“I WANT A BIKE THAT CAN GO ANYWHERE...”
DESIGNED FOR RIDERS WITH ATHIRST FOR ADVENTURE, THESE ARE THE FIVE BEST BIKES TO TAKE YOU OFF THE BEATEN TRACK DOWN TOW PATHS, BRIDLEWAYS AND WOODLAND TRAILS
The explosion of ‘gravel’ bikes is something we at Cycling Plus have been keeping a close eye on for a few years now, becoming ever more impressed with models that have started to shun their origins as race bikes for events held on unmade back roads in the USA in favour of a styling that lends them to going places even beefed-up road bikes would fear to tread. We don’t have miles and miles of unmade dirt roads in the UK, but we do have plenty of farm tracks and woodland trails that can be used to link otherwise disparate roads together into some wonderful, traffic-light routes for those with a sense of adventure. But which of 2019’s bikes best suit this purpose? Read on…
FRAMES
The BMC and Canyon offer aluminium frames, the Trek and Giant push the boat out with carbon-fibre, while the Ribble steps away from the norm by offering lightweight titanium. All three materials are perfectly valid options, but how do the designs stack up against each other?
Starting with the outlier, Ribble claims the CGR Ti’s seamless, triple-butted 3AL/2.5V frame weighs 1,700g, with the all-carbon fork adding 480g. That’s not a great deal more mass than a carbon frame, while its unfussy looks would make it a definite contender if we were looking for prettiest bike of the year. The frame clearances are good, even with the 47mm tyres fitted, and there’s plenty of room in the fork.
The BMC’s triple-butted, hydroformed aluminium frame looks very neat and tidy, with a profile that closely resembles its carbon brethren. The top and down tubes are most heavily hydroformed, adding structural, angular elements and tube profiles that are practical as well as good looking. Overall frame clearance is sufficient for the 34mm tyres fitted (they measure 36mm), with around 5mm clearance on each side of the seatstays, similar at the chainstays, and a little more in the fork. With full mudguards, the maximum tyre size decreases to 30mm.
Behind the purposeful looking all-carbon fork of the Canyon, with its oversized 1 in steerer tube, the hydroformed, double-butted 6061 aluminium frame tubes are intricately shaped. The top tube is flattened and multi-faceted, while the large down tube is sixsided and reinforced by a gusset between it and the head tube. The lower seat tube is sculpted to increase tyre clearance, and there’s another gusset between the top and seat tubes, filling the space opposite the lowered
seat stays. It comes with 40mm Schwalbe G-One Bite tyres fitted, and clearance between the bridgeless stays and the fork legs is very good, with room for a little more width if desired.
The Giant’s Advanced Composite frame and fork share obvious design cues with the brand’s road TCR and Defy, and cyclocross TCX, but still offer much that they don’t. Most obviously, the 700c wheels and 40mm gravel tyres supplied have plenty of clearance, with room for 45mm rubber, or you can swap to 650b wheels and enjoy even greater tyre volume.
Trek’s Checkpoint SL6 gravel bike is the natural evolution of its Domane road bike and Boone cyclocross bike. In profile it could be mistaken for either, but look closely at the stealthy black frameset, and the differences become clear.
The semi-compact frame includes a rear IsoSpeed decoupler, and the Checkpoint’s rear end has a heavily dropped, intricately shaped drive-side chainstay to permit extra tyre clearance and the double chainset. The square seatstays bow gently upwards, have a bridge, and well-hidden mudguard and rack mounts, and end in Trek’s Stranglehold dropouts. These feature slots and screw-in adjusters that allow the wheelbase to be altered by sliding the captive thru axles by up to 20mm. The lower seat tube is shaped to increase tyre clearance, which the dropouts help to tune, but if singlespeed is your bag, they’re also essential for chain tension adjustment. Although supplied with 35mm Schwalbe G-One Allround tyres, the Checkpoint can run up to 40mm (measured) rubber, giving 4mm frame clearance.
COMPONENTS
Concerns that the Trek’s Ultegra drivetrain might be overgeared were soon dispelled. The 50/34 compact chainset and 11-34 cassette still allow a 1:1 climbing gear, and more than enough road speed, and the gear jumps are small. It does lean towards faster terrain, which is generally a feature of American gravel riding. The British equivalent can often be slower, rougher and more fiddly, and when riding on the big ring, we often found ourselves with a less than ideal chain line. But despite the mud and rocks, we had no dropped chains.
