Muhammad Aldjaidi's Kuota Kharma Race

Some people have seen too many old and retro bicycles at our shop they thought we only build and repair bicycles more than ten years old. On the contrary: even with years of technological advance bicycles retain their simplicity, so the method of building new bicycles is not a million years away from restoring the old ones. Recently Muhammad “Mamad” Aldjaidi trusted us to build him a brand spanking new, lightweight, wind cheating carbon fiber race bike.

Another household name on Jakarta’s fixed gear scene, Mamad is an accomplished amateur racer with a couple of fixed gear tournament wins under his belt. He wanted to step up his game, he wanted  a lightweight race-ready roadbike.

The Kharma is Kuota’s best selling carbon road bike, and with good reason. The 50cm monocoque frame is constructed from 12K carbon fiber with matching fork. The wind-cheating frame profiling added to Kharma’s versatility, making this frame a do-it-all bike that covers sportive riding, road racing and triathlon. SRAM’s second from the top end Force componentry compliments the frame with carbon fiber crank arms, rear derailer cage, and brifters.

 

Internally routed brake cable and aero profiled seatpost.

Burly bottom bracket section. No press-fit bearing or BB30 in sight, just plain English thread BB shell.

 

Pink SRAM hood option as a nod to Rapha cycling team.

 To embrace the future of roadbike technology a set of Fulcrum Racing 3 wheels are fitted. The Two-to One Spoke Ratio maintains the even balance of spoke tensions between drive and non-drive sides of the wheels. The 2-Way Fit technology let the rims to be fitted with both traditional clincher or tubeless tires, in this case we fit them with Panaracer Race Type A with conventional inner tubes.

Even with carbon Fi’zi:k Antares saddle, aluminium Pro Vibe 7s dropbar, and Ritchey 4-Axis stem the full build weighs 7,39kg without pedals. The bike looked fast standing still, and even faster when Mamad hammers the cranks down.