FIRST LOOK: Argon18 E119
images by Nick Salazar
Sep 24, 2015  hits 155,930

Nice simple wedge-style seatpost binder.
Nice simple wedge-style seatpost binder.

Details » From the tip of the aerobars to the back of the rear dropouts, Argon18 did an excellent job designing this bike. Here's a look at the details.
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Argon18 is perhaps the biggest news in triathlon at the moment. Known as the 'other' Canadian bike firm, no one really expected a bike from them right now, but their timing couldn't be better. The E119 is the only major tri bike being released in 2015 (other than the LOOK 796 Monoblade). We got a good, detailed look at the bike in Las Vegas, and here are our initial thoughts on the bike. Argon18 has put together an excellent platform that is sure to be very popular in the coming season. See the article for more information on the Argon18 E119 tri bike.

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Tags » argon18,  e119,  frames,  interbike,  interbike2015,  rigs

Complete Bike 

  • The E119 in all its glory.
  • The Argon E119 front end is beautiful and clean.
  • The Argon E119 front end is beautiful and clean. They did an excellent job on those aerobars, I must admit.
  • The Argon E119.
  • The Argon E119.
  • This is the E119+ which features more advanced layup, includes the storage box up front, and the seatpost-mounted bottle carrier.
  • This is the lower-priced E119, which uses cheaper carbon layup, and skips the saddle carrier and bento box. The bento box can be purchased separately, but the seatpost carrier would require buying the E119+ seatpost. It's otherwise identical, and has the same great brakes and bars.

Brakes 

Here's an area near and dear to my heart. I'm very, very happy to see Argon18 abandon the TRP V-brake in favor of the far superior centerpull design. So far Felt, Trek, and now Argon18 have all developed their own excellent centerpull designs. I love this trend, even if it means I'll sell fewer brakes.

  • Interior of the front brake.
  • Interior of the front brake.
  • Interior of the front brake.
  • Interior of the front brake.
  • Argon18 developed a very clever rear brake for the bike, hidden within the seat stays. Due to its location, the cable has to take a rather strange path to get to that brake, but based on our quick look at interbike, it appeared to be working very well and without any excessive friction.
  • The E119 rear brake is a very complex bit of engineering, and appears to work quite well. We don't have experience with the installation of the brake, but adjustment looks quite good - as with the front brake, there is independent pad stance width (as on the Trek Speed Concept and our own TriRig Omega X brake). Bravo to Argon18 on the great work here.
  • The rear brake stance width adjustment.
  • The bolt-on cover for the rear brake.

Details 

From the tip of the aerobars to the back of the rear dropouts, Argon18 did an excellent job designing this bike. Here's a look at the details.

  • The E119 uses the same bars and brakes as its big brother the E119+, but skips the bento box in favor of a simple fairing for the cables. You can upgrade and buy the box later if desired.
  • The E119 uses the same bars and brakes as its big brother the E119+, but skips the bento box in favor of a simple fairing for the cables. You can upgrade and buy the box later if desired.
  • Argon18 makes clever use of the steerer tube as a hiding spot for the Di2 junction. Of course, the larger SRAM BlipBox will not fit in here.
  • Argon18 makes clever use of the steerer tube as a hiding spot for the Di2 junction. Of course, the larger SRAM BlipBox will not fit in here.
  • Split housing on the cable routing.
  • No brake down here! Just a cover plate for access to cable routing.
  • The E119 is built on BB86 - not my favorite bottom bracket standard, as it's not friendly to 30mm-spindle cranks.
  • Triple bottle bosses on the truncated-airfoil downtube. Very nice.
  • Looking down the business end.
  • Like Scott, Argon18 mounts their bento box using the de-facto standard M5 bosses spaced 63mm apart, just like water bottles. This means that in a pinch, you could swap the box out for any other box made by XLAB, TorHans, etc.
  • Curiously, the seatpost comes in two varieties. One features this large hexagonal bore, to fit Argon18's proprietary saddle mount. The other one doesn't have any bore at all. It's very weird that Argon18 didn't simply use the 10mm thru hole that's been so popular, and for which the accessory market has already developed some products. It's also odd that they made two versions of the seatpost - if you want to get the rear carrier for the lower-priced E119, you have to buy the E119+ seatpost. Seems like an artificial product differentiator.
  • Nice simple wedge-style seatpost binder.

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