The Soma Gullwing Bar: The Answer to One of the Most Asked Questions on Bike Forums

There are inventions from the 20th century that - when you first look at them - you aren't sure whether they are super cool or a little wacky. The "gullwing" feature on 1950's era Mercedes 300SL is one of those inventions. Of course some of these 300SL's go for over a million dollars to collectors and then there is the Delorean and the new Tesla, so maybe cool has won out.

The Soma Gullwing Bar is definitely going to get second glances like those vintage Mercedes, because of its unusual look and questionable purpose. It is essentially a flat bar designed to allow you to run drop bar STI levers. 

Bike forums are full of threads asking how to run road "brifters" on flat, riser, moustache and pursuit bars and full of threads where valiant cyclists have tried, but the results were usually between "less than ideal" and "more than a little entertaining". So we kind of knew what we were getting into releasing this in the States.
This bar was actually designed by our Japanese distributor and they asked us whether we would like to sell it here. (They also designed our 1st gen Condor Bar)

It does address the bar diameter needed to install a brifter and adds a bend so the lever doesn't bottom out against the bar. And it looks kind of sleek if you forget that the levers are oriented not the usual way, especially on current STI's.

The bar has a 30mm rise and comfortable 25ª back sweep. Harder to see in photos is the 7° drop at the grips which suits a semi-aggressive ride position and puts your wrists in a better angle to operate the levers. 

The brake lever hoods can be used as a secondary place to rest your hands and to get more aero. Hood position feels similar to a 38cm road bar, which is fine, since this is not meant to be the primary hand position. It's more of a position to get a little aero.

Grip section is 22.2mm OD, so you can either run MTB grips or bar tape.

Straight section near the clamp is 110mm wide, which gives some room for accessories or possibly aero bars.

Lastly how comfortable it is depends on how high your stem is already and how close the bars are. The levers would normally be mounted at a flat angle, so for your fingers to activate the shift paddles it is best if your forearms are at nearly parallel angle to the levers (zero to 20 degrees). Any higher an angle and some of you may experience tension in arms or fingers over time. Get the set-up right and you should get more braking leverage than you get from braking from the hoods on your drop bar.

If you are moving away from your drops primarily to sit more upright, you may still want to add a stem with rise. (The Gullwing has a 30mm rise, but that isn't a ton) 

BUT if your goal is to add steering control and stability to your gravel bike that you sometimes ride singletrack with, the Gull Wing could be the perfect choice, if you don't want to buy new flat bar shifters.

Designed in Japan by Tokyo San Esu.

• Width: 620mm
• Center: 31.8mm OD
• Material: 6061-T6 Aluminum
• Rise: 30mm (with 7° down slope at grips)
• Backsweep: 25°
• Grip OD: 22.2mm
• Lever mounting area OD: 23.8mm
• Weight: 290g

*** Not feasible to use with Campagnolo Ergo levers, L-Twoo, or other models where one of the shifters is on the inboard side of the lever.

New Alt Bars: Soma Clarence II and Hwy 17

 

With long-distance gravel events and bikepacking continuing to gain popularity, Soma has decided to add functionality and comfort to two of their most popular handlebars, the Highway One and the Clarence.

These bars will be sold with custom-designed extensions under the names Highway 17 and Clarence II.

The extensions can be angled up/down just like other bar ends or extensions, BUT also allows the customer freely rotate the horns to fine-tune their set up to suit individual needs. Soma will look into adding horns of different shapes to the lineup after gathering customer feedback.  

 

 

Clarence II and Cletus Combo Bar:

The Clarence is has a 34° backsweep for a natural feeling grip angle, but its forward bend  keeps the bar from shrinking the cockpit, if you are coming from a common riser bars. However those bends also makes it hard to mount lights and GPS units.
The Cletus extensions, designed especially for the Clarence, allows space for accessories or to use the area as a hand rest. Additionally if you flip the extensions left to right and rotate the horns, you can use them as forward facing grips when the cyclist wants to reduce wind resistance or stretch their back on those long rides. The Cletus extensions have oversized clamps to make them easier to negotiate around the curves during installation. And you slip two-piece shims under the clamps when you ready to lock them in.

