DT SWISS Craft Bike Days 2023 - the veloheld.farway Pinion

Let’s start with the frame: Like the veloheld.icon, this is welded in Leipzig. In fact, you will find our veloheld frame building workshop with Sören and Lukas in Markkleeberg – a town directly adjacent to Leipzig. Here, the two of them now precisely process and assemble the 4130 CrMoly tubes by hand to create the final frame in 4 sizes.

We already had a Pinion bike in our program once and were able to learn a lot about the forces of the Pinion gearbox. With this experience and the area of use in mind, this frame has become a lot more stable. Double-butted tubes with adapted wall thicknesses and diameters, 44 mm head tube, which accommodates the tapered fork, a separate tensioning system for the Gates belt directly on the gearbox to avoid failure-prone slider dropouts – all this ensures a rigid frame for the high-torque gearbox.

For the traveling heroes and heroines, there are also plenty of eyelets on the frame and fork for all kinds of bottles, bags, mudguards and pannier racks.

In the fork, the light cable can be routed internally to the headlight and the fork’s installation height of 420 mm also makes the frame ready for most available gravel suspension forks. Not that you need this, but we wanted to mention it once.

And not to forget: The color or powder coating of the frame and fork is called “Dragons Blood” – a deep red metallic glaze that really surprises in direct sunlight.

The heart of the equipment is of course the Pinion gearbox, which we will be offering in the C1.12 version. In our opinion, this option offers the best price-performance ratio. If you don’t need so many gears and can cope with larger gear steps, a different gearbox from the C-line can of course also be fitted on request. Transmissions from the P-Line can only be installed with the flatbar version of the wheel, which has to do with the compatibility of the gearbox for use with the dropbar handlebar.

But how is this controlled with SRAM levers? We use the new Hibox for this. This small box directly on the gearbox enables shifting with SRAM or Shimano levers. We opted for the simpler levers from SRAM. After a small modification for compatibility, the levers can be shifted up on the left and down on the right (heavier gear).

We will provide you with feedback on the switching quality at a later date. We haven’t had the time yet.

Let’s take a look further: The wheels come in the basic version from DT Swiss, i.e. the rims are the DT G 540 disc with a decent 24 mm rim width and the hubs are also from DT (the rear Pinion hub is also built by DT). The 28″ tires are from Schwalbe and are called Schwalbe G-One Overland in 50 mm width. If this is too narrow for you, tires up to approx. 56 mm width possible without mudguards.

Seat post, stem and handlebars are from Ritchey. As shown, we can of course also install Thomson or similar if you wish, subject to availability. Our saddle can optionally be replaced by a SQlab saddle…

In the case of optional lighting, we would like to advise you individually for the time being, as there may be too many options with the possible SON lighting, depending on your areas of application.

As installed on the “sample” bike, for example, it is difficult to ride with a bag directly on the handlebars, as the lights would be covered. The new seat clamp light from SON with the light cable running inside the frame also requires a ø 26 mm seat post, which unfortunately minimizes the availability of seat posts.

In the coming week, you will be able to explore the equipment details in more detail on the bike’s store page, which has yet to be created.

A Pinion bike is the perfect bike for long distances and is less designed for sporty speed. With our dropbar version of the veloheld.farway Pinion, we still want to show that a geared bike can also be ridden sportily on long tours.

In its encapsulated form, the gearbox is around half a kilo heavier than a comparable derailleur gear system. However, it shines with extreme mileage, which is further increased by the belt drive. This combination is also extremely low-maintenance. The oil only needs to be changed every 10T km. And of course you never have to oil the belt.

Conclusion: The veloheld.farway Pinion Dropbar is for anyone who spends a lot of time on their bike in different weather conditions and doesn’t want to worry about maintenance. It can also reliably carry a lot of bikepacking bags. And the drop handlebars not only guarantee a little more sportiness, but also more grip positions that make the bike more comfortable to ride on long journeys.