Sarto has released a new road frame. It is called the Cima — Italian for peak or summit — and it is built tube-to-tube at Sarto's Veneto workshop, entirely under one roof. This is what the Cima is, how it's built, and what's in the frameset.
What the Cima is
The Cima is a new platform, not a redesign. Sarto's workshop describes it as drawn from two frames the atelier already builds — the Seta Plus, which is Sarto's endurance road frame, and the Raso, which is its aero road frame — and distilled into a bike that stands apart from either.
The category Sarto assigns it is evolved endurance with race character. In practice that means higher stack and shorter reach than a full race frame, short and stiff chainstays for immediate response at the rear, and a dropped top tube that lets the frame carry comfort and acceleration in the same geometry rather than trading one against the other. A position sustainable over a long day. A rear end that answers when the road turns up.
The Cima ships now in unidirectional carbon. Tri-composite and Forged Carbon versions follow, with new colors and fabric patterns released alongside them.
How it's built: tube-to-tube in Veneto
Every Sarto is built tube-to-tube, and the Cima is no exception. Tubes are formed individually. Lugs are wrapped by hand. Junctions are bonded with a specific resin, chosen for how it behaves at the joints under load. The frame is not a single molded shell.
The reason this matters is in the ride. A monocoque frame is essentially a continuous loop of carbon: vibration entering at the tire travels up the stays, around the bottom bracket, along the top tube, and into the hands, with no discontinuity along the way. A tube-to-tube frame breaks that loop. Vibration reaches the resin-bonded junctions and stops there. The frame stays quiet where quiet is useful — through the bar, through the saddle — and stays alive where alive is the point, under power and in the corners.
The construction is done entirely at the Veneto workshop. Mold design, layup, bonding, finishing, quality control — all under one roof. The carbon comes from long-standing Italian suppliers close enough to the workshop that specification is a conversation rather than an order form. It is the same construction method Sarto has used for two decades of building carbon frames. The Cima is the newest expression of it.
The frame in detail
The Cima uses new carbon fibers that let the workshop reduce tube-wall thickness precisely where the frame can afford it, without touching the sections that carry load. The result is a frame that loses weight where weight isn't earning anything, and keeps material where the ride needs it.
The head tube and down tube are not round. Both carry flat faces meeting at soft edges — a diamond profile, drawn first for how it looks and then found to work aerodynamically as well. The aerodynamic tuning at the head tube, down tube, and seat tube is real but kept in proportion. The Cima is not a race-aero frame with endurance geometry bolted on; it is an endurance frame that has been aero-tuned where the tuning is free and left alone where it would cost the ride.
The Cima also introduces a new integrated cockpit. Hidden-screw system, dedicated top cap and spacers, −8° stem angle. Standard bar widths are 38cm and 40cm measured at the hoods. Riders who need wider can run any compatible bar — the headset is standard enough to accommodate them.
What's in the frameset
- Frame: Sarto Cima — tube-to-tube carbon, built in Veneto
- Carbon finishes: unidirectional (available now); tri-composite and Forged Carbon to follow
- Head set: 1½"–1½"
- Bottom bracket: T47×86
- Cockpit: new integrated, hidden-screw system
- Stem angle: −8°
- Seatpost setback: straight / 15mm / 25mm
- Tyre clearance: up to 35mm
- Derailleur hanger: UDH standard
- Sizes: XXS, XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL (seven sizes)
- Colors: Amber Ridge, Zenith Cyan, Glacial Depth, Stellar Silver, Summit Ruby
How a Cima order starts at Alpha
Every Sarto is made-to-measure — the geometry is drawn around the rider from the first line, not chosen off a size chart. That means a Cima order at Alpha starts with a fit. From order to shipment out of Veneto is ten to fourteen weeks; the build at Alpha takes one to two weeks after the frame arrives.
Alpha is one of a handful of Sarto dealers in the US, and the only one in the Rockies. If the Cima is the frame, the way in is a fit at the studio.
