Dream bike #3 Argonaut RM3

Part three in our series on the world's most desirable, money-no-object bikes features a carbon road bike that's custom down to each individual ply

- Words Sam Challis Photography Caleb Kerr

Argonaut's RM3 has achieved renown for that most mercurial of characteristics: ride quality. Cyclist's own James Spender dubbed the bike the best he'd ever ridden back in issue 135 – something he maintains is still the case today.

'It punches, it climbs, it carves, it cruises, it could go all day most places,' he says in his review, before going on to ask the question: how?

The short answer is through a combination of constant refinement to a single road bike design for more than a decade, novel construction techniques and an attention to detail that may well be peerless. However, if ever a bike deserved to have its full story told, it's the RM3.

Rusted roots

'I started Argonaut in 2007, building both fillet brazed and lugged steel bikes,' says Ben Farver from his facility in Bend, Oregon. 'I quickly gravitated to race-style bikes because that's the kind of riding I've always done.'

There is limited scope to differentiate designs in steel building, however, so Farver set his sights on carbon composite construction in 2012.

'In moving from steel to carbon I saw an opportunity to make a bike that rode like a steel bike but better. It's what I've always loved about carbon fibre – it's such a versatile material. With steel, or any metal really, you need to choose between light and stiff. With carbon, you can have both and build in other stuff besides.'

That model was called the Spacebike, the name coming from a friend making fun of the first prototype carbon frame he tested.

'The second generation was when we started using aramid fibre materials in the layup pattern, which levelled up the ride quality by damping vibration, but that was just called the Argonaut Road Bike. When we released the RM3 we had to come up with an actual name for it, and Road Mark 3 was a natural fit. So the RM series name was actually retrospective,' Farver says.