couldn't find the right cockpit for such a narrow head tube but to get all these pieces to work properly and to look right, we sweated the details.”
What makes Parlee’s carbon manufacturing and construction different or superior to that of other custom carbon bike brands? I asked Tom Rodi, Parlee’s head of product design. “The expression ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ is apt – Bob and I spent a lot of time talking about what came before. Richard Sachs is a guy Bob and I both knew, he was a guy who, on the steel side, was fanatical about using his own ingredients and that was something that Bob liked. Historically, frame building had been taking what Columbus or Reynolds made, putting it together. But with carbon Bob was literally making the tubes one at a time for each bike. That’s the ultimate in handmade.
“The tubes for the Z-Zero GT are still made one at a time,” he says. “What we’re doing is manufacturing a tube, mitring the tube to the size and angle required and then hand wrapping the joints and then curing each of the joints in place. There are probably 40 pieces of carbon wrapped around the joint. We’re using the resin that’s native in the prepreg to cure the joints. We do the same throughout the bike. There’s no filler.” According to Rodi, “there’s probably a dozen Italian companies that do tube-to-tube construction but we’re the only ones doing it with this joining process that’s called trapped rubber tooling. It’s a silicone mould that sits inside an aluminium mould. When you’re only joining with carbon it’s so much stronger than what’s typically used in other tube-to-tube, which is a less dense material. This is stronger, lighter, more elegant and cleaner.” The method originates from some very specialised contacts of Bob Parlee, says Rodi. “Bob knew some guys who had done some stuff with NASA – this actually was rocket science – and they were making long arms for satellites. It’s prohibitively expensive and that’s why no one else does it in the bike industry. If we were starting today, we probably wouldn’t do it. It’s a great way of making a joint but there’s more tooling cost and more consumable cost."
Rodi explains that making the frame itself to Parlee’s high standards is not easy. “Rommel Mariano is our master framebuilder, the second Parlee employee after Bob, and has been doing it for 24 years. That skill at getting it perfect every time is hard. For example, the seamline down the front of the head tube where the layers of carbon meet. He will make sure they join at a perfect 45-degree angle. We’d need to teach a new guy for years and years to do that.”
And the price – $29,990 for the Z-Zero GT 25th anniversary limited edition is obviously very high. The standard Z-Zero GT starts at $12,490 for the frame and complete bikes start at $16,490 for Force or Ultegra-level builds, rising to $22,990 for a range-topping build with Campagnolo Super Record 13. John Harrison says: “People don’t need a bike in this price category. But it’s not about need, it’s about emotional connection to something that you’re passionate about. You buy this because you love cycling, you love what it means to your life. To be able to get on a bike like this feels instantly special. There’s no other one like this. Every one we’ve made over the years is unique. That experience of uniqueness and being able to connect with something that’s just for you, that’s what this is about. We’re milling the screws out of individual blocks of titanium even though it would cost a fraction to just buy them. But that matters. Some day, five years from now, you’re going to undo that bottle cage and you’ll know. It’ll feel different. And that matters to us.”
Parlee Z-Zero GT 25th anniversary edition spec
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Frame and fork: Parlee Z-Zero GT
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Drivetrain: Campagnolo Super Record Wireless 13
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Powermeter: SRM
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Wheels: Partington R-Series
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Tyres: Pirelli P-Zero Race TLR
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Bearings: CeramicSpeed headset and bottom bracket
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Bar/stem: Black Inc
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Handlebar Tape: Busyman genuine kangaroo leather
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Seatpost: Parlee Cycles
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Hardware and fasteners: Better Bolts / Parlee Cycles / Deda Elementi
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Saddle: Selle Italia SLR w/ custom Busyman kangaroo leather cover
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Saddlebag: Custom Busyman design from genuine kangaroo leather
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Custom paint: Parlee Paint Lab w/ gold leaf inlays
For all the details go to Parlee’s website.
