GURU Photon RX

collaboration : Caro Poole

Last year I entered the road season about mid-way into the summer. I was riding a Wilier Gran Turismo on Ultegra. I loved my bike, however I knew I wanted to upgrade to something more “race compatible” because I had fallen so passionately for the sport, and was ultimately preparing for a full race season come 2016 with Team iBike.

Over the winter our team began its sponsorship with Louis Garneau. We were offered an amazing opportunity to create custom team paint jobs on the bike of our choice. I was dabbling with the idea of a Gennix R1 or the Gennix A1. Do I want something stiff? Do I want mechanical shifting? Electronic shifting? Which wheelset do I get? This shit is so complicated. When it came time to pay our deposits, finally settled on the idea of the Gennix R1, Olivier (my boyfriend, and past employee for Guru) said to me: “just hold off on that payment for the moment”. At this point I had already sold my Wilier, and was cutting it close for the deposit deadline for our custom bikes. Honestly I had my suspicions when he asked me to hold off on the LG bike, but then again, Guru had claimed bankruptcy, the factory was shutting down, and to be fair, we had not been dating very long!

One night I came home after work, and the usual suspects (Julie, Antoine, and Olivier) were all in the living room when I arrived. Julie and Antoine seemed especially stimulated, but I thought nothing of it. They said goodnight to me, and I jumped in the shower.  When I came out of the shower, everyone was back in the living room with huge grins, giggling, watching TV. I was so confused: “I thought you guys were going to bed?” I looked directly at the television, back at Olivier and sat down. Antoine and Julie were almost in hysterics and I couldn’t figure it out. I looked at the TV again... maybe something on Netflix was peaking their interest? Starting to feel a little left out of the fun, I took a third look, and there she was. Sitting in front of the television the whole time, my custom Photon RX, my Christmas gift, my baby, my Cocotte. I swear if I could, I would have made love to that thing right then and there.

The Details

 Name : Cocotte

The recipe : Just imagine if the stiff attributes of a Photon R got busy with the comfortable gran-fondo-style Photon SL, and had a baby, the RX would be born. It’s a high-end racing bike, modified by Olivier for me to be livelier, based on my height and weight, paired with an ENVE fork.

The paint job : Olivier once asked me, if I could choose any colour for a frame, what would it be? Periwinkle! I got just that (thank you Joey). Other than the periwinkle logo’s and details, the frame is left in it’s natural carbon self, with a matte clear coat.

Mechanical or Di2 Ultegra? I struggled with this for a while, and decided to go all out. Just need to set reminders on my phone to charge the battery...

Cockpit : FSA SLK. Bars and seatpost: carbon. Stem: aluminum wrapped in carbon.

Wheels : Vision T30’s with sealed bearings.

Details : The Nouniecorn Pack logo (my local biker girl gang), the Team iBike logo, Olivier’s signature, the “Nounies” top cap (one made for Andy, Julie, and I - The Nounies), and my name and country flag. All about those deats.

One word: spoiled.