Soma Feed: Coming Soon! The Fog Cutter

This new bike from Soma Fabrications is a blend of their ES sport touring frame and their Double Cross Disc cyclocross frame. Built of Tange Prestige tubing. It has a sport touring triangle including the steeper angles and low bottom bracket, still not quite as racy as their Smoothie; but the DCD's stays and disk mount for big tire clearance and long wheelbase. The frame has clearance for 38 mm tires with fenders, even bigger than the ES which is rated for "some 32's." There will be an optional color matched carbon fork or you can source your own. $480 for the frame and $220 fork. Available around October 2016.

I really like it. It substantially overlaps with my Cannondale and Paramount so I won't be buying, but if not for those, I surely would consider it.

i like it looks like a good commuter/ light tourer.

How does this differ from the Soma Wolverine? It seems like the same bike, other than the color.

I like the look and the color. I would want a steel color matched fork with low rider mounts.

I like the simple colors.

It seems the rear hub adaptations on the Wolverine are the biggest difference, and the fork.

Wolverine is one of those do-everything frames with its massive tire clearance, fancy dropouts, extra braze-ons, a steel fork that also has a lot of rack braze-ons, etc. Looking at the geometry of ES vs DCD vs Wolverine, it also has a lot of fork offset and 1 deg slacker head tube compared to the others, throwing the front hub about an inch further forward. Fog Cutter seems a little more focused on being an endurance road bike frame for disk brakes. I'm betting it's made of thinner tubing, too. The fork is carbon and it remains to be seen whether it will have fender eyelets much less rack mounts.

You will get that.

Pre-production sample shown. Actual fork will sport matching paint and straight carbon blades. The sample build is sporting New Xpress 700x35c. Production design will fit slightly larger tires.

Well, no, that's not what that says.

Dang it, I'm trying to stop buying new bikes! If the production frame has that red paint job I'm not sure I'll be able to keep myself from buying one. That thing is gorgeous.

Sounds like a SOMA CrossCheck, or since it's disc, a SOMA Straggler...

I'll be interested to see how much drop it has, if it's the same as the ES or maybe even lower to compensate for bigger tires. That would be a tangible difference between it and "cross" frames like those two or the DCD.

If it were a choice between Fog Cutter and ES, this year at least I'd pick the ES. I'm indifferent about disk brakes and I really like the blue color.

ES has a sloped top tube and tall head tube, it's not clear to me that the FC has that feature. Are the actual geometry specs available?

So far I've seen the blog post and a Facebook post, they are rich for an announcement but not that detailed.

What is that, about 8 inches of spacers?

Why can't Soma design a frame that doesn't require a ridiculous amount of spacers?



There it's fixed it.

[photo credit: turpencat]

No one said it was required, it just happened to be what was needed for whoever was riding it.

That said, I WANT WANT WANT it!!!!

They said in the comments that it was setup like that to accommodate a tall test rider, but I suspect it has something to do with the desire for a nearly level top tube as well.

They're not as bad as Surly

OK, I bought one. Still getting all the build bugs out of it.

My 61cm frame weights 4.25lbs, same as my 64cm Reynolds 531 frame (1978 AD Inter-10).
CF fork weights ~720gms, same as the 531 fork for the same vintage 531 AD frame.

I built it up with low end 9 speed Tiagra brifters/Nitto bars, WTB saddle and 105 triple cranks Tiagra/Sora derailliurs.
Wheelset is my bullet proof gravel grinder disc with dyno hub, next step is a weight-weenie disc wheelset in the 1600gm range before discs.

My Schwinn Super Sport DBX has the same endurance road geometry and room for 700 X 35 tires with fenders. First bike in the last decade to come with mechanical disk brakes. I'd switch the parts over to the Soma Fog Cutter if i was in the market for a new commuter bike today. Sweet specs on the FC!

It's definitely in the same vein. But Soma's aesthetic is a lot different. I think you'll see a lot of these built up with funny handlebars. Or maybe they're scratching that itch with the endless variety of Wolverine builds on their social media feeds.

You're wrong about the disk brakes, though. Cannondale had them earlier. Their bikes were marketed as "cyclocross-style" bikes and they had race geometry and high BB's, but they also had fender and rack bosses. My commuter is a canti-brake predecessor of these.
https://www.bikepedia.com/QuickBike/B...Disc&Type=bike

I like the style. Not too flashy.

I want a Fog Cutter so bad, but only got my current bike less than a year ago so I can't really justify getting a new one :c Plus, Soma is not available locally so there's the added cost of shipping+tax.

It's nice. I had a couple of Surly Cross Checks, and I suspect I would like Soma bikes better.

I bought a FC frame about 6 weeks ago, just got it finished last week. Been recovering from back surgery, so I don't have a lot of miles on it, just pedaled it around the neighborhood. That will change over the next few weeks.

Built it up with some old and some new parts. I'll post pics soon.

I have been riding a 1st generation Salsa Casseroll frame (2010, before they went with canti brakes) for the past 7 years. I really love that bike with 35c tires, but I have been wanting to go disc and tubeless. My wheels were on their last leg, so I figured as long as I am getting new wheels, I may as well make the switch to disc (and tubeless). Great excuse to get a new disc frame. The Fog Cutter is a very close match to the Casseroll in terms of geometry and fit for me. The All-City Space Horse Disc and Twin-Six Standard Rando were the other two top contenders.

EDIT: Just realized this was the commuter forum. This is not actually my commuter bike. Though I do like to tool around town if I don't need to carry much on it.

Anyone using a front rack for a FOGCUTTER ? I just finished my build and am looking for a rack to mount the front light on and use for other stuff .