[CIELO by CHRIS KING Sportif Classic Complete Bike] The Sportif: A Bike to Ride Right Now

Have you ever heard the word “Sportif”?

You don't hear it much these days, but it's a style of bicycle that originated in France.

A road bike not for winning races but “for riding in comfort all day long.” Loading up and setting off on a little trip, or venturing a bit further afield at the weekend. Sometimes cruising slowly through a favorite town. It's a style that values not competing on speed but “cherishing the time spent on the bike itself.”

Lately, ways of enjoying bikes that aren't bound to numbers and speed alone have been getting a fresh look. That's exactly why I feel this idea of the “Sportif” fits the way we play today surprisingly well.

The CIELO Sportif Classic

What I'm introducing this time is a complete CIELO by CHRIS KING Sportif Classic built up at Circles Tailored.

We built it on the Sportif Classic frame, reissued with Chris King's official blessing, choosing parts that sit well with the character of this frame.

Even the frame on its own gives a strong sense of the aesthetic care in its details, but if I say so myself, it has turned out to be a bike that sets the heart racing: “So this is how good it looks, and how much of a story it tells, as a complete bike.”

A road bike for riding in comfort

The Sportif Classic is not a road bike for shaving off seconds.

Heading a little way out on your day off to feel the air, or dropping in on that bakery you've been curious about. Cruising easily along the riverbank, or wandering onto a quiet footpath beside the rice paddies. And if the scenery is breathtakingly beautiful, stopping the bike to take a photo.

Rather than taking the shortest route to your destination, if you think “that road over there looks interesting,” you turn the handlebar without hesitation. It's a bike that suits that free way of riding.

The moment you press on the pedals it moves forward lightly and smoothly, with a suppleness that seems to wrap around your body.

“Maybe I'll take just a slightly longer way round.” It's full of the kind of charm that has you feeling that way before you know it.

So you can still love it in ten years

For this complete bike, rather than chasing passing trends or flashiness, we built it with one thing foremost in mind: “that it can stay by your side for a long, long time to come.”

It's a combination that rides nicely not only on paved roads, of course, but also on flat dirt such as riverbanks and paddy-field paths.

Complete Bike Specification

Why it's the one you'd “want to keep to the last”

For some, this complete bike will be the “first bike” of their cycling life. From here they may fall down the cycling rabbit hole and go on to ride all sorts of bikes, lightweight road bikes, gravel bikes and more.

But at the same time, I'm convinced that it's precisely the veterans who've been through bike after bike whom this one will strike hardest and deepest.

A road bike honed for speed, a gravel bike that takes on any surface, a touring bike with outstanding carrying capacity…… the more you enjoy cycling, the more bikes you end up with. But if you were asked, “What if you could keep just one in the end?” I suspect a great many people would, without hesitation, choose this Sportif Classic.

It isn't the fastest, nor the lightest. It isn't built to the latest standards. And yet it makes you think, “If I'm taking a bike out today, it has to be this one.”

The reason doesn't show up in the numbers on a spec sheet. The frame's silhouette, beautiful enough to leave you spellbound. The meticulous handwork that only Chris King delivers. And a ride that is endlessly light and sensuous. The atmosphere woven by all of these is what leaves you wholeheartedly convinced: “Yes, this is the one I love most.”

Even as the years go by and you no longer ride flat out as you did when you were young, even when you no longer cover long distances. Just cruising slowly around the neighborhood leaves your heart quietly full. There really aren't many bikes like that in the world.

That's why this Sportif Classic will be a “bike for life,” one you can keep riding with affection ten and twenty years from now.

About size and fit

The complete bike we've built this time is a Women’s 49.

It's called “Women’s,” but in fact the sizing is superb and can be a perfect, made-to-measure-feeling fit for smaller men as well. A great many people are surprised when they actually sit on it: “It fits better than I imagined!”

I'd love you to experience for yourself the exquisite ride quality that the numbers (geometry) alone can't convey.

Geometry

About in-store stock

The complete bike we've built this time is a single bike in Women’s 49.

In addition, as framesets we have

• Sportif Classic Women’s 49 Green
• Sportif Women’s 49 Orange

one of each, available in store.

I think it's also fun to look over the complete bike and imagine, “It'd be nice to build one up with parts like these.”

If you're interested, please do come to Circles Tailored.

I'd be glad to take the time to talk, with the actual bike in front of us, about the Sportif as a bicycle and the ride that only a CIELO offers.