Specs: 6061 T-6 aluminum, 31.8mm center, 670mm wide, Weight with extensions: 600g

Price: $119.99 (reflects supply chain issues)

 

Hwy 17 with Road Extensions:
The Hwy One bar is our compact bend road bar with 130mm drop and 75mm reach. It has a single groove for cables. The Hwy 17’s extensions (like the Cletus) have oversized clamps to make it easier to negotiate around the curves during installation. And you slip two-piece shims under the clamps when you ready to lock them in. Depending on what hand position the cyclist prefers they can rotate the horns to form a loop or have them point almost straight out – whatever position is more aero or produces less muscle tension and still lets you feel in control of the bicycle.

 

Specs: 6061 T-6 aluminum, 31.8mm center, 38 to 46cm wide, Weight with extensions: 610g

Price: $149.99 (reflects supply chain issues)

Sorry. The extensions are not being sold as a separate component.

We will consider that possibility later. 

The Smoothie HP: New "High Protein" Endurance Road Frame

Our Smoothie road performance frame model is as old as the Soma brand itself. It started out with a classic looking level top tube design and a curved unicrown fork. The tubes were a combination of Reynolds 631 and 4130 butted chromoly . It was an affordably-priced, solid road frame aimed at commuters as much as at seasoned road cyclists.

First generation Smoothie. 2001

Later iterations included a semi-compact geometry, lugged steel and carbon fork options and of course upgrading to a lighter Tange Prestige heat-treated chromoly. But the intent of the frame has never changed. Its designers never sought to make it the "most agile"or "most innovative" or promised podium finishes at your local crit. The Smoothie was just meant to be a competent and versatile road bike with smooth-riding steel tubeset. 

Reaching Higher

Initially we were just going to put disc mounts on the Smoothie and call it a day, but the project soon came to focus is on utilizing some of Tange's more premium Prestige Japan tubes and adding more modern road bike touches. It morphed into a High Performance version of the original Smoothie (i.e. a "High Protein" Smoothie). 

The Smoothie HP uses the thinnest walled tubes of any frame in our line up, but in oversized 34.9mm and 38.1mm diameters (depending on the frame size). Those tubes and the oversized tapered chainstays (32x18mm oval) promise to increase pedaling stiffness and responsiveness. Lastly an ovalized top tube was specced to add back in vertical compliance that might be lost with the use of the fatter down tubes, but since the tube becomes wider horizontally when ovalized, it also adds a bit of torsional stiffness.

Though optimized for 700c x 26-28mm wide tires,
both fork and frame will accept some 35mm tires.
Yes, that is a hole in the crown for mounting a rim brake.
Why? Because there are always a couple of you out of a hundred
who will ask whether your brand new disc brake frame will fit rim brakes.
Never fails. Frame and fork should fit 57mm reach road calipers. 

Photos are of a prototype. Production frames will not have so many bosses on the seatstay.

Horizontally ovalized top tube helps with lateral stiffness
and vertical compliance, but the HP is meant to have a snappier, stiffer feel
than the rim-brake Smoothie.

Geometry:

We wanted the high stack of an endurance road frame, but with a shorter wheelbase than our Fog Cutter and most current endurance road frames. Except for sloping top tube, we wanted a "tried and true" road geometry, so seasoned riders don't have to adapt to something novel. We avoided slackening the headtube and raking out the fork to restore "racing bike" trail numbers, which some performance brands have been doing. This we hope results in confident handling on fast descents and a responsiveness that many cyclists will enjoy.

Modern Yet Old School:
Modern touches include flat mount disc compatibility, thru-axles, ED rust-proofing coating, and a 44mm headtube. 

Traditional and utilitarian touches include a BSA threaded BB shell, fender eyelets, external cable routing for less hassle during maintenance time, and down tube shifter bosses. These are not necessarily the features that win you style points on club rides, but nods to practicality and backwards compatibility have always been part of Soma's DNA.

Who Do We Think This Frame Is For?

