FOUR BIKES IN ONE
Bikes are inherently versatile things that are generally happy to go where we point them. In the past, bikes were designed to be utilitarian with great durability, and could reasonably be ridden over many surfaces, but the evolution of competition and technology has seen the specialisation of bikes to fulfil diverse needs. While that often means that your bike is focused entirely on its designated niche and maximises your potential, it can also create the desire for more bikes. The N+1 culture (Velominati Rule 12 whereby the minimum number of bikes owned should be three and ‘N’ is the current number of bikes owned) is good news for manufacturers, but it does come with practical issues for customers. Using one bike for multiple tasks isn’t new, but there are limits, such as permissible tyre volume and clearance when trying to combine on- and o -road use.
THE IDEA
Back in October 2017, I was invited to the south of France to ride the inaugural Gravel Roc race at the Roc d’Azur, and the bike I rode sparked an idea in my head. After racing the Rondo Ruut CF1 at Roc d’Azur, I knew it could handle the rough, but how well could it perform on the smooth? My plan involved racing the Rondo in four very di erent events using as many of the same components as possible. The drivetrain would have a single ring, the tubeless wheels, tyres and gearing would change, plus a few ancillaries, but in essence I wanted to see if one bike really could do it all.
THE BUILD
Fast forward six months and some fruitful conversations with Polish company Rondo saw the concept come to life with the arrival of its Ruut CF1 frameset. SRAM helpfully supplied a groupset, plus Zipp finishing kit and wheels, and soon I had a bike.
Rondo’s Ruut was an obvious choice because it accepts tyres up to 2.1 inches on 650B wheels, or 700c x 40mm. That’s quite common these days, but Rondo’s party piece is the flip chip in the fork, which creates what Rondo calls “the world’s first vario geometry gravel bike”. This alloy, two-part, oval component in each fork tip locates the thru-axle in one of two positions, altering the head angle, stack and reach and therefore giving handling that is suited to all surfaces.
GO WEST
First on my list was the unique Battle on the Beach. Held at Pembrey, Wales every April, its three laps
THE LOWER GEAR RANGE WAS ESSENTIAL AND THE LARGER WHEELS ROLLED WELL ACROSS THE GRAVEL AND BUMPY GRASS LAND
of a 15km circuit combine beach, dunes, fire road, singletrack and a little tarmac. Having raced it twice before I knew what to expect, but the course’s diverse nature makes bike choice tricky. Modified hardtail mountain bikes usually dominate, but tyre volume is key and I made the most of the Ruut’s clearance with some Maxxis Aspen 27.5in x 2.1in rubber.
Getting the gearing range right can also be tough with a single ring because the wind direction on the beach has a huge e ect on speed. In my first attempt in April 2018, I coped with my MTB’s 32-tooth ring in a headwind, but luckily went with a 42 this time. The mass start of nearly 1000 riders running through the soft sand until saddling up on the firm beach is always frantic – like a cycling Grand National with charging, stumbling riders – legs, bikes and sand flying everywhere.
The tailwind along the beach was extraordinary and I was flying along at 32mph. By the time we left the beach 5km later, I’d averaged 27mph. With its flip chip in the low position, the Ruut’s 71.5-degree head angle ensured great high speed stability but also at slow speed for the inland dunes, technical singletrack and climbs. Around 18psi in tyres plumped up by the chunky Zipps produced reassuring traction and grip. The Aspen’s minimal tread blocks made them fast rolling with enough bite to cope with slippery conditions brought on by rain in the last part of the race.
My previous beach rides had been on a steel bike with three-inch tyres, then Open’s UP with 2-inch tyres. The Ruut in this guise gave away a little floaty traction to the big tyres, but was quicker everywhere and much more comfortable.
BOWL WITH IT
Matterley Bowl near Winchester is a natural amphitheatre, which housed thousands of American troops prior to D-Day in 1944. General Eisenhower addressed the troops there and a US Army boxing tournament featured Joe Louis. Battle in the Bowl plays on the site’s military heritage, o ering riders a supersized cyclo-cross course that flows up, down and around the bowl’s grassy sides, trails and gravel roads.
Expecting plenty of climbing and slower-thanaverage speeds, I switched the chainring to a 38 (my usual for ’cross) and the wheels to Mavic’s tough 700c Allroads with 40mm Schwalbe G-One Bite tyres. Otherwise, the Rondo remained the same.
On a roasting late-May day I lined up for the two hour-plus race rather too politely near the back. The tortuous twists and turns on the grassy infield area were frustratingly slow, but once we hit the gravel false flat that hugs the base of the Bowl I could stretch the Rondo’s legs and make some progress. An infernal grassy descent through dozens of 180-degree switchbacks gave way to a loose gravel climb, which led to a trail around the grassy rim of the bowl with ups and downs keeping things interesting. Then it was past some excitable young cows before a fast, dusty descent back to the event village again.
The four-mile circuit had a bit of everything and I was happy with my setup choices. The lower gear range was essential for the repeated draggy climb. The larger wheels rolled well across the gravel and bumpy grassland and the rounded profile of the Schwalbes, plus their raised shoulder tread, gave confident cornering on the shiny grass. A little more robust than some CX bikes, the Ruut was reassuring on the fast, rough descent. Over the two hours and 15 minutes that I raced, I continued to make progress, even outsprinting a teammate at the line.
Thankfully, on a day when I ran out of water the Ruut didn’t come up short, proving its endurance potential and coping easily with a very solid test.
ALL CHANGE
With its o -road abilities explored and verified, it was time to change modes. Turning the Ruut into a road machine required a little workshop time. First, the 80g flip chip was reversed and the front brake caliper adaptor removed. Then the chainring was swapped from 38 to 46 – the largest possible with the Rondo’s dropped driveside chainstay. I changed the cassette from 11-36 to 11-32, fitted a Tioga saddle, Time road pedals and Zipp 303 Firecrest tubeless wheels, with Schwalbe One Pro 25mm tyres.
