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What gravel bike up to £2700?
Shortlist is...
Camino Ti
Escapade
Fairlight thingie
Mason Boker
Or any other suggestions?
Cheers.
When you say gravel, do you mean a couple of hours of road and racy fast forest tracks, or multiday loaded bike packing trips in the Highlands?
What does your local shop sell?
If you're after something light and fast for riding fire roads and singletrack, then I'd be looking at the Trek Crockett Disc frameset with a fancy custom build. If you shopped about, you could probably get Ultegra Di2 and carbon wheels for your budget. Would certainly be a more engaging ride than anything else on your list, but if you want clearance for wide tyres/650B rims, then best to look elsewhere.
I have a Croix de Fer 30, which is at the tamer end, with 105 groupset and 35c tyres. I also have a new Genesis Fugio 30 which is GRX groupset and 650 x 47 tyres on it and it is better than the CDF on everything bar smooth tarmac, where it is about 2 mph slower for me
Gravel covers quite a wide spectrum of styles and geometry, etc.
What sort of riding do you plan on doing?
Are coming from a road or MTB background?
Do you prefer 700c or 650b?
Yes gravel covers all sorts of things but any of those bike could do it. Just buy the bike you like the look of most and ride it as any differences are marginal and make sod all difference once you have ridden it for 10 minutes.
Can’t fault my Bokeh, just lovely.
Yes gravel covers all sorts of things but any of those bike could do it. Just buy the bike you like the look of most and ride it as any differences are marginal and make sod all difference once you have ridden it for 10 minutes
Normally I'd agree with that kind of sentiment but things like the ability to fit fatter tyres or racks/mudguards do make a difference and it's worthwhile thinking about that before you buy.
Specialized Diverge - head shock is really good at smoothing out the bumps..
Just got a Kona Sutra Ltd. It’s fantastic.
Normally I’d agree with that kind of sentiment but things like the ability to fit fatter tyres or racks/mudguards do make a difference and it’s worthwhile thinking about that before you buy.
Yes, there is a huge difference between gravel bikes these days, especially when it comes to tyre clearance. If you plan on getting rough with it, that's very much worth bearing in mind.
Just to inform you I've already got a CdF and a XLS cross bike