While inspecting the latest shipment of team bikes for team all black, my attention was immediately drawn to what is probably the best aluminum bike on the market and the best-kept secret in bicycle manufacturing today. I love carbon-fiber bikes, but the Storck Vision Light is the most drool-worthy frame drawn from the element with a standard atomic weight of 26.9815386(8).
The tubes are brawny and do not feel as if they are made out of soda-cans like many other aluminum bikes. It has an anodized black finish that is very durable and white graphics that make for a stunning and timeless look. Storck also uses a type of double-pass welds that no other bike company can do. As a result, the welds do not need filing, which results in a much stronger joint.
With all these points aside, I believe that quality of manufacturing can often be measured in the care put into small features, and I usually look at the construction of a bike's dropouts for some sense of the engineering invested. Most bike manufacturers will use dropouts made by stamping out a flat piece of metal. They take a thick bit of aluminum and then cut some holes out of it: easy and cheap. However, take a look at the dropouts of the Storck Vision Light:
They definitely do not look cheap, nor will those internal ribs allow your rear wheel to twist the rest of the bike like a flat dropout might.The Vision Light also has the cleanest and most appealing cable-stops that I have ever seen, and they use the same stops on their more expensive carbon frames.
Photographs do not do this bike any justice, and you will just have to see it for yourself. With a pair of deep-dish carbon wheels, the Vision Light would probably be the best criterium bike on the market (and relatively cheap). It is built to race, and you can only find it at Tati.
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