I keep looking at Sonder Caminos but gravel bikes and the likes i have even less of an idea than i do with mountain bikes. I'm looking for something that's comfy rather than a race bike. Likely to be getting it through Halfords cycle to work as there's a very nice disused railway line i can use for when i do head into the office. Budget of maybe 2k for the bike before any C2W discounts.
Anything else i should look at instead?
The Camino is well regarded, I will probably get one when I get bored of my current gravel bike. I like Sonder as a brand and have a Colibri as my road bike.
If you're not wedded to the idea of drop bars, get a flat bar gravel with a suspension fork (what they used to call a hybrid). You'll be able to get the camino with a sus fork for well under £2k
I’ve got a Merida Silex and rate it but I’ve nothing to compare it to given it is my first gravel bike.
There's still some medium GT eGrade Bolts available at PaulsCycles for £1249, effectively giving you the "E" free on a hydraulic GRX400 groupset gravel that will take ~47mm tyres.
Be warned though, someone at hotukdeals finally posted a deal on the flatbar Current version this week and they're selling like hot cakes! 😉
If you can get to an Alpkit store you can book a test ride. Well worth while if have no reference points in terms if drop bar fit. The hire fee is refunded if you buy one
if you're not sold on drop bars, look at the boardman adventure bike thingy, the 40mm forked flat bar jobby, it's a gorgeous looking thing
That being said, drop bars are worth getting used to, you end up using the hoods more anyway. 1x drivetrain is great for a lot of stuff, but if you think you may spend a fair bit of time on road, definitely consider 2x, i find it quite easy to max my nukeproof digger out on the road (downhill) and conversely sometimes wish for an easier gear (offroad) while my road bike with basic 2x8 seems to have it covered
Pinnacle arkose 2 is what I bought a couple of years ago. Works for me, made a few changes, handlebar and stem and added a rear rack.
I need to ride it more often as if it's a great bike for the towpaths and old railway lines.
Would agree with @alan1977 - gravel 1x is a bit limited. For bike packing, I ended up with a 40/46 setup which was good for off road climbing but span out on the road.
Also agree consider a short-ish travel HT. Sold my Digger and am building up a bike-packing/xcish hardtail for future trips. Expect it'll get a lot more use locally as well. Every time I took my gravel bike to the local woods, I wished I'd had my MTB. After three years riding it, decided that wasn't going to change.
get a flat bar gravel with a suspension fork (what they used to call a hybrid)
Well that makes me feel old. I still think of a bike with 50mm tyres, a flat bar, suspension fork and a 69 degree head angle as a hardtail MTB with fairly adventurous geometry 😳
I love my Camino, punches way above its weight and the slack, long goe' by gravel standards means it's super composed on easy to medium off-road - Peak local here - great on exploded back lanes and still fine on smoother tarmac. The closest obvious alternative in geometry terms is the Santa Cruz Stigmata. Or, if you're into niche core, you can buy some boutique, 'man in an artisan shed' things and show off your awesome 'in the know' credentials.
Personally I like the weird baseline ubiquity of the Sonder. It's a bit like when VW introduced the first Golf GTi and it wiped the tarmac with all sorts of supposed exotica. I run 1x GRX, which has been faultless and built it up with Salsa Cow Bells - a fairly standard flared drop - rather than Sonder's horrid, weirdo drops though YMMV. The worst thing I can say about the Camino is that the pain finish is a bit soft, but I don't really care about that.
I think your basic choice here is how mountain bike-ish you want the geo to be. Stuff like the Sonder is at the mtb end of things, Fairlight etc, closer to trad road / cross bike geometry. If you ride much off road, it seems like a no-brainer to me.
Another recent gravel convert here (never been a roadie) and very happy Camino owner. Mine is a Ti in 2x GRX flavour. It's just done it's first multi day bikepacking trip on some pretty rough terrain where it was awesome. I also use it on the road a fair bit but on very badly potholed, gravel strewn country lanes with grass up the middle. It's great for that too.
It's a bit of a Swiss army knife of bikes and if I had to only have one, it would be a very strong contender.
I chose 2x on recommendation as it's very hilly here and wanted the flexibility and range of gearing to get my unfit bod up big hills and cruise at a decent (for me) pace on the flat. It has an 11-36 cassette and 46/30 chainring. So far I'm very happy with that choice.
I plan to buy another set of wheels with road tyres on soon and also some different bars. I tried Sonder's flared "bomber" bars and didn't like them. So I ordered their narrower, less flared "Spitfire" bars. These are great on the road, but no not so good off road or bikepacking.
I feel wider bars would offer more confidence and manoeuvrability off road and better accommodate a bar bag when bikepacking. A bar bag on the Spitfire bars interferes with hand position in the drops and shifting unless I pack it very carefully. So looking for recommendations for bars that sit somewhere in-between Sonder's Bomber and Spitfire bars?
All minor tweaks to get it exactly as I want it, but it's an awesome bike, wish I'd bought one sooner!
Steel can be good for comfort, I really liked riding my Ragley Trig (medium, and in the classifieds as I decided I actually needed an XC bike instead).
Thanks for all the replies!
I was on a road bike for years when I was younger but that was a very long time ago. My nearest shop is about two hours away in Inverness but might have a day out to try it. Not sure I'll need 2x as it's fairly flat in the part of Aberdeenshire I'm from but it will end up going further afield so should maybe put a wee bit more thought into it rather than just going for a big cassette. Not sure about a hardtail as I have my BFE so think I'd rather have a drop bar gravel than another one.
I have a BFE as well 🙂 It is built properly burly tho. And I'm not sure a 160mm forked HT with 2.6 tyres, rim inserts and chunky wheels would make a good bike packing rig. But then I did have nearly all the spares to build something new which is obviously very different to C2W
I used to ride road (mostly commuting) for years, had a couple of CX type bikes that I never really got on with, but I did expect the Digger to be close enough to a MTB to make it fun but different. It just ended up being less fun and different. Even on a four day bike packing tour where my mate was on his FS MTB, 95% of the time, I would rather have been riding his bike.
A lot of gravel riders here (FoD way) and they all seem to love it, so maybe it's me!
I tried the gravel thing for a couple of years but if you are predominantly a mountain biker, you will end up taking on chunkier terrain, and overtime realise that its just damned painful, fun but painful.
I now use a short travel hardtail on trail tyres for XC, commuting and bike packing.
There is something good about riding a gravel bike innapropriately on lumpy stuff but it sure does give you a beating. Its definitely not like those video's that the pro's put out occasionally to sell the things 🙂
