Bike Porn: Klein Agile

Here’s a bike that would definitely pull a crowd if you leaned it up against the food tent at Mayhem. It’s a bike with rare and retro-appeal, a cycling celebrity owner and there’s that amazing three tone fluoro paint job. In order to appreciate what might cause (an albeit small number of) people to start drooling, you have to first appreciate that, even in its pre-Trek days, Klein never actually made cyclocross bikes. This Klein Agile belonged to Caroline Alexander, one of the most successful UK mountain bike racers in the ‘90s, if not ever. After being sponsored by Raleigh for many years, she went on to race for Klein,

Ritchey and others. While Caroline raced a stock Klein mountain bike, there wasn’t a Klein ‘cross bike she could use – and as a UK national ‘Cross champion, it made sense for Klein to make an effort to create one. What they did was to modify an Agile frame – something pitched as a 700C ‘hybrid’ bike for towpath/commuting use. It still featured Klein’s monster headset and oversize fork and stem and it took 700C wheels. A close look at the bike shows that a certain amount of creative bodging went on in building the bike. The rack mounts and downtube bottlecage bolt holes have been plugged up (no one needs bottle cages on a real ‘crosser) and the stem, originally designed to take 25.8mm mountain bike bars has had a 26.4mm Cinelli drop bar

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