I have been commuting on the Planet X Kaffenback frame now for a while and I have to say it is awesome as a commuter. I have thought for a long time that the commuting bike of choice is a cross bike. Mountain bikes are just too slow on the road, and road bikes, or their wheels, are too delicate for commuting.
Now my commute is half on dirt and half on roads. If I choose to mix it up I can even hit some more trails on the way too or from work and I have been doing that on the Kaffenback.
Planet X is the road division of On-One the UK equivalent of Soma. Redstone Cyclery carries these bikes and I can’t recommend Dave at Redstone enough.
The build on the kaffenback is top notch, the paint seems tough enough, the front fork does not flex, the rear end is a little flexy, but hey this is not a race bike. Its quick for dodging pot holes or parked cars, and its nimble enough to navigate it down some steep dirt trails too.
The Kaffenback has two sets of eyelets on the rear dropout, for fenders and a rack, canti mounts. But it does not have a built in cable stop for the rear brake, so you have to use some sort of hanger. It has a sort of modified wishbown seat stay set up. So when you mount fenders, be prepared to do some modifying, I had to bend the fender mount, drill a hole in the fender and the mount the fenders by putting an allen key through the hole in the fender I just drilled. However the rack mounts perfectly.
I am running a 1×8 sti setup on the bike now, but I am thinking of trying the moustache bar again… Maybe a 3 speed bar. Maybe.
Overall I’d say its a nice frame for the money, and a great commuter. If you are usin it for cross, this thing is heavy! If I jump on my cannondale optimo cross with 9 speed dura ace and carbon bits, well the cannondale feels like a ferrari and the kaffenback feels like a subaru.
I Documented the build over on instructables.com