All Things Bike with Fred Thomas: Bike Tour A-D Ultima Carbon Ltd Aero Bike

Hi Everybody, and welcome to this installation of the All Things Bike Bike Tour! Fred Thomas isn't just the host of All Things Bike- he's the president of A-D Bikes, the modern face of Austro-Daimler Cycling and the Bike Company of the future! He's also a sponsor of the show, and here he shows us some of the features of the A-D Bikes Ultima Carbon Limited. The Ultima Carbon Limited is the aero bike in the A-D family, and features an aero downtube, thin front forks, and an oversized headtube and bottom brackett for maximum aerodynamics and a stiff ride. The Ultima comes in unique Thorndorf purple that Fred had made specially to be as true to the original 1980's color as possible to maintain the spirit of the original Austro-Daimler bikes with the added bonus of modern technology. This bike is running Xentis XBL 5.8 Aero wheels, has electronic shifting and a compact crankset for extra help on hills. Filmed at CTN 5 in Portland, Maine February 2017 Director: Alex Merrill Floor Director: Dale Ashby Host: Fred Thomas Hi there, everybody, I'm Fred Thomas and I am president of A-D Bikes. A-D Bikes is the modern face of Austro-Daimler cycling and the bike company of the future. And A-D Bikes is also the sponsor of the television show All Things Bike. And if you've been watching that show, you have also seen the Ultima Carbon Limited. Now, this bike is the aero road frame offering from A-D Bikes. Now, let's talk Bikes! First, you will see it has an aero downtube. It has very thin front forks and it has a big, oversized headtube and a massive bottom bracket. All these features come together to make the bike more aero, as well as stiff. Now, the really cool thing about this bike, is the color. This color is known as Thorndorff Purple. Now, where did it get that name? Well, let me show you. When A-D was in the market, back in the 80's, they had the Ultima, made of steel, and it was painted this fascinating purple color. Now, I loved this color so much when I was young, I knew it was out there but I was riding a Champagne yellow frameset and I really really wanted to get my hands on this. 40 years later, I finally did and what I did was to take this frame, send it to a color specialist who made an exact replica of the color and put it on a little plastic chip. Now, with that plastic chip, he sent it to the manufacturers who looked at and mixed the color so that it was exactly the same on the modern version of the Ultima. And, to me that is one of the unique features of this bike, it's got modern technology, and it still has the spirit of the original, and that manifests itself in the color. Now this bike, it's running Xentis XBL 5.8 Aero wheels, it's got electronic shifting and it's got a compact crankset, it helps me on the hills a little bit, it weighs in at about 16 or 17 pounds and as I say, if you pedal it long enough, it's gonna feel a lot heavier than that. Now, I can't innovate too much about bicycles but I can innovate how we buy them and sell them. And that's why we've got this program called the "A-D Bikes Conversion Program." What is that? That program allows you to take all of the existing bicycle gear that you have in the garage hanging from the ceiling in the basement and sell it on A-D Bikes' sister company which is "Frame and Wheel." Now, you sell all that stuff and use the net proceeds as a credit towards your A-D Bike. This allows you to clear out the basement, allows you to track the remaining value that exists in your old stuff and it gets you on a nice bike. The great thing is that you can do the same thing with your A-D when you're done with it, so two or three years later, and you want to upgrade you can bring your frameset to us and we will sell it for you on the Frame and Wheel eBay store, you can use the proceeds as a credit towards a new A-D or you can take the proceeds and go out to dinner. Or travel. That is how A-D Bikes is the Bike Company of the Future. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time!

Added 5 Aug 2026