Wiesmann Bikes - since 1992/Freiburg
Florian Wiesmann was once one of the fastest downhill riders in Switzerland. And he invented the V-brake. That's just by the way. Because the man from Freiburg is of course known for his frames, which are both simple and packed with technical refinements. Wiesmann is driven by his demand for absolute perfection. That is why he often spends up to three weeks working on a frame. The waiting list is correspondingly long. www.wiesmann-bikes.de
Bike: Wiesmann Thurot 29
He briefly swallowed dry when our test enquiry reached him. After all, his customers wait around a year for their ordered bike. But then Florian Wiesmann got started. Somehow he lives for solving problems, after all. And there were plenty of them during the development of this Thurot. Problem number one: Wiesmann had never built a 29-inch bike before. All the angles, all the dimensions, all the tube diameters had to be worked out in time-consuming precision work. Wiesmann describes the Thurot 29 in the version shown as the "antipole" to the current trend of overloading bikes with high-maintenance technology. It does without a maintenance-intensive suspension fork and failure-prone disc brakes. Instead, the Thurot 29 has a super-wide rear triangle (145 millimetres), which is intended to eliminate the weak point of all 29-inch rear wheels: the excessively steep right spoke angle. With the help of an adapter solution, the hub body slips into the centre, which makes the spokes almost symmetrical. The stiff rear wheel can never do any harm. The Thurot proves to be a real sprinter from the very first few metres. Weighing in at less than nine kilos, the bike can be pedalled extremely nimbly, which makes it difficult for the rustic Wiesmann V-brakes to cope with sudden changes of direction. The bike is lively and hungry for speed, but has to pay tribute to the anti-pole motto on rough surfaces. The giant tyres buffer some of the impacts. But the more it gets down to business, the more the Thurot transforms into a stubborn, untamed infernal machine. The handlebars twitch in your hand like a steam hammer gone mad. A rough, threatening, interesting feeling. A tango with the trail. And why not? Why do you actually ride through the terrain if you let the suspension level the track?
Test summary: With the Thurot 29, Wiesmann immediately puts a fine 29-inch bike on its tyres. Rigid but only recommended to a limited extent.
Price: 9600 Euro /Frame 4000 Euro
Weight: 8.7 kilos */frame 1449 grams
Material: Titanium
Delivery time: 1 year
Geometry: as desired
Equipment: Tune, Shimano XTR
* Complete weight without pedals
