During the ENVE Open House framebuilder exhibit, one builder traveled further than the others: Mark from Prova Cycles in Melbourne, Australia. I’d never seen a Prova in person. Instead, I’ve had to check out his work via the lens of FYXO and the Prova Instagram. Mark learned at the Bicycle Academy in the UK and has been really putting in work on his brand. Let me tell you. It shows.

Prova translates to prototype/test/development from Italian and if you don’t walk away from this gallery understanding why, then pinch yourself, mate. Mark has an engineering background and it’s very clear that he spends his time developing solutions to common problems faced by builders, rather than just taking the industry-standard approach. He’s not much of a crimper, or crimpeur, if you will…

This bike, the Ripido, another Italian word, meaning a steep ascent, is a working prototype for Prova’s flagship hardtail model. It features in-house butted 3AL/2.5V tubing, in house designed, 6-4 Printed Ti dropouts by Bastion Advanced, chainstay yokes, and seat clamp. Mark is using the 86.5mm T47 BB to give his tubes a larger landing pad at the BB cluster.

Other notable details include:
-Direct post-mount 180mm rear brake.
-140mm fork.
-1226mm WB
-495mm reach
-430mm chainstays

As for production, well, Mark is building the first customer frames right now and they haven’t changed much from this prototype, aside from the option for a sliding dropout coming next month. He can also offer a full custom geometry for any client’s bike.

Prova Cycles is a unicorn of a brand. Seeing Mark’s bikes in person really shined a light on how beautiful and unique his bikes are, something I can only hope I’ve come close to documenting here.

If you’d fancy one of these bikes, head on over to Prova Cycles!