Orbea Launches New Orbea OMP
Orbea officially unveiled its new Ordu OMP bike at Challenge Roth, where Andrew Starykowicz rode a blistering record-setting bike split to launch the new ride. TriRig is proud to announce not only that every one of these new bikes comes with dual Omega X brakes, but that the bike itself was designed specifically for them. The aerodynamics of the frame, from the front fork backwards, was optimized for our new brakes. And a custom rear cable hanger keeps things incredibly clean in the back. But that's not all this bike has going for it.
The new Ordu OMP is a good representation of current best practices in aero bike design, with a few nice touches to boot. To begin, the first design cues that are immediately familiar are the dropped down tube, maximized frame gussets between all tubes on the main triangle, and very simple, no-gimmick tube shapes all around. The top tube is raised to act as a fairing for the stem, something like the Shiv TT or similar bikes. The overall aesthetic looks a little bit like the Cervelo P3/P2, which is a very good thing. This is a UCI-legal frame, so no wild design in terms of bike structure or tube depths.
The first of the interesting touches begins up front at the fork. Orbea calls it the "Free-Flow Fork," which describes the very wide, bow-legged stance the fork legs take as they wrap around the wheel. There's much more space between the wheel and the fork legs, allowing more air to flow off the spokes without trying to move through a narrow opening between spoke and fork. We've seen some manufacturers talk about the benefit of doing this, but none have taken it so far as Orbea with this new design.
And speaking of that fork, it was designed specifically to be an aero match for our own Omega X brakes. Orbea has been stocking our Omega Standard on the high-end builds of their previous Ordu OME, and now the Omega X on virtually all of the new OMP builds. We didn't have any visibility or input into the frame's design, but we knew the bike was being designed with the Omega X in mind.
And it's not just the front fork that was optimized for Omega. The rear brake, positioned in the traditional location above the seat stays, gets a custom cable path and cable stop designed by Orbea just for our brake. It's easily the cleanest rear Omega I've seen anywhere, and it looks awesome. It might work for some other centerpull brakes, though I don't know that for sure.
Have a look at the gallery below for more images of this ride, as well as some info from the Ordu OMP presentation, all provided by Orbea.
