Giant Revolt 1 or Sonder Camino

Hi all,

Ive moved away from the buying a Ribble now. Good bikes but looking around I can get the same build bike (Just about) for less.

Ive seen a 2022 Giant Revolt 1 on sale for just under £1200 but cant find many reviews.

Ive also seen the Sonder Camino for around the same money but with Sram Apex 11?

Has anyone got or ridden either to give a comparison?

Thanks

Not sure about those exact bikes but I seem to recall some mild discussion about the lack of aftersales care from one or other of those brands…

Friend of my mate turned up for our coffee ride yesterday with a Revolt. Seat post adjustment done with a shiv in the frame locking the post and a rubber cover to stop rain, mud going down into the frame. Fiddly to adjust and just daft, totally put me off an otherwise nice bike. Then again I demoed a Camino and didn’t buy one of them either.

done with a shiv

😮

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The Camino seems well loved. I know where I would be spending.

+1 on Sonder

Not ridden a Revolt, but I got a Camino a month or so back on C2W.
Well pleased with it so far – plenty of customisation options at time of ordering, customer service was fast & all questions answered thoroughly. I went for GRX1x build with a few changes.

I’ve not ridden it much due to weather/dark evenings etc. but I have been impressed so far.
It’s definitely towards the gravel bike end of things, rather than a road bike with loads of tyre clearance (crap explanation, sorry).
It feels very stable off-road. On-road it is fine, but slower to turn than my road bike (obviously) and you notice the weight of it when accelerating back up to speed out of junctions. But – so what? It’s to be expected.
The bars have quite an extreme flare which seems to be very love/hate. I think they are great. If they aren’t for you, you can always spec normal bars in the customisation options.

I looked at a shed-load of different options & slowly whittled it down to the Camino. The weird D-shaped seatpost of the Giant was probably the reason it got ticked off the list early. Just seems like a completely pointless way of doing things to be different. And the recent warranty stuff means I just wouldn’t bother.

I’ve got a 2022 Revolt which I use mainly as a road bike.
Overall a good bike, although with a few annoying bits. The seat post clamp is just stupid and fiddly.
The mud guard mounts are a bit strange, with the front mount under the crown rather than in the normal brake hole position, which needed a modification of my mud guards to fit. I have heard more bikes are going with this design, which is just a form over function decision.
There are 2 positions for bottles on the downtube, but the bottom position clashes with the seattube bottle mount. This is annoying when trying to run a framebag for longer days out as that needs the lower position, but the 2 bottles then interfere. It does not stop you running 2 bottles, just extra care needed.

But other than that, the bike rides well and and is just a comfortable all round bike.

I’ve had two Revolts now. The older gen alloy one was great. Upgraded to the carbon version a couple of years ago and am very happy with that. Definitely at the road bike end of the gravel spectrum rather than MTB lite. The seatpost clamp is fine. Plenty of carbon prep and it’s solid. I think the current bike can be adapted to run a dropper if youre that way inclined.

Mate of mine has got Apex on his bike and doesn’t rate it. The GRX on my Trig is miles better. Worth considering at the current price.
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ragley-trig-bike-ultra-violet/rp-prod205340

The Camino is a proper off-roaders Gravel Bike. Its sturdy, simple, and I really enjoy mine.

The D-shaped seat post is comfortable, as that is its purpose, not some aero waste. But the seat post hole is round (with an extra spacer to make the D round), so you can run a normal round seat post, or dropper.

Cheers all.

I’m looking at these with a view to doing mainly road riding but with the extra stack height to be a bit more upright.

It will probably be a 80/20 split for road riding/gravel.

I guess the question is which will be better on road with decent road tyres or should I just look at high stack height road bikes?

Have a look at the Canyon Endurace. The 105 alu version is £1449. Has clearance for 35mm tyres and a high stack.

Canyon

I use my Revolt as a road bike. 32mm tyres with the only gravel being a shared use gravel path I use to get out of town.
The geometry of the Revolt wasn’t much different from some endurance road bikes, so made sense to me and I don’t care about the big gaps in the frame around the tyres.

I have a Revolt 0 and a Camino I built up with Tiagra. Both great bikes. I use the Revolt both as a winter road and faster gravel bike. The Sonder is a little more stable and a bit slower. The Revolt (M) sometimes feels big, whereas the Sonder and my other Giant (TCR) are perfect sized (both M’s).

I’ve not adjusted the seat on the Revolt since I got it, though the little rubber cover on the seat tube adjuster is a bit rubbish.

If I could only have one, I would keep the Revolt.

Friend of my mate turned up for our coffee ride yesterday with a Revolt. Seat post adjustment done with a shiv in the frame locking the post and a rubber cover to stop rain, mud going down into the frame

seat post adjustment you say? Does he know he’s now invalidated his warranty?

Having scanned the Giant warranty on their webpage can’t see why adjusting seat height will threaten a warranty..

Re the Revolt Vs Camino, compare the geometry.

I’ve only had mine a week but so far it’s been exactly what I wanted which is a light gravel bike which is also responsive on the road to replace a light CX bike I’d been using for the same.

If I wanted to tackle more gnarly single-track, I can fit a dropper and 650b beefy tyres, there are 1x versions and I can add all manner of bikepacking accoutrements via the various fixing points.. but if I was focussing on that scenario as the most common use case, I probably wouldn’t be starting with a Revolt..

Having scanned the Giant warranty on their webpage can’t see why adjusting seat height will threaten a warranty.

You must have missed the Giant warranty thread on this very forum.

Saw that thread, I’ve also read how to adjust my seat height and saddle position in my Giant Bicycle Owner’s Manual. There is also a section on torque settings for various bolts and clamps, a guide to adjusting the positions of brake levers and clear descriptions of where Giant feels you will be better served consulting it’s dealers for more complex procedures.

I’ve also looked at the warranty on the Giant website, can’t see it excluding adjusting the contact points, the exclusions are pretty clear, I may have missed something..

I’ll ask the dealer about this when I take the bike in for its first post purchase check over in the next week or so.

@davy90 – it is just a running gag. I suspect your dealer won’t quite understand when you ask…unless our old friend Ian has had a word with them about how mean the forum is.

Noted 🙂

I’m loving my Nukeproof Digger. Does most things I’d do on a hardtail and more, very good spec (GRX 1x) and thirteen hundred quid! Can’t go wrong at that really.

I really fancied a Camino Ti but long lead time at the time, and a lot more money. I have a Broken Road and love it so am a fan of Sonder. TBH I could buy a Camino Ti frame and fork, hang the bits off the Digger on it and I’d be quids in – and have the Digger frmeset to sell. Bit of a bargain really and sooo much fun to ride.