2018 Argon 18 Gallium Frameset
When Argon 18 first went to the WorldTour, their marquee bike was the Gallium. While they debuted the Gallium Pro since, the Gallium was so good, they kept in in the lineup. It’s lots of bike, lighter than many pro-level offerings, and very much in the Argon 18 tradition of building balanced steeds.
The geometry of the Gallium is balanced in the way that Argon likes to build bikes. They want the bike the right mix of stabile and agile. They want it both stiff and compliant. And they’ve done it. Part of the magic is in the geometry. The geometry is fairly traditional, though each size is tweaked a bit to maximize ride quality, with the seat angle getting slacker and the head angle steeper, as you go up through the sizes.
The frame is light. The medium weighs in at 869g, fully painted and with hardware installed. It is also built stiff, with a powerful downtube, oversized bottom bracket shell, bulked head tube and stiff, light straight fork legs. The front end also benefits from their preferred steerer taper, 1 1/8” to 1 ½”. And is it built compliant, with a tapered top tube, tapered head tube, and slim seatstays. They designed this bike with something they call Horizontal Dual System, or HDS. It is their way of describing how the frame tubes in the lower half of the frame, the head tube, the down tube, the chainstays, and the lower half of the seat tube, have more material and larger shapes than the upper half. This way, they can balance the frame in terms of both stiffness, for powering the bike, and comfort, for minimizing energy loss from rough roads.
This thinking also determined their design of both the fork and the included seatpost. The fork has a tapered 1 1/8” to 1 ½” steerer, with the lower race being larger for better torsional stiffness. The straight legs are also stiff. The seatpost, however, is the narrow 27.2mm diameter, for compliance.
The fork and seatpost also highlight some of their detained thinking. The fork moves thanks to the headset. The upper race of the headset actually can be adjusted higher if you need it. This is their 3D head tube system. It’s a proprietary means of adjusting the head tube height without the flex and weight of stack spacers. The bike comes with 15mm and 25mm stack extenders. The upper headset race sits inside the extension, which is wider and stiffer than spacers and the extension sits on top of the head tube. So if you’re going to have more than 10mm of stack from the top of the head tube, you might as well install one of the extensions. This means that a fairly flexible rider can get on the Gallium Pro and feel right at home. So, too, can a less flexible rider, or the unevenly portioned rider, who can install the extenders and enjoy the security and stiffness that the system provides. Argon 18 found they increase frontal rigidity by 5% and 11% compared to stack spacers.
The seatpost, a carbon-fiber shaft with a plug supporting the clamp, also has some smart, creative thinking behind it. The saddle clamp is reversible, providing you with 15mm of setback in one position, and 25mm of setback when flipped. The clamp holds all manner of seat rails.
The Gallium comes with the 3D system, the headset, the seatpost, the front and rear derailleur hangers, and all the stops and plugs you need to build the bike up with either mechanical or electronic shifting. It comes with a rubber mount to stick inside the seatpost for your internal battery. The bottom bracket standard is BB86. There’s a mount for your front derailleur, so no clamp is necessary.
The Argon 18 Gallium makes building a light, stiff, comfy bike easy.