• Cyclists who want the responsiveness of a classic road race bike, but with the stack of an endurance road bike.

• Stronger riders and former racers who like to mash hard and who might find bikes like the old Smoothie not stiff enough for their style of riding

• Cyclists that might find lightweight carbon bikes sometimes sketchy-feeling on fast descents. The HP may feel a little more planted while still communicating desirable road feel.
• Fans of steel road bikes

Since we are talking about a frame and not a complete bike, we don't want say too much about what kind of bike the Smoothie HP is.  Your choice of bar, stem and spacers determines how relaxed or racey the ride position will be. Your wheel choice will determine whether it is quick out of the gates or something that keeps its momentum on those long steady rides. As with any Soma it will be as unique as its owner.

Our Randonneur Frame Set Gets More Grand

 

It took years of requests from our customers, but the Grand Randonneur frameset finally gets the disc brake treatment. We went with the IS disc mounts front and rear, because at the time we did not have a good looking flat mount solution for the curvaceous 65mm rake fork. But don't fret, there are still a few good road brake disc options in IS/Post Mount and since we went with a new modular rear dropout system made by Tange/Long Shen, it can be upgraded to Flat Mount and potentially future standards.

We have tried to keep the all the things GR riders liked about it.

• Front load bias geometry for better handling when using a front rack, bar bag, or basket.
• Traditional 1" threaded fork with investment cast crown
• Three sets of bottle bosses
• Front mini rack and pannier rack compatible
• Slender and lightweight CrMo tubes. We lightened the seatstays, but are using a larger diameter, but thinner gauge tube for the downtube for more bottom bracket stiffness.

Other updates:
• Thru-axle hub compatibility for improved handling and stability in corners
• Improved tire clearance. While optimized for 650b x 42mm tires with fenders, the frame easily fits most 650b x 47mm tires
• An additional size: 46cm

This all adds up -- we hope -- to a more premium, more modern package worthy of the Grand Randonneur name.​

Soma Double Cross: A Significant Update for 2021

 

When we launched Soma with just four frames back in 2001, the Double Cross was always meant to be our most versatile frame, the one that flew that "jack of all trades" flag: Commuter, long distance road, light touring, trail riding and CX racing. It fit tires up to 700 x 38mm with fenders at a time there were hardly any performance tires in that size. You could build it with drop bars or flat bars with no one giving you grief.  

It was based off the cyclo-cross bike, because that was the category of bike that could adapt to all of the above the easiest, but in the last few years, we have seen the gravel bike really shine as a "do-it-all" platform.
They have a slightly lower bottom bracket height, so that improves their on-road handling loaded or unloaded over a CX bike. Their slacker head angles reduce toe overlap with beefier tires. And while early gravel designs started out twitchier handling than CX bikes, many of them now have longer wheel bases and slacker head angles, so they are easier to manage in deep gravel.

The new Double Cross is unabashedly "gravel" and we tried to put it squarely between "racing gravel" bikes and "backcountry bikepacking" gravel bikes. We didn't want to alienate those who love the Double Cross for its agile, unloaded handling on smooth trails and pavement. 

What did we change:

1) Head angle is half a degree to one degree slacker, which puts the trail number at about the same as mid-90's XC bike. Chainstay length remains the same to keep things agile.

2) Bottom bracket drop is 4mm lower on most sizes. ( The largest sizes keep the 66mm drop in case long-legged cyclists want to run 180-185mm crank arms.)

3) New color matched fork: We wanted to add 3-pack mounts and a simple unicrown fork design clashed less those mounts than the previous lugged crown, curved blade design. We specced a smaller diameter Infinity tube than our aftermarket straight blade CX fork. It is stiffer and lighter than the lugged crown fork. It will fit a pannier rack too, just not with cargo cages mounted.
As before, the fork is optional. 

Other options: If you are OK with a black or chrome fork, you can opt for our Lugged Crown CX fork, our low trail Champs Elysees fork, or our All-Road Carbon Fork.

4) Added a third water bottle boss to the downtube. This used to be as unfashionable as having a kickstand, but thankfully no longer. 

