Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
The new Onguza Bliksem is a handmade, race-ready gravel bike with room for 50mm tires, and it’s the first model from Onguza that will have standard geometry but loads of customizable options. Check it out here…
After three years of producing custom handmade bicycles in Namibia, Onguza is excited to introduce a new way for customers to get their hands on one of the brand’s steel bicycles. With all bikes made in-house, they’ve decided to offer bikes with standardized geometry but options to customize almost everything else. The first model to be launched under the new semi-custom ordering program is the Onguza Bliksem.
The Bliksem is named after the Afrikaans word you’d say as you smash yourself up a challenging climb or send an attack up the road. It’s akin to shouting “dammit!” but with more panache, and it also literally means “lightning.” Leaning into this, the Bliksem is Onguza’s take on a fast, responsive gravel bike. The frame is made from a mix of hand-mitered and fillet-brazed Columbus Life and Zona tubing, featuring a T47 bottom bracket shell and stainless steel flat-mount bosses and touch points for added durability. It has clearance for 50mm tires and geometry that Onguza describes as being “subtly aggressive without going too low on the stack figures for all-round great riding capabilities.”
Onguza Bliksem Geometry
| Size | XS | SM | MD | LG | XL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reach | 375 | 384 | 393 | 402 | 411 |
| Stack | 526 | 556 | 576 | 596 | 626 |
| Head angle | 70.8° | 71.2° | 71.5° | 71.8° | 72.0° |
| Seat tube angle | 74.0° | 74.0° | 73.5° | 73.5° | 73.5° |
| Head tube length | 80 | 110 | 130 | 150 | 180 |
| Seat tube length (c-t) | 440 | 480 | 525 | 570 | 600 |
| Effective top tube | 527 | 545 | 565 | 580 | 597 |
| Bottom bracket drop | 78 | 78 | 78 | 78 | 78 |
| Chainstay length | 433 | 433 | 433 | 433 | 433 |
| Standover | 738 | 772 | 800 | 832 | 865 |
| Trail | 73 | 70 | 68 | 66 | 64 |
| Wheelbase | 1011 | 1025 | 1035 | 1053 | 1070 |
| Offset | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
The customer can select which of three cable routing options they want installed on their frame, as well as extra bottle and luggage bosses add-ons, all before their choice of paint and special graphics are applied. Onguza offers a range of Namibian landscape and culture-inspired colours to choose from: 18 frame colours and 10 graphics colours.
Bliksem frameset pricing starts at $3,032 USD (€2,890/£2,490), which includes shipping, duties, and taxes (US prices exclude state sales taxes). They’ve also rebuilt their website with a nifty frameset builder feature, so customers don’t have to wait to start designing their bike and get a price estimate. Once customers place an order, they receive an as-close-to-accurate-as-possible estimate along with a photograph of their selected paint choices on tubing and confirmation of their chosen specification.
Head over to Onguza.com to learn more.
Further Reading
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