Steel city, gravel and touring frame inspired by classic touring bikes, designed in Montreal
Description
Le Montréal is our most popular frameset and our most versatile. Whether built up as a commuter, porteur, randonneur, touring, or cyclocross cycle, its 4130 Chromoly frame balances style and function. Inspired by classic 1980s touring bikes, Le Montréal features eyelets for front and rear fenders and racks, three bottle cages, and eyelets for our signature shoulder strap.
Bassi frames ship for flat rates in Canada, the US, and Europe. Please contact us for a quote in other regions.
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Bassi Montreal V3 Frameset
The Montreal is our classic randonneur, gravel and city bike. Versatile, light, and timeless. It can be built up however you want: V-brakes or cantis, one chainring or three, fat tires or thin. Load it up and go touring on it, or keep it light for a classic town bike. It's our most popular bike for a reason.
New features for the Montréal V3
Oversized tubes on all sizes for better stability with a touring load (or your kid) on the rear of the bike
Extra bottle cage mount under the downtube (that's three total)
More rooms for wide tires, up to 45mm on all sizes (with fenders!)
Reduced toe overlap by using three wheel sizes across the range, also making the bicycles more proportional to the rider for more pleasant handling
46cm and 49cm for small riders use 26" wheels
52cm and 55cm for average riders use 650B (27.5") wheels
58cm and 61cm (our largest frame yet!) use 700C (28") wheels
A return to diagonal dropouts, for singlespeed fans
Cast seatpost collar, takes traditional keyed nut and bolt (included)
The stiffened seatstays and top-tube not only increase its load-carrying ability, they also contribute to adding some spring to its step.
As of 2025 the Montréal frames use a cast seatpost clamp with supplied bolt. Previous years used a smooth seat tube and required a 29.8mm or 30.0mm seatpost clamp sold separately. The difference in price between the sizes is not due to that, but rather due to inflation and a 15% increase in exchange rates between the batches. We've kept the older run of frames at their original price, of course.
2025 frames:
52cm, 55cm, 58cm.
Earlier frames:
46cm, 49cm, 61cm
A note on frame prep:
Although Bassi frames, as well as many others, go through many quality control steps and come almost immaculate from the factory, some imperfections may still arise. Usually, paint is the culprit by being applied slightly unevenly or being oversprayed and covering some threads. The result, in the case of a headset or a bottom bracket, is uneven surfaces or imperfect planes which can cause binding and/or premature wear of the bearings. Bottom bracket and headset bearings work at their very best when they're perfectly in line and parallel to each other! In the case of overspray on the threads, it can make fender or rack installations more of a headache than they need to be. With the help of C&L's very fancy facing, chasing, reaming and tapping tools, installing parts on your new fully prep'd frame will be a breeze!
With a Frame Prep Labour on a new or newly painted frame, we will:
Face the head tube and bottom bracket shell
Ream the head tube when necessary
Chase bottom bracket shell threads when necessary (almost never)
Tap threaded braze-on eyelets
Face flat mount brake caliper contact points
When you add a Frame Prep Labour to a Bassi frame purchase, we'll install new in-stock headsets and bottom brackets for free!
Specifications
Tube Type: Oversized 4130 CrMo steel (double butted top and down tubes and triple butted seat tube)
Bottom Bracket: 68mm wide, British Threaded
Seat Tube inner diameter: 27.2mm
M5 eyelets at mid-fork, on seat stays and drop-outs for rack and fenders