NORTHERN SOUL
Titanium takes on carbon in two wellspecced, attractively priced gravel bikes from British brands
Two bikes with one important thing in common – they’re designed for the modern phenomenon that is gravel riding. But there is more that separates them. For starters, and this is a big one, one is made from titanium and the other from carbon fibre. What else? Well, one has a ‘classic’ Shimano compact double chainset, the second features the more modern 1x setup from SRAM. Perhaps the most important di!erence – for some, anyway – is that the carbon bike emanates from Lancashire’s long-established Merlin Cycles while its titanium competitor is from She"eld’s Planet X, so it’s a War of the Roses for the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ era.
Both carbon and titanium are renowned for o!ering comfort and Merlin and Planet X are well recognised for producing great-value bikes. These two look like furthering those reputations, with both at the upper end of what you’d expect for the money. This means full Shimano 105 hydraulic on the Merlin and SRAM Force hydraulic for Planet X’s Tempest. Mechanical discs? So 2017! The prices are correct as we go to press, and though the Merlin’s RRP is £2038 it’s likely to be at £1657 for the foreseeable future.
These bikes gave us the perfect opportunity to compare two distinct takes on how to make a gravel machine. We tried them out on wintry West Country roads and mud-covered canal towpaths, with a final day on Salisbury Plain’s gravel trails. I happened to choose an occasion that coincided with Army live firing exercises on the Plain, and the ground-shaking explosions gave a drama to the day’s proceedings. It’s the first time I can remember riding and looking down on helicopters that seemed to come straight out of Apocalypse Now. Though neither of the bikes seemed at all fazed by the fireworks…
FRAME, SET AND MATCH
The Tempest was designed by renowned frame maker Mark Reilly, formerly of Enigma and now with his own Reilly Cycleworks in Brighton. Planet X calls it its ‘first dedicated titanium gravel adventure bike’, and with acres of tyre clearance and a full range of rack and mudguard fittings it promises to be a genuinely versatile bike. It’s very neatly welded in the Far East from triple-butted 3Al/2.5V titanium, the grade of the metal most commonly used in bikes (the ‘aerospace grade’ flash shows the material is also used in the aeronautics industry, but so is carbon fibre and steel so it doesn’t mean that much).
Merlin describes its GX-01 as its ‘super-lightweight high-performance carbon gravel bike’ with clearances for tyres up to 40mm wide. The carbon has a five per cent liquid crystal polymer injected, which adds crash resistance. As with the Planet X it’s a case of 12mm thru-axles for both frame and fork, though one area where the Merlin scores is in the neatness of the
cabling, which is all routed internally. Interestingly for 2019/2020, Planet X and Merlin stick with threaded bottom brackets, which is no bad thing as they are less likely to creak and easier to replace.
Both have wheelbases well over a metre and both bomb along nicely over a variety of surfaces, the lighter, narrower-tyred Merlin having the better of things on climbs, the Planet X digging in grippily on muddier tracks. There was plenty of comfort from both, too, the Planet X’s carbon post taking the sting out well, in spite of its 31.6mm diameter (titanium seems to be one of the last holdouts for the larger diameter seatpost). The Planet X’s flared bar came in to its own over poorer surfaces and allowed us to ride more confidently.
BURNING RUBBER
There’s little to choose between the wheels, with Merlin’s Fulcrum Racing 6s up against the same company’s Racing 700s on the Tempest. Both have rider weight limits of 109kg (giving me 30kg of breathing space) and similar weights but the Planet X’s 700s have a shallower rim depth and wider rim width. Their 19mm inner width will take tyres from 23-62mm while the Racing 6s top out at 50mm. Fulcrum’s rims have what it calls a ‘two-way’ fit so you can run them with tubes or, using its two-way valve, go tubeless. Fulcrum does say, however, that you should only run its tubeless rims with Schwalbe tyres.
While there was little di erence between the bikes’ wheels, the same isn’t true of the tyres. The Planet X’s 43mm Rock n Road tyres are made by Panaracer in Japan and they excel over mud and genuinely rough gravel as well as finer grit, which isn’t surprising as these were originally a mountain bike tyre, dating back to 1988. On tarmac you’ll lose some pace, especially climbing steeper hills, but they o er great comfort and their quiet hum is the only sound you hear, as the Tempest’s drivetrain is virtually silent even when freewheeling.
The Merlin’s Schwalbe G-One All-Round TG tyres are narrower, at ‘just’ 35mm, but proved to be an excellent all-round gravel-cum-road tyre. They o er decent adhesion even over tracks and towpaths but are not as mountain-bike-grippy as the Rock n Roads on muddy tracks and gnarlier gravel. They are quicker on the road, though, and it’s really just a case of horses for courses; no single tyre will do everything perfectly. That’s a stone-cold fact.
We also experimented with tyre pressures, starting at the maximum for both and gradually running them lower. Even with inner tubes, we ran them well under their top pressure, at least o road. That said, we’d
I HAPPENED TO CHOOSE A DAY THAT COINCIDED WITH ARMY LIVE FIRING EXERCISES ON THE PLAIN, BUT NEITHER BIKE WAS FAZED…