If you are not a windsurfer, you may have never heard of Hong Kong based company NeilPryde. I was certainly not familiar with the brand when I received an email from their Marketing Manager last month letting me know that they would be soon be announcing a “range of high performance road bikes sold direct to consumers via the Internet”. I’ll admit…I was a bit skeptical about the idea of high-end road bikes from a company that makes windsurfers. I expected to see “off the shelf” sourced carbon frames with custom graphics and decals. That is definitely not the case though with their two new framesets, the Diablo and the Alize. Both bikes were designed in collaboration with BMW DesignworksUSA, and both look pretty nice to me. The new NeilPryde bikes website features a design page, where you can find out more about the development of the new frames. Be sure to watch the 10-minute video to find out more about the design process and about NeilPryde’s motivation for entering the bicycle market.

Both of the new bikes are available with Dura-Ace or Ultegra builds. I won’t get too heavily into the specifics, but you can read a good quick first impression of the two models by James Huang at Bike Radar. Also, check out this short video of the Kammtail section of the Alize downtube in a windtunnel. The “morphing aerofoil cross-sections” on that frame certainly make for an interesting aesthetic. Speaking of interesting, some of the earlier concept renderings that can be seen in the video (like the one pictured below) are definitely a departure from the look of a typical carbon frame. Based on what I have seen so far, it will certainly be interesting to see how this new bike brand evolves.