Goes like the wind@@
Back when other brands were playing around with aluminium and lugged steel frames, NEILPRYDE were mastering their carbon layups and composite structures. The formidable Sports Brand has dominated the watersports market for the last 30years and carries numerous awards for design excellence, innovation and manufacturing skills and not to mention the handful of world records. The BURA is a north-eastern downward wind over the Adriatic. The katabatic or drainage wind carries high density air from high elevation down a slope. The air is warmed through the adiabatic process or the transfer of heat which is covered in lessons of thermodynamics.
The BURAsl is NEILPRYDEs' lightweight climbing bike, rightly named after the BURA winds that can reach hurricane speeds. NEILPRYDE developed the BURAsl with input from the United Healthcare Pro Cycling team and experience working with BMW Group DesignworksUSA on the original Diablo. At 710g it's one of the lightest in it's class and is packaged in a sharp, edgy and unique design. At first glance you notice the external ribbing at the head tube and seat tube junction which flows into a oversized box section top tube. Moving into the sub 800g frame weight NEILPRYDE had to use all the tricks in their arsenal to maintain a high stiffness to weight ratio. Benchmark testing to a well respected Canadian brands' flagship model, the BURAsl showed a 30% stiffer headtube, +5% in the bottom bracket and 7%+ stiffer fork. In order to minimise carbon wash and misalignment of fibers NEILPRYDE used a special manufacturing technique that uses a solid Polyurethane mandrel which enabled them to create the very intricate design of the seat and headtube joints.
Continuing the oversized box section trend, the chainstays are simply huge and joins to pencil thin seat stays, we are told the bike can actually be ridden without the seat stays. Another neat feature NEILPRYDE uses to improve ride quality and reduce weight is molding the seat-stay and chain-stays in a single piece, this not only removes the bonding resin that can add harshness to the ride, it creates a more solid, durable and stiffer rear triangle. The bottom bracket uses the PF30 standard and joins to a traditionally round down tube.
Riding the BURAsl you can expect it to smooth out the road chatter and high speed buzz, the pencil thin seat-stays contribute to this and a special layup of carbon on the rear stays help stop the buzz. With the low frame weight you can keep it at the UCI 6.8kg without much effort. Although the weight automatically places this into the climbing bike category, oversized box sections and external ribbing create a very stiff bike under power which make it suitable for a fast charging criterium bike. The handling is sharp in the corners and a low bottom bracket drop of 75mm (sml) yields loads of confidence in fast sweeping descents. Front end stiffness is noticeable when climbing and hard out of the saddle efforts.
The rear brake is routed through the tapered 1-1/8th to 1-1/4" head tube for a straighter path and gear housing are routed on the underside of the downtube. It includes a 27.2mm NEILPRYDE carbon fibre seatpost which is compatible with carbon rails and NEILPRYDE branded headset.
NEILPRYDE offers a 2yr warranty on paint and decals and 5yr warranty on materials.
Low Weight
- A 710gram frame weight!
- Full carbon dropouts front and rear and carbon headset cups
- 1-1/8th" - 1-1/4" headset cups
- Single molded chainstay + rear dropout + seatstays
Stiffness
- External Ribbing at the head tube and seat / top tube junction
- Oversized box chainstays with PF30 bottom bracket
- Squared top tube
Comfort
- Superthin rear seatstays
- Standard 27.2mm seatpost
- Optimised Tube Profiles for comfort over various surfaces