Complementing the Giant’s overall ethos, Shimano’s Ultegra hydraulic drivetrain, with the RX clutch rear mech to absorb bumps and avoid a dropped chain, operates faultlessly. Specialized has specced Praxis cranks with 48/32 rings on its gravel bikes for a while, and Giant has happily followed suit with the Zayante cranks, as in combination with the 11-34 cassette it gives an ideal range of gears with small, even jumps between. With a lowest gear of 32x34 and highest of 48x11, the Revolt genuinely can go anywhere at terrain-appropriate speeds.
SRAM’s Rival 1 groupset hangs from the stunning Ribble frame and offers a good mix of performance and durability, and in this case has a 42-tooth chainring and 11-42 cassette, a tried and tested combination that works well for the CGR’s intended use.
The BMC also features Rival 1, and with a single 40-tooth chainring and the 11-42 cassette, the gearing is focused more away from tarmac, but it’ll still hammer along at 30mph on it when required. The lower than 1:1 bottom gear can take you up most things and the Roadmachine X climbs so well we didn’t even need the three largest sprockets on a 15 per cent climb.
For the money, the Canyon Grail AL 7.0 is also very well equipped, sporting a complete Shimano 105 compact groupset, with 50/34 chainset and 11-34 cassette, plus matching hydraulic discs. It gives a 1:1 lowest gear, and tall enough gearing to keep you spinning on 40mph descents, with small, even steps in between, and we had no trouble with chain derailments.
WHEELS
The Trek’s shallow and wide Paradigm Comp carbon wheelset makes for responsive, quick acceleration that
helps you cover ground surprisingly fast. With some 40mm tyres fitted and run tubeless, grip and off-road ability would be even greater, without sacrificing too much road speed.
The Revolt has Giant’s CXR-1 carbon wheelset, which arrived set up tubeless, as most Giants now can. These shallow, wide-rimmed wheels get the big tyres spinning up to speed quickly, with great response to accelerations.
The BMC’s Allroad Disc UST wheelset is a great choice, with rims that are 23mm tall and 22mm internally, and designed for a maximum of 65psi. They aren’t the lightest, with a claimed weight of 1,890g, but their 24 plain gauge straight-pull spokes are each built with a softly sprung tension that really complements the Roadmachine X’s character. A totally taut wheelset might eke out a little more performance, but at the cost of ride quality.
Although Hope hoops are an option for £250 more, our Ribble came with Mavic Aksium Elite Disc UST wheels in 650b size, shod with WTB Horizon tyres. These are essentially bulbous 47mm slick tyres with just a fine file tread, and they create a satisfying low-pitched rumble on the road. With no more than 35psi, there’s obvious tyre compression when out of the saddle, which makes the CGR Ti feel utterly planted.
On paper the Canyon’s DT Swiss wheelset is fairly ordinary, but here it feels responsive and keen to sustain speed.
VERDICT
There’s an all-day endurance feel about the BMC Roadmachine X’s ride. The aluminium seatpost, which could have been harsh, went almost unnoticed –and for anyone adding bikepacking bags, who is after maximum practicality, it’s the right choice. While a carbon seatpost could improve seated comfort a little it’s not essential. You’ll return from each ride relishing the next one because this BMC has the sort of sturdy feel that makes you want to go further and explore more routes.
Once you’ve established the grip level of the Horizon tyres, you can let the Ribble CGR Ti really go on gravelly descents, and its bump-smoothing ability turned out to be surprisingly good. The natural elasticity of titanium helps to isolate you from jarring surfaces, and the carbon fork performed equally well, allowing us to concentrate on picking a line through the potholes that we could trust the CGR Ti to follow precisely. When holes were unavoidable, the added bounce in the tyres made bunny hopping a cinch as well.
Letting loose on gravel and rough hardpack, the Canyon Grail’s ride has an underlying firmness, but still deals admirably with unrelenting bumps and potholes, with an assured sense of control. We had to remind ourselves constantly of this Grail’s price, which is significantly less than its equivalent competition, because its performance is easily on a par with bikes costing more than double.
The Giant Revolt has a wonderful ride, great spec and decent overall mass that makes it fun to take anywhere. It’s very capable, and easily adaptable for commuting, road training, gravel racing or adventuring with luggage attached.
What’s immediately apparent about the Trek Checkpoint SL6 is how smooth it feels. With 40psi in the 35mm tyres, it glides across tarmac with road bike-like speed and feel. Great frame stiffness and the light, shallow and wide Paradigm Comp carbon wheelset make for responsive, quick acceleration that help you cover ground surprisingly fast.