Looking ahead to next year perhaps and thinking about re-purposing my lovely custom Rourke to audax/winter road duties and getting a more up-to-date gravel bike.
I'm hankering for greater tyre clearance and maybe lighter weight. I think adjustable geometry would be a must, my winter gravel is, to all intents and purposes, CX riding, and I really enjoy the handling of my current CX franken-bike that I ride in the winter.
I'm a Shimano guy through and through, and definitely 2x. I'm ambivalent about electric so ideally mechanical 2x GRX. If and when the Shimano callipers started mis-behaving I would go Shigura.
I can't see anything which combines all of this in one package except one of the higher end Giant Revolts, what else am I missing?
Self-reported multiple posts...
Revolt owner here since 2019. Mine doesn't have the adjustable geo but I've tried it on a test ride and TBH couldn't tell much of a difference, it's been a great bike though. Looking at it's replacement I'm thinking either a Propain Terrel cf or the new Bird gravel as frame only and build it up with 2x GRX.
My Revolt X is more akin in setup to old school MTB, intentionally, with the Rudy fork and AXS reverb, which pairs perfectly with Rival AXS 1X shifting. It is a bit slower than my Diverge on road and much more of a hoot on trails.
I have a 2019 Revolt Advanced and when/if the time to change comes I won't be adverse to getting a new one.
It's a great bike and is good for most of my needs - road rides, gravel rides, bike packing and a bit of light trail riding (took it around most of the Twrch trail at Cwmcarn once: hard, slow work but managed it, just).
I know a some people have had issues with Giant's warranty but the couple of times I have had a problem Giant have responded quickly and favourably, so no worries there as far as I am concerned.
The giant tcx has a good rep as a mainstream cross bike that hasn't been gravelled to death. Excellent clearances.
Do you want the adjustable geometry for bike packing and the like, ie make it longer? Cross bikes and modern road bikes have very similar wheelbase nowadays, short CX wheelbase isn't a distinct thing anymore afaik.
Do like my 2023 Advanced 0, happily did 175k road loop the other weekend with the road wheels. Am commuting to work on it tomorrow with a pannier and Quick Rack. It's done bike packing, Dunwich Dynamo, alpine road and gravel and lots of SE tarmac, mud and bridleway.
It's pretty stock, I changed the stem to a 90mm and it's on its second chain and front mech cable in two years and the bar tape could do with replacing soon, as could the rear mech cable. I've yet to tinker with the flip chip, not yet gone bigger than the original 40mm Cadex AR tyres ... The GRX brakes are brilliant.
My only gripe is the colour and there are many prettier bikes out there..
Rondo Rutt has adjustable geo but looks even worse than the Revolt 😀
Thanks folks, sorry still struggling to reply to threads!
Looking around, if not the Giant Revolt then the only other bike I can see that combines all features is the Canyon Grail, although annoyingly the model I would be interested in only comes with wireless Di2 in 2x, don't really want to pay extra for that.
That's interesting to know about CX/Gravel geo, I'd assumed there were still differences. I don't even know if I would notice, but I do know I really enjoy riding my old-ish Kinesis CX race in the mud, which I had put down to maybe the tighter geometry.
With the Revolt, I intended just to run it short all the time unless I wanted to try and cram in bigger tyres (which is a realistic possibility). I just liked the idea that I could adjust for all eventualities.
Virtually every other bike on the market with the tyre clearance is limited to 1x only, presumably for chainstay clearance. GRX 2x builds are getting scarce!
On One Free Ranger takes 2x, and it'll run 50mm tyres (only tried this 1x).
With the Revolt, I intended just to run it short all the time unless I wanted to try and cram in bigger tyres (which is a realistic possibility).
I have a spare set of 650b wheels that I use on the Revolt if it's going to be a particularly lumpy or muddy ride. 47mm tyres fit no problem and I daresay the newer Revolt models will take wider than that.
Have you looked at the gravel bikes at Decathlon? The Van Rysel ebike version takes 50mm.
I replaced a broken carbon Fuji Altimira CX clone with my Revolt, and test rode both the M and ML Revolts before choosing the M, for which I am at the top of size range, as it felt closer the CX bike than the ML, which was longer and slacker. For my use, its been compact and nimble but I've not thrown it down any steep mountain rock gardens. It doesn't feel cumbersome in road trim either.
Canyon Grail looks good.
Just placed an order for this On C2W
https://www.cube.eu/uk-en/cube-nuroad-c-62-pro-willowgreen-n-black/830200
Amazing spec for the money including full 820 GRX, carbon wheels/handlebars and takes 50mm tyres. Just a shame about the vomit colour 😄
I'm curious...
I think adjustable geometry would be a must...
Why?
Because I have been enjoying swapping between my summer gravel bike (custom geo designed for comfort and stability at speed) and my 'winter' gravel bike which is just an old CX bike with 40mm tyres shoehorned in. I typically ride faster and rougher gravel routes in summer and slower more techy mudfy singletrack in winter.
I've convinced myself I can tell the difference between the two bikes and would like the ability to set any new bike up differently depending on what I'm riding.
Saying it was a 'must' was maybe a tad strong though, but since the feature exists I figured I would like to have it.
Although that Cube is £1300 less than a similarly specced Revolt, which is a lot of money for the adjustable geo (and yeah, nicer paintjob 🤣 ) on the Revolt...
I’ve had my Revolt on the longer wheelbase setting since I bought it. It came set up in the short setting with 40mm wide fast tyres. I swapped the tyres and changed to the long setting before the first ride. Initially I had it on 45mm tyres it’s now on 50mm wide Schwalbe G one tubeless. Ultrabite on the front bite on the rear. It feels fast and nimble to me. Not sure if I would want it to be any more nimble but that’s probably down to my lack of bike skills/confidence. On road narrow tyres would be faster but on gravel the wide tyres are brilliant.
I've convinced myself I can tell the difference between the two bikes and would like the ability to set any new bike up differently depending on what I'm riding.
Fair enough! I'd just assumed this was an N+1 rather than a N+1-2 situation 😉