Bastion Cycles has unveiled the Archetype, a fully custom aero road platform that the Melbourne brand says cuts aerodynamic drag by 18–25 watts at 50 km/h compared to its Icon Superleggera predecessor.
The claims stem from testing at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub in the UK, with Bastion also reporting a 6–8 watt advantage across 0–15° yaw at 35 km/h. Framesets start at about £13,750, and production is limited to 606 units worldwide.
“This is more than a new bike, it is the result of ten years of evolution and refinement,” said Ben Schultz, Bastion co‑CEO, at the launch.
The Archetype is the company’s first new road platform in a decade. I personally tested the brand's first release, the Road Disc, in 2017. The new bike retains Bastion’s hallmark hybrid construction of 3D‑printed titanium lugs and filament‑wound carbon tubes, now reshaped into true NACA aero profiles.
Practical updates include clearance for 34 mm tyres and a UDH‑compatible rear axle. Bastion has even replaced its 3D‑printed head badge with a 0.05 mm stainless‑steel emblem buried under clear coat to keep airflow clean over the head tube.
Wind‑tunnel numbers and frame fabrication
Bastion says the tunnel testing at Silverstone compared complete bikes built with Shimano Dura‑Ace Di2 and Partington R39/44 wheels, with the Archetype measured against the Icon Superleggera. The reported deltas, 6–8 W at 35 km/h and 18–25 W at 50 km/h, target both typical club‑ride speeds (coupled with cafe stop admiration) and higher‑speed efforts.
Beyond the numbers, the fabrication reads like a boutique manufacturing case study. The Bike Tailor details more than 70 hours of handcrafting and over 130 hours of machine time per frame, including 3D printing and CNC post‑processing.
Bastion describes stress‑relieving the titanium in an argon environment and bonding the assemblies with aerospace‑grade epoxy. Co‑founder James Woolcock characterises the aesthetic as “complexity born from simplicity,” a design ethos Bastion calls ‘Ascendant Complexity’ that keeps the lugs proudly on show rather than hiding them in a monocoque mold.
The shift to NACA‑profiled, filament‑wound tubes marks the biggest technical departure from the Icon era, when Bastion’s lugged customs leaned toward light weight and ride feel rather than full‑bore aero. R&D manager Ethan York said the goal was to lift aerodynamic performance without sacrificing stiffness or weight. Bastion has not published complete CdA data, frame‑only stiffness metrics or a definitive frame weight, which keeps direct, apples‑to‑apples cross‑brand comparisons out of reach for now.
Commercially, the Archetype sits in the hyper‑bike tier. The frameset price is quoted at around £13,750 in the UK, with global pricing communicated as AUD 22,000+, USD 15,000+ or EUR 13,000+ depending on market. Lead times are approximately 180 days for a bespoke build, and the run is capped at 606 units. Bastion has opened its online design configurator to all prospective buyers and backs the chassis with a lifetime warranty for the original owner.
