Sardinia-based Ichnu Cycles blends a bespoke, artisan philosophy with hi-tech filament-wound carbon and 3D printed titanium
Words Paddy Maddison Photography Patrik Lundin
Adapt or die: a choice that was faced by many small businesses during the pandemic. The cafe down the road started running a delivery service, your personal trainer decided to host their sessions over Zoom, and, if you’re from Sardinia, your local independent bike brand stopped procuring carbon frames from China and began making them itself.
That’s how Fabio Putzolu started Ichnu Cycles. When Covid-19 made operating his original brand, Fabike, impossible due to the resulting supply chain issues, he decided that the only way to ensure he could continue to make bicycles was to start crafting them on home turf instead.
‘Everything at Fabike was 100 per cent designed by me, but it was produced in Asia,’ says Putzolu. ‘After the crisis of the pandemic, I wanted to be absolutely independent from a production point of view. I wanted to be able to control all the manufacturing and work with fewer suppliers – all local. Now all of my suppliers are based in Europe. I even produce the carbon fibre myself, so these really are bespoke, handmade, custom products.’
Deriving its name from ‘Ichnusa’, the ancient name for Sardinia, Ichnu uses some pretty advanced materials and methods in its frame manufacture, with a view to making them stronger, more durable and more sustainable than their mass-produced carbon counterparts.
‘What I decided to do was to use titanium 3D printed parts to join my tubes,’ Putzolu says. ‘This way all the critical parts of the frame are made of titanium, such as the bottom bracket, the dropouts and the seatpost clamp. On top of that, the carbon fibre tubes are reinforced with Dyneema. It’s similar to Kevlar but even stronger, and it has a much greater impact resistance.
‘The reason you rarely see companies using this stuff to produce carbon fibre tubes is because it requires a special manufacturing process. Dyneema can only tolerate temperatures up to 70°C, but carbon fibre is produced at 120°C, so if you use the typical prepreg technology to produce tubes, Dyneema is no good.
‘What I use to create my tubes is a technology called filament winding [a technique that involves wind
