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Scappa
Il Corriero
A sublime ride in a fully customisable package
The spec
Model
Scappa Il Corriero
Groupset
Shimano Dura-Ace 9000
Deviations
None
Wheels
Scappa Priscus 58mm
carbon clinchers, Enduro
ceramic bearings
Finishing kit
Scappa Ganascia Carbon
SL bar, Scappa Nuca carbon
stem, Scappa Groppa
carbon seatpost, Scappa
Aquila full-carbon saddle
Price
€4,700 (£3,750) frameset;
€7,950 (£6,350) as tested
Contact
scappa.it
136
cyclist
I
doubt anyone who knows me – or, more to
the point, has observed my dress sense –
would describe me as fashionable. Yet every
dog has its on-trend day, and mine, it seems,
has come courtesy of the Scappa Il Corriero.
At a claimed 630g for an unpainted frame, the Il
Corriero piqued my interest when it was announced
earlier this year, especially given it was billed as ‘aero
road’, a category not famed for its lightweight attributes.
So I requested a test bike from Scappa, waited, then
forgot all about it. Until a few months ago, when out of
the blue Scappa founder Gernot Mueller rang to say the
first frames were ready to go, and did I have any colour
preference? Which as it happened, I did: fluoro orange.
Mueller and partner Diane Heyn were sceptical,
explaining they’d have to sell the frame afterwards, but
I persevered and four weeks later the bike was ready.
Only there was a slight snag. ‘Bad news,’ Heyn said. ‘The
bike looks so good we’re taking it to Eurobike with us!’
Words James Spender
For those unfamiliar with Eurobike, it’s the world’s
largest bicycle trade show, held in Germany, and by the
end of it Heyn reckoned more pictures had been taken of
the Il Corriero than any other bike. Then, as if to confirm
this, the bike popped up on the website of one of Cyclist’s
rivals in a video entitled ‘Top five prettiest road bikes’.
Whether that rival knew the provenance of the paintjob
was unclear but, regardless, for the first time since 1993
my love for fluoro orange felt justified. And when the Il
Corriero finally turned up I couldn’t wait to show it off.
Fitting the bill
Angular to the last, the Il Corriero looks modern in a
dated sort of way, like a vision of the future drawn up
in the 1980s. There’s something rather Bladerunner
about the Scappa typeface, while the stallion logo has all
the hallmarks of Stridor, the mechatroidal horse from
He-Man (OK, maybe that’s just me). Whatever the visual
triggers, this bike has prompted more comment than P
Logo
Scappa isn’t shy with
its stallion logo, which
Scappa’s Diane Heyn
says stands for ‘freedom,
running, strength and
vitality’. That might sound
like marketing speak,
but ride an Il Corriero
and you’ll surely detect
those qualities. Nice
cable entry points, too.
scappa b Bikes
P
P anything I’ve ever ridden. Not all was positive – one
guy even told me to ‘turn it down mate’ – but at least the
bike causes a stir, which, if you’re spending over £3,500
on the frameset alone, you might appreciate.
Aside from custom colour options, that money gets
you made-to-measure geometry. Stock framesets are
available too, inasmuch as Scappa offers stock geometry
to choose from, and likewise, a stock colour palette. But
again given the cost it would seem slightly self-defeating
to acquire an Il Corriero that wasn’t entirely bespoke.
That said, this frameset wasn’t designed with me in
mind (paintjob aside) because it’s a test bike, yet I found
it easy to dial in my preferred set-up without resorting
to extremes of fore/aft saddle position or having to jack
up the bar height with stiffness-sacrificing spacers. As a
result, I quickly found myself at home on the Il Corriero.
On the one hand this immediate familiarity is an
endearing quality, yet given how eagerly I’d anticipated
this bike, and how lairy it looked, I was somehow
expecting more: some intangible wow factor normally
associated with arrogant virtuosos or precocious talents
(think Cristiano Ronaldo crossed with a young Tom
Boonen). But initally, the Il Corriero didn’t deliver on that
score. Comfortable on the hoods, tops and drops? Check.
seatpost
In line with plenty of other
manufacturers, Scappa has
opted for a 27.2mm carbon
seatpost in the name of
comfort. But that’s not all.
Inside the seat tube is a
titanium sleeve that Scappa
claims allows for comfortboosting flex without
compromising strength.
