If we needed to guess what the latest bike on the UCI-approved listing was, we’d have by no means anticipated it to be this stunning, however decidedly typical Mosaic XT-1 titanium cyclocross bike. However when elite American bike owner Ben Frederick came upon he was heading to Czechia to race the opening spherical of the CX World Cup in Tábor, Mosaic had to verify he may line up initially together with his two custom-painted XT-1 cross bikes.
So we caught up with Frederick within the pits, to get a more in-depth take a look at his titanium twins and to seek out his Small Monsters…
Mosaic XT-1 titanium cyclocross bikes of Ben Frederick
So, as an alternative of some wacky new aero-shaped carbon highway or gravel bike on the prime of the ‘most not too long ago accepted’ column of the UCI’s listing, it’s these typical welded titanium Mosaic XT-1 cross bike.
In actual fact, the XT-1 isn’t even formally within the catalog of the Boulder, CO bike builder. The X-series technically obtained phased out and changed with the G-series as gravel pushed cross out a number of years again. However Mosaic is a killer {custom} body builder. And all their bikes are “made to order from scratch together with rider particular geometry, configuration and selection of end work” so we’re fairly positive they’ll nonetheless make you an XT-1 if you wish to do some critical World Cup cyclocross racing.
Hey, it’s already UCI-approved… so long as you get the identical 56cm body and geometry like Ben Frederick raced this weekend in Tábor.
Frederick’s Tábor twins
Curiously, it could have simply been accepted final Friday on November twenty first, however these aren’t even brand-new bikes.
That’s the great thing about titanium. Ben already raced these two on the circuit final season. I suppose the UCI didn’t discover him on the beginning strains. However after the season, Mosaic stripped the bikes down, and repainted them in-house of their Spectrum Paint & Powder Works paint store, in an much more colourful fashion.
Nebula on white or white on Nebula, you determine!
For the 2025/26 race season, Frederick’s titanium Mosaic XT-1 beauties get completed in a particular version of Mosaic’s Artist Collection hand-painted Nebula paint job. However the format is a Ben particular, designed with shade block stripes that match his personal {custom} racing package.
And similar to final 12 months, the bikes are mirror photographs of one another. The place one bike is white with colourful logos, the opposite is Nebula blue, purple & orange with white logos. Plus, that remedy even makes it into the high-quality particulars and logos of the Enve fork and Ritchey bar, stem & seatpost.
Killer consideration to element!
Then, for optimum fashion factors, there’s loads of matching purple & orange anodized Chris King components.
Plus, a full suite of ultra-limited version Problem Staff Version tubulars with purple sidewalls. Ben raced most of his early US season on Grifos. However he broke out some newer Flandriens for the marginally more difficult situations of the frozen Czech course. It was frosty with rock-hard ruts wherever it stayed in shadow. However a grassy prime layer thawed in some locations within the solar, which noticed a lot of racers slip out unexpectedly in a number of corners, together with Ben based mostly on his muddy left hip late within the race.
So, which of the 2 bikes is your favourite look? We predict Ben’s should decide the one with the Nebula painted toptube and the Small Monster on the seattube, since he rode that one the entire race on Sunday!
Small Monsters
Ben Frederick is a bit distinctive on the UCI Cyclo-Cross World Cup circuit, as he races on the elite stage of the game, however holds down an everyday full-time job. We in actual fact know him by his gross sales and repair job at biking clothes firm OrNot.
However in addition to OrNot he was additionally a Ritchey athlete. That’s after we first realized of Ben and his Small Monsters challenge, a nonprofit “to cut back the stigma surrounding psychological challenges and supply schooling and sources about concussion and different traumatic mind accidents“. See, again in 2015, Ben had a season- and in the end racing career-ending crash with a traumatic mind harm that spiraled right into a critical psychological well being battle. He fought with melancholy, nervousness, after which an consuming dysfunction that ended with him hospitalized.
“Scuffling with a psychological sickness will be like having a BIG monster, scary and unseen,” says Frederick. “My hope is that individuals can carry their monsters out within the open to make them smaller, and study to reside with their little monsters.”
Ben says he realized to reside together with his monsters. And now he races with them on his package and his bike, each to always remember his personal battle and assist others to know they aren’t alone.
Be taught extra at TheSmallMonstersProject.com, together with sources for many who might have had a concussion. Or try Ben’s YouTube, the place he overtly shares extra of the story that obtained him the place he’s at this time.
Professional Bike Construct Particulars
Mosaic XT-1 double-butted titanium body, with new {custom} paint job
Enve Cross full carbon fork
Hunt 30 Carbon CX tubular wheels
33mm Problem Flandrien Staff Version S3 cotton tubulars in ultra-limited version purple
SRAM Pink AXS 12-speed 1x wi-fi groupset
SRAM purple flattop chain
SRAM Pink 42T Quarq powermeter crankset
Wolf Tooth LoneWolf Aero chainguide
Ritchey WCS carbon Zero seatpost, C220 alloy stem & EvoCurve 42cm carbon bar
one Silca Sicaro titanium bottle cage per bike
Chris King headset, backside bracket & seat clamp
Fizik Vento Argo R1 saddle
Shimano XT clipless pedals
Lead Lap in Tábor
Virtually ten years after the crash that derailed his professional racing desires and left him with the after results of his traumatic mind harm, final 12 months, Ben determined to offer elite racing his all another time, once more. To see how properly he may do, racing head-to-head with the very best cyclocrossers on the planet. His objective was to face the world’s greatest on the World Cup and end with them on the Lead Lap. Those that watch carefully how briskly World Cup cross racing is, will typically see what number of riders get lapped or pulled earlier than they’ll get in the best way of the entrance of the race.
It’s no small feat to complete on the lead lap.
Final 12 months, Frederick managed just one Lead Lap end on the World Cup. Now, the 36-year-old has already matched that within the first World Cup race of this season. Not unhealthy for an previous man with a full-time job along with his racing interest. OK, he’s clearly not previous (greater than a decade youthful than me), however nonetheless, no older racer completed on the lead lap, so there’s that.
Nicely achieved Ben, and delightful bikes!
Tell us which is your favourite within the feedback beneath.
MosaicCycles.com