5) Slightly more stack on some sizes.

6) We debated whether to jump to thru-axles, 44mm headtube and flat mount brakes. We even asked for your opinions on social media. We decided to run with the tried and true standards (QR hubs, IS disc) for at least one more generation. This allows for customers to use parts in their garage and just allows for a lighter, more nimble bike.

7) We ovalized the top tube so it is wider than tall. It is better for shouldering the bike in cyclo-cross, but we mainly did it to eek out some torsion stiffness in the front triangle.

8) It has more peripheral clearance for 650b x 47mm tires. Will fit up to 700c x 45mm tires with 1x drivetrain. 

9) MATTE PURPLE: After 8 straight years of black and shades of gray and silver,  we wanted to have something fun this year. 

Available October 4, 2020.

New Colorway for the Rush and Juice

At Soma we don't change colors every year. We like to pick colors we think you'll and then keep them for a while. If we forced ourselved to change colors every years, we may end up picking some you don't like as much or something too trendy.

For 2017 we do have quite a few color updates.
The Rush, our track frame, is now available in Gloss Graphite. We love this color because it has a pearly richness to it when you look up close, but from afar the color isn't a bike thief magnet as some louder colors might be.

The Juice, our 29er SS/Geared frame, gets a charming baby blue. Some may say isn't kind of pastel or girly. We totally disagree. It reminds us a faded blue pick up truck or VW van parked outside some taco stand somewhere in Baja, Mexico. That's why we call it Baja Blue. And we have seen plenty of manly custom hardtails and road bikes that have used a similar baby blue.
The Juice has also been updated to fit wider tires --- 27.5" x 2.8" to be exact.
More traction. More confidence. More fun.

Other color updates: The Double Cross Disc will come in Sky Silver, a metallic silver with slight bluish tint. The B-Side will come in Fiery Red.

What's a Pescadero Anyway?

The Low Down on the new Pescadero frame set:

• Road sport/Endurance road geometry
• Fits tires up to 700c x 42mm
• Designed for Paul Racer centerpull brakes and 73mm dual pivot caliper brakes
• Coming in late March 2017

A pescadero is a fishmonger if you didn't get that far in your high school Spanish class. It's also the name of a charming town down the coast a bit between SF and Santa Cruz. The town began as a rancho like so many of the historic communities in California did, but nowadays it's one of a number of eclectic little villages along the scenic Highway 1. Since the Fog Cutter was inspired by a trip to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, we wanted our newest all-road bike to go with the theme of NorCal beach destinations.

TIG-welded using Tange Prestige heat-treated double-butted chromoly steel

So what's the deal with this bike anyway? As you may know our ES road sport frame was originally called the Smoothie "Extra Smooth", because it fit wider, more comfortable tires than our Smoothie road race bike. Believe it or not, it was the first Soma I ever bought back when I was first greasing chains and patching tubes at the local bike shop. And it's a great bike. It's been largely unchanged since we launched it aside from a new coat of paint every few years, but I would guess there are probably hundreds of ES that still get ridden every day.

Well we got to thinking, wouldn't it be sweet if the ES could fit the new 42c Supple Vitesse road tires that we make. Unfortunately 57mm road brakes max out at about 33mm wide tires. That was huge only a few years ago, but things change and sometimes you just need more in your life. As it turns out, the brakes were the only thing holding us back so we went ahead and made a frame set that fits 67mm reach brakes and voila! Without changing the geometry or the handling we were able to reinvent this classic Soma.

Designed for Paul Racer centerpull brakes in mind! Fits up to 700 x 42mm tires or 38mm with fenders

And I have to say, it rides great with these tires. If you've never ridden the Grand Randonneur 650b x 42mm tires then you might think a 42 would feel like a beast, but you'd be dead wrong. They're super fast and plenty light (perhaps the lightest tires available in this size).

If you can't afford the splendid Paul Racer brakes, these Rivendell/Tektro 73mm reach caliper brakes work well, too.
We positioned the brake bridge in a way to keep the pads high in the slot to minimize arm flex.