In this build everything worked perfectly, but getting there took rather too much head scratching and frustration. A quirk of the original Ruut, and a rarity on road models these days, is its 15mm diameter front thru-axle. This reduced my possible aero, tubeless wheel options.
When a set of Reynolds wheels arrived, I found the front disc rotor wouldn’t turn. Its lock ring was jammed against the carbon fibre covering the brake caliper mounting bolts inside the fork leg. Rondo’s advice was to try a thinner lock ring. The 15mm axle meant internally splined lock rings weren’t an option, but I found some slimmer Shimano ones and tried again. This time the wheel turned but the gap was so small that I couldn’t see light through it.
Time went by, solutions were few, and one of my earlier questions remained unanswered. I’d asked what other customers had done and also whether the fork only accepts hubs with a six-bolt rotor attachment. When I received some Zipp wheels for another build, I found that, yes, it does. The limitations of the fork’s compatibility and the depth of CP’s parts bin meant the project stayed on hold for longer than hoped.
ROAD READY
With a working road setup, I wasted no more time and headed straight for the track. A motor racing track. Of all the challenges so far, a bunched road race made me most nervous. The speed requirements would be dictated to me by the bunch, and I hoped my gearing and leg speed could cope. At just over 8kg, the Ruut was a weighty road bike, and with its huge clearances, it has an obvious lack of aerodynamic benefit.
As for the views of my peers, years spent racing scores of road races (often on theoretically inferior machinery) mean that I actually thrive on negativity. With around 100 riders on track, there was plenty of opportunity to draft in the pack and even when the speeds topped 35mph I could still spin comfortably.
Even with the chip flipped, the head angle was still relatively relaxed at 72 degrees and with subtle increases in the e ective top-tube length and front centre, plus greater bottom bracket drop and fork o set, the Rondo was immensely stable but with slightly sharpened reflexes. Reacting to waves and flicks within the bunch felt suitably swift and with the help of the wide Zipps and well-rounded tyres, cornering was very secure.
It’s not in my nature to just sit in the bunch all race, so I had a dig or two o the front. The Rondo’s initial acceleration kick created a decent gap and although neither break attempt stuck, maintaining the e ort didn’t feel much di erent to trying the same thing on a conventional road bike. The only minor gripes on that day were from a couple of less-than-ideal
WITH ITS OFF ROAD ABILITIES VERIFIED, IT WAS TIME TO CHANGE MODES, TURNING THE RUUT INTO A ROAD MACHINE
gear ratio gaps when climbing, but those can be ironed out.
CONTRE LA MONTRE
When building the Ruut, I’d deliberately chosen a bar that’s designed to take clip-on tri bars. Zipp’s Service Course SL80 Ergo was perfect and has back sweep plus an ergo drop. To go time trialling I swapped the rear wheel to the deepest rim I could find: a Swiss Side Hadron 625. I fitted an 11-28 cassette for smaller gear jumps, Zipp’s aluminium clip-on bars and removed the bottle cages. Without proper bar-end plugs, a pair of Cateye red LED bar end lights literally filled a hole.
My Ruut’s head tube is short at 130mm and the flip chip-reduced stack, plus underslung TT extensions, created a pretty decent position. Some tinkering with arm rests, bar lengths and angles was needed, but it was soon ready to race.
For a worthwhile test, I returned to a club 10-mile time trial course that I grew up racing on. I have intimate knowledge of every bump in the road and years of comparable results from a time when I was considerably faster, but also on a 90s steel TT bike with limited aero benefit. So this test was bound to make things a little interesting.
The e ect of sti , aerodynamic wheels with fast-rolling tubeless tyres that are much wider and comfier than the 21mm tubulars I used to race can’t be overstated. I used to run 53/48 rings with a 12-23 freewheel, so I expected my 46 ring with 11-28 cassette to feel a bit gappy. It was a little, but the lower bottom gear and realistically high-enough top gear made up for it.
With the intense starting e ort over, I settled into a tuck and began trying to hold form, cadence and speed together with some sort of style. It was soon noticeable that the road surface has deteriorated over the years and that the average club time triallist has got pretty quick and harder to catch. One scalp, and a reasonably well-paced e ort was as much as I could hope for. The Ruut remained a comfy place to race throughout and was less a ected by poor line choice than my 90s bike would’ve been.
The wheels felt quick and e cient and sounded good, too, but the nagging concern about the frameset’s non-aero shaping left me certain my time would su er. In the end, a 23.28 on an average night was very satisfactory. My first time trial in a year resulted in the sort of time I used to produce regularly, so maybe wheel eficiency and aerodynamics can make up for age and reduced fitness.
ONE FOR ALL?
Rondo said that the Ruut could ride just about anywhere and via the medium of competition I’d have to agree. Yes, the gearing range needs attention, unless you choose a 2x setup, but it was never a big problem. The handling, ride comfort and versatility are impressive. It was fast, too, although with an obvious o -road bias. The cost of this bike without wheels is roughly £2800, but cheaper Rondos are available and they don’t all have 15mm front thruaxles. Swapping between build setups doesn’t take all that long either – assuming you have a six-bolt front hub. Would we regularly switch setups? Maybe between similar activities, or with enough pre-ride time, but not daily.
The Rondo Ruut CF1 can do it all, or at least all the roles I tried, with only minor compromises. So if you can have just one bike and like to mix it up, it could be the answer.
WITH A GOOD RESULT MAYBE WHEEL EFFICIENCY AND AERODYNAMICS CAN MAKE UP FOR AGE AND REDUCED FITNESS?