‘The bike is so well
behaved it sits at odds
with my experience
of aero road bikes’
Relaxed, evenly distributed weight feel? Check.
Wild-eyed excitement? Err…
This bike is just so well behaved that it sits slightly
at odds with my previous experience of aero road bikes,
which tend to feel harsh and somewhat chatty in terms
of road vibrations and noise. Admittedly the 58mm deep
Scappa wheelset provided the requiste whampf, whampf
sound when pedalling hard on a still day (and as any
supercar engineer will tell you, the right sound is
intrinsic to creating the right experience), but the
Il Corriero lacked the incisiveness that bikes such as
the Specialized Venge deliver in big, stabby spades.
So far so damning and I was ready to commit the Il
Corriero to the pile of ‘good but not great’ bikes, until
two very different outings convinced me otherwise. P
cyclist
139
Bikes b scappa
‘Big inputs when
attacking climbs
were met with
the verve of a far
burlier bike’
wheels
The Il Corriero’s wheels are
made to Scappa’s design
by a third party. At 58mm
deep with ceramic bearings,
they spin effortlessly at
speed, and while breaking
is definitely hampered in
the wet, it’s by no means
the worst out there.
P Sometimes you plan on a long ride and end up coming
home early; other times it’s a short one that turns into
an epic. With the Il Corriero I quickly found myself in
the midst of the latter. What was supposed to be a 60km
Sunday bop turned into a 150km tour through Kent.
The weather was on my side, but more than that the
Il Corriero was just flying. Not like an aero bike – not like
it was straining to carry its speed or yearning to be ridden
faster. Rather, it just purred along, across broken-up
lanes, through the heaped-up mud and over carpets of
fallen conkers without flinching in the slightest. Big
inputs, particularly attacking the bottoms of climbs,
were met with the verve of a far burlier bike, while
during the laborious latter stages of longer ascents,
the Il Corriero maintained a lithe and nimble feel akin
to some of the very best climbing bikes I’ve ridden.
The other defining ride couldn’t have been more
different. Buckets of rain were tipping from the sky,
I had nigh-on zero enthusiasm and ended up on a route
that was more city commute than glorious outdoors.
Yet, despite fogged-up glasses and soggy shoes, I again
found myself out for twice as long as I had bargained for,
because turning back seemed churlish given just how
good it felt aboard the Il Corriero.
Lose the label
Once again, it seems that I’ve reached something of an
impasse in the description of a bike. The Il Corriero has
a wonderful ride feel – light, poised and smooth – that’s
nigh-on impossible to communicate. Even if you ride
one, it might well take a few journeys to unearth these
strengths. For all the bluster of the frame, for all its aero
credentials (see below), the Il Corriero is actually quite
an understated bike, with a depth and class that’s slow to
reveal, but once recognised, fast becomes spellbinding.
Let me put it another way: I’d hazard to say that if
you had a showroom containing the Il Corriero and a
Specialized Venge, and you had just an hour on each,
you’d come away being more excited about the Venge.
But given a week on both there would be few people who
wouldn’t want to keep the Il Corriero. I’d doubt the Il
Corriero could outdo the Venge in a wind-tunnel (even
though it has been designed using CFD and is windtunnel tested), but if you look beyond the aero tag the Il
Corriero is so much more. It’s a bespoke bike as bespoke
bikes should be – eye-catching, incredibly accomplished
and an absolute pleasure to ride – uphill, downhill and
everything in between. Sure, you’ll pay through the nose,
but the amount of kilometres it’ll have you notching up
will make it more than worth the investment. ]
140
cyclist
The detail
Component choice on a bespoke bike such
as the Il Corriero is, of course, entirely up to
the customer. This build came with DuraAce 9000, the performance of which needs
absolutely no introduction, and is only aided
by Scappa’s sympathetic cable routing,
which promotes slick cable movements
through smooth exit/entry transitions
and curves. Di2 routing is available too.
The Il Corriero’s finishing kit comes
courtesy of Scappa and was designed in
collaboration with US bike fitter Chris
Balser. It’s a more than serviceable cockpit
and rear-end set – particularly the allcarbon saddle, which is available in three
sizes. All in, it makes for a well-honed
package. No surprise, then, to find out
that Scappa founder Gernot Mueller is
an engineering graduate and the son of a
former director of Puch bicycles in Austria.