Schindelhauer’s 18K, Fixie-Looking, Touring Bike
What likely happened with the Schindelhauer Ludwig Xiv Cs Elite Touring Bike featured at Brown’s London, is a buyer saw fashion fixes in other high-end retailers. Possibly a 14 Bike Co bike and then spec’d this with Schindelhauer for their shopper that wants gears, brakes, and an exclusive price point of 18K USD.
A track-frame with discs, belt-drive, and internally-geared hub
Soften up that stiff-ass aluminum frame with a carbon fork, then stiffen it back up with carbon wheels and go gadgety with a belt drive. Hand-made disc brakes are cool, so are those dropouts, and the Ludwig is a nice spec, but oddly marketed as “touring.”
Carbon plate in an aluminum dropout holding a Rohloff? Your mechanic is concerned too.
There’s nothing touristy about this bike and it’s destined to end up in a shop with an owner wanting a more comfortable seat. We’d call this a flat-bar, disk-brake, urban assault bike and not unlike how US shops have built up Civias with Rohloffs for a third of the cost.
Careful when you grab that brake to not fold the front end or flip it
Schindelhauer made a market for itself with belt-drive fixes and cool. I get that, as much as I do belts in single speed cross, but my enthusiasm wanes when the belt gets out of alignment or creates massive friction. That Ludwig is also going to end up in the shop for flats and why you’d take a track-racing frame and make it into a trekking frame seems confused. The form and function of a bike is lost when you’ve got one aluminum frame and just hang different kit off it; especially when you consider other German touring/city bikes like the ToutTerrain Chiyoda.
A brutalist setup: thin seat on a carbon post in an aluminum tube