Tavelo Arden

[StorTre]

Seen at the Sea Otter Classic seems Tavelo is working on a lightweight aero road frame with 40mm tire clearance and UDH. Possibly named the Arden? Skyasports instagram story seems to suggest that is the name but isn’t specifically mentioned elsewhere yet.

Covered in this article: https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-gear/tavelo-sea-otter-unnamed-race-bike/

Expected to be under 2500 with handlebar
Higher stack compared to the Tavelo Arow
Medium frame claimed weight of 650g and 340g for the fork
BSA bottom bracket according to gcperformance video

Edit: Most recent information seems to point towards 34mm listed tire clearance. Added photo of geometry chart.

[patliean1]

Had dinner with Mr Tavelo himself last night. He's a very calm and calculated gentlemen. I like that he's been very been careful about not simply releasing a bunch of new frames that will confuse consumers and subsequently cannibalize sales. The Tavelo Arow is my favorite road bike so far from the Chinese brands.

Here in Chicagoland there really isnt any gravel within a 2-3 hour drive that requires gravel tires larger than 40c. So the Tavelo Arden could really be a one-bike solution while competing with Canyon's latest "Endurance".

I know pricing will be tough to swallow. My main takeaway from Sea Otter is how important marketing and brand cache is for Western buyers.

[Serge_K]

The new Conti GP5000 S TR (NOT the ghetto-ized all seasons) seems to be out, shipping, and in stock here https://r2-bike.com/CONTINENTAL-Tire-Grand-Prix-5000-S-TR-Tubeless-28-700-x-35C-BlackChili-VectranBreaker.
Havent seen a rolling resistance test yet, but i suspect that it's as fast as the 32, that was as fast as the 28, give or take.
With a wide ass rim, the existence of this tyre just reset the gold standard for fast road bikes for most people, as far as i'm concerned. If you're 80kg, you've got no business being on 28C when you could be on wider tyres. I have 32 measuring 34mm at the back, i'm never going narrower again, and i'd love to test this 35 to see how it feels. The less is worry (punctures) and feel (vibration / comfort) potholes and bad asphalt, the better. Especially in the mountains, especially in spring / autumn when alpine / forest roads can be greasy, dirty, mossy, wet, gravely, and so on. I dont like that they don't have a tube version though, but i also dont think China is selling 35C TPU tubes, so maybe it's got to be tubeless.
And so, that frame looks very interesting.

[kubackje]

Anything above 1500$ for a Chinese frame doesn't make much sense for me. Those frames have basically zero resale value and no local support. I wonder how increasing prices to absurd levels went for winspace. I'm talking about slc5 here, nice frameset, but not at this price point. Didn't see anyone riding it except YouTubers who got it for free.

[bigApple]

Most people don't care about resale value because they don't sell their bikes or frames anymore; instead, they ride them until they end up cut into pieces in the trash or sit in the basement or garage for years. That said, I would never buy a frame from Winspace for the price of an SLC5. However, I would also never buy an S-Works or something similar from a Western company at those prices. And i would absolutely never buy a used frame, no matter how expensive it was once.

[BikerJens]

Most people don't care about resale value because they don't sell their bikes or frames anymore; instead, they ride them until they end up cut into pieces in the trash or sit in the basement or garage for years. That said, I would never buy a frame from Winspace for the price of an SLC5. However, I would also never buy an S-Works or something similar from a Western company at those prices. And i would absolutely never buy a used frame, no matter how expensive it was once.

I would like to see your scientific research behind that statement.. 

[Uberflo]

So I was very successfull reselling my one year old Tideace framesets

[Requiem84]

Anything above 1500$ for a Chinese frame doesn't make much sense for me. Those frames have basically zero resale value and no local support. I wonder how increasing prices to absurd levels went for winspace. I'm talking about slc5 here, nice frameset, but not at this price point. Didn't see anyone riding it except YouTubers who got it for free.

No local support? There is if you are in Belgium or close to Belgium. Not sure about other countries.

But local support for Chinese brands is really increasing.

https://www.tavelobike.be/

[bigApple]

I would like to see your scientific research behind that statement..

Well, at least there’s a very long thread on rennrad-news about why the secondhand market for road bikes isn’t working. Maybe it’s just a German problem. Maybe there’s nothing to it.
In the end, it comes down to how cheaply you’re willing to sell. You can sell anything for a few bucks, but in my opinion, it’s not worth it.

[Requiem84]

I once bought a high end custom spoked wheelset for 2100€. All ‘western’ parts in the wheel. Couldn’t sell it, until I dropped the price to 450€.

Learned my lesson back then.. resale value is never guaranteed. Not for western stuff either…

[kubackje]

No local support? There is if you are in Belgium or close to Belgium. Not sure about other countries.

But local support for Chinese brands is really increasing.

https://www.tavelobike.be/

You know that Belgium is a small country almost at the end of Europe. I certainly wouldn't call it local support for anyone not living 250km away.

[Serge_K]

You know that Belgium is a small country almost at the end of Europe. I certainly wouldn't call it local support for anyone not living 250km away.

In Bruges:
Ray: "Chocolate. They’re famous for chocolate and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolate to get to the kids. And Tavelo local support."

[Requiem84]

You know that Belgium is a small country almost at the end of Europe. I certainly wouldn't call it local support for anyone not living 250km away.

You said ‘no local support’, which should say ‘depends on where you live, no local support’. Germany by the way also has a Tavelo dealer (www.tavelo-bikes.de), but perhaps Germany is a small country too? ;-).

That wasn’t even the point though, point is that some of these Chinese brands are expanding their local dealer / local support network.

Evolve sells through one of the biggest retailers in the Netherlands now (Mantel), Seka has a dedicated retailer here as well. Ciclistici from BE sells a lot of CN D2C brands.

I don’t have visibility on how this is going in other countries in Europe, but would make sense for many of these brands to slowly expand their network.

[alfiomotrambo]

I agree with you, but I also kinda see kubackje’s point — for many people “local” still means within easy driving distance.

Having a dealer 300–500km away is better than nothing, but it’s not the same as walking into a shop.

That said, the direction is clear: more EU distributors, more physical presence, and probably better resale perception over time.

If brands like Tavelo keep pushing this, it could change the whole “Chinese frames = no support” narrative.

[patliean1]

Pulling up to both my local crit races and national level events while seeing several riders with Tavelo Arows has been awesome to see this season. Folks who paid for them 

Tavelo is continuing the legacy that many feel Winspace once had back in 2020/21. Which makes sense IYKYK.