De Rosa 888 Super King Electronic Frameset

The De Rosa 888 Super King Electronic Frameset is the electronic-specific version of one of De Rosa's most technically significant framesets, an Italian carbon frame that sits in the tier below the Protos in the brand's road lineup, alongside the King RS. When De Rosa launched the Super King, the E version became the first production frame in the world built with a port for an internally integrated Campagnolo EPS battery, tucked into the down tube rather than strapped under the saddle or bolted to a mount. The name itself carries a bit of De Rosa's global reach: the number 8 is considered a lucky number across several Far East markets, and doubling it twice, to 888, was a deliberate nod to a region where De Rosa's Italian heritage carries real weight.

De Rosa builds the Super King frame from three different composite carbon fibers, MR-60, HR-40, and NGF's 630GPA, blended to work toward what the brand describes as a combination of low weight, high frame rigidity, and vibration absorption through the road surface. Combining multiple fiber types in one frame is meant to let De Rosa tune stiffness and compliance zone by zone rather than relying on a single carbon layup for the whole structure, using stiffer material where power transfer through the bottom bracket and chainstays matters most and more compliant fiber where road vibration needs to be absorbed rather than transmitted straight to the rider. It's the kind of layered construction that shows up as a frame that tracks confidently under hard effort without beating up the rider once the miles add up.

The electronic integration is the frame's signature feature. Rather than housing the EPS battery externally, De Rosa recessed it into the down tube and added a small rubber bung on the upper side of the tube that opens directly to a charging port, so the battery can be topped off without removing it or opening up the frame. Since the carbon around that battery recess has to be reinforced to make up for the material removed, the Electronic frame isn't identical to De Rosa's mechanical Super King builds, the SR and R, even though all three share the same outward shape. This particular frameset is also compatible with Shimano's Di2 system, so the internal routing isn't locked to Campagnolo alone if a rider prefers to build it up with Shimano's electronic groupset instead. That flexibility matters for a frameset purchase specifically, since the buyer is choosing the groupset separately rather than inheriting whatever came stock on a complete build.

De Rosa has been building frames in Cusano Milanino, just outside Milan, since Ugo De Rosa founded the company in 1953, and the brand's frames carried Eddy Merckx during part of his career, a piece of pro racing history that still shapes how the brand is regarded in Italian road cycling. The Super King reflects that lineage more than it looks like a mass-market carbon frame. Buying this as a frameset means starting from the frame and fork and building up the rest yourself, which suits a rider who already knows which groupset, wheels, and finishing kit they want rather than someone looking for a complete bike out of the box. It's a project for someone who wants a De Rosa-badged frame with a genuinely distinctive engineering story behind it, not just another carbon shape pulled from a catalog.

This frameset is currently available in Nero and size 46s, and it's marked as final sale, so there's no returning or exchanging it once it ships. At its regular price of $4,495, the Super King E sat firmly in De Rosa's premium tier; at its current price, it's a way into a piece of De Rosa's carbon history, complete with the electronic battery integration built into the down tube, for a fraction of what it cost when the Super King E first came to market. For a rider set on building a bike around De Rosa's Italian craftsmanship and willing to source their own groupset and finishing kit, that combination is hard to find anywhere else on the shop floor.