Some people feel that long reach caliper brakes just aren't quite responsive enough. I can't say I agree with that, since I've been riding them for years, but to those people I'd say you have two options to consider.

Option 1 is just go for the disc brake friendly Fog Cutter and embrace the future, man. But if you're the wool wearing, pipe smoking, Robert Burns reading type of cyclist consider...

Option 2. Centerpull brakes! Remember those? Mafac, Weinmann, Dia Compe? Even Shimano used to make them. Anyway, Paul Components up in old Chico, CA makes some and they are just bitchin. Great stopping power, tons of fender clearance, stiff as a metaphor and boy-oh-boy do they look nice. We even included a special cable hanger in the back so you don't have to use one of those dangly ones.

But wait, there's more! We got those rack eyelets, baby! It'll take a front and rear Champs Elysees rack, a Porteur Deluxe up front, a Nitto Mark's rack or one of these new Gamoh jobbies that's in the pictures. Now remember I said it's exactly like the ES, so it isn't low trail. We might do a different fork some day but for now this is it. That said, it rides great. If you want low trail you probably already know all about that stuff, so I won't bother getting into it here.



What else? Uh, Breezer-style hooded dropouts. Groovy fork blades. This sweet blue paint job. What more do you want? These will be coming in March I think. Hopefully. Anyway, if you want one your LBS can pre-order one through Merry Sales and you can just kick back and listen to some Electro Swing or whatever the kids are into these days. Cheers y'all!

Coming Soon! The Fog Cutter

You may have a seen a social media photo of a new model we've been testing  earlier this year. We weren't too forthcoming with details, but we are ready now.

We call this new project the Fog Cutter.
The idea behind the name (besides that we get a lot of fog where we are) is how after getting up at the crack of dawn to do some miles your mind feels like it's in this fog, this thick fog made of eye gunk, but then you start to turn those pedals and your face gets that first blast of cold air, and you pedal some more, get into your rhythm, and you feel the stiffness in your knees melt away and as your bike and your body is cutting through that dewy morning air you feel that fog leave your body, too and you begin feel pretty good again... Yeah that's kind of what we had in mind.

New bike smell mixed with sea breeze.

Pre-production sample shown. Actual fork will sport matching paint and straight carbon blades. The sample build is sporting New Xpress 700x35c. Production design will fit slightly larger tires.

The frame roughly follows the geometry of our ES road sport / endurance frame, but it is designed with disc brakes. We could've just left it at that, because that's basically what some customers have been asking for. Since we were leaving the confines of the mid-reach caliper brake, we decided to increase tire clearance where we can. We ended up adopting the fork length and chainstay design of our Double Cross frame, but have kept the angles and lower bottom bracket of a true road frame. Because it is design around a CX disc fork, it opens up a few more options for aftermarket forks than the ES ever had. Our optional matching fork will be carbon; lighter than steel, but our spec is definitely beefy enough to commute on daily.

We think the Fog Cutter is near perfect for bike for fondos and credit card touring. It's also killer for all weather commuting, because it fits disc brakes and tires up to 38c with fenders, and is welded with Tange Prestige heat-treated Chromoly tubes to soak up asphalt chatter day after day.  As with almost all our frames there are mounts for a rear rack and fenders. MSRP: $479.99 (frame) $219.99(carbon fork with alloy steerer) Available in about 4 months.

The seat tube decal is insprired by the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.
Stay at the hostel if you are ever in the neighborhood.

2016 Grand Randonneur

The Soma 650b, low trail, randonneuring frame gets a fresh paint job for 2016. Our friend Dean Santos, who always wanted to get one, volunteered to build up the sample frame for our photos.

Frame	Soma Grand Randonneur 55, White
Fork	Soma Grand Randonneur low-trail fork
Headset	IRD Roller Drive Sample
Stem	Soma Sutro Quill Stem
Handlebars	Nitto Grand Randonneur 45cm (Used)
Bar Tape	Cardiff Brown Leather
Brake Levers	Dia Compe Grand Compe 202 Non-Aero
Shifters	Dura Ace 7700 9 speed
Brakes	IRD Cafam II
Front Derailleur	Dura Ace 7700 9 speed
Rear Derailleur	Dura Ace 7700 9 speed
Pedals	Test Pedals
Cranks	IRD Defiant Wide-Compact 170mm
Chainrings	46-30t 94BCD
Cassette	Shimano HG95 11-25
Chain	KMC 9 Speed
Seat Post	Soma Wazikashi
Saddle	Brooks Team Professional Brown
Wheelset	Suzue Sealed Bearing Hub on Araya TX510
Tires	Panaracer Col d'Lavie 650bx38

The Story Behind the Build

By Dean Santos – I’ve wanted to build a Grand Randonneur, ever since I heard the project discussed when I used to work at Merry Sales. I don’t know if it’s the lure of the 650b tires or the low-trail geometry, or even the mystique of riding thin tubes and experiencing planing. There’s just something about this bike that made me want one… really bad. 

The Pondering

While in college, I rode a commuter bike I got from a trade. I had it built up the way Grant Petersen would have: Fat Wald basket up front, leather saddle, a Cardiff saddle bag, fenders, wide 32mm tires, and a Nitto Albatross bar for a nice upright riding position. It was my go to bike for commuting, urban exploration, Bike Party, and general tomfoolery. I often packed the front basket to the brim. On longer rides, I start feeling the fatigue of trying to keep the front end straight under load. I find that after a certain point, the effort needed to keep the front in control goes up as you load more weight. This made me dig more into Jan Heine’s findings on low-trail geometry and its benefits regarding front load handling.

 

The Opportunity

One fateful day, I dropped by the Soma headquarters to pick up some parts and saw the sample white Grand Randonneur laying on the floor. The glossy white with red panels elicited the same kind of excitement reserved for bacon-wrapped hot dogs after a bar crawl in the Mission. It was my size and the stars aligned. I wanted to build it.


The Build

I immediately began thinking about the parts I had in my parts bin. I wanted to go full retro with non-aero brake levers, etc. In my bin, I had a Nitto Grand Randonneur bar that I used on a Schwinn touring bike I rebuilt, a Soma Champ Elysees rack, leather bar tape, and even a randonneur bag from Zugster. And of course I had to use the Dura Ace 7700 parts I had found in the trash behind a bike shop. The build sheet took longer to finalize than I care to admit.  
One of parts I wanted to try out was the IRD Defiant crank with a unique 46-30t gearing, but that choice became a headache when matching it up with the Dura-Ace short cage rear derailleur. The maximum chain wrap capacity of the Dura Ace derailleur is 29T. With a 46/30 crankset, the biggest cog I can use to make the derailleur work was a 11-25t cassette. Even with a 30t chain wrap, I have to be mindful not to use the 30t/11t combination. The decision to keep the Dura Ace derailleur was based purely on its bling bling factor. 

The whole build took about eight hours to complete. I did not cut any corners and I meticulously adjusted and set every aspect of this build.

I’ve been riding this bike as a commuter for the past two months and I’m really happy with the way it rides. On my 10 mile one-way commute, I like how mild-mannered the geometry handles. It’s not as snappy as my other carbon bikes, but the ride quality of the Grand Randonneur is on another level in comparison. It reminded me of why I love steel and why there’s a place for it in my stable. I get more compliments on this bike than my Santa Cruz Stigmata CC.

 Thank you to Passion Trail Bikes (Belmont's premier mountain bike shop)  for letting me borrow a stand and helping me cut and rethread the fork steerer a little shorter.

Cranks, saddle, rack, and front fender installed.
The rear fender is not done yet. This is about four hours worth of assembly.
I like to take my time for proper builds and not cut any corners.

The leather tape I had lying about looked a little dried out.
I revitalized it with some Sno-Seal and finished it off with
a mixture of paraffin wax and beeswax (heated) to waterproof
the leather tape. The wax also gave the tape a darker
color which matched closer to my Brooks saddle.

Chainring spacers were used to space out the fender
The fenders look ugly with having a gap between the wheel
and the fender. I had to drill holes on the fenders to install
it like this.

Water proofing the bar tape.