Gravel: Mason Bokeh or Reilly Gradient

Very nice indeed.

No pull cords !

No pull cords… but the exit holes are big enough so should be an easy job to get the cable at the other end… Magnet and/or hooked wire.. I’ve done a few.

How tall are you/what size did you go for?

Dickie, I’m a short arse.. 5ft 6″ on a good day. 29″ inside leg.
Size 50 (XS)

Here she is:

Tasty! Did you have much difficulty routing the internal cabling?

V neat hedge too, although your paving could do with a quick vac… 😉

V Nice.
The clearance with a 650b set is impressive.

No problems with internal routing, I don’t see why people get so upset about it. It’s a slight faff at times, requires some patience but with some steady technique it’s easily do’able. A loop of thin Cat5e copper cable is my go to method for laso’ing the cable as it travels past the exit hole.
Thanks on the hedge and yes the paving needs some attention.

Yes, plenty of clearance for 650b 2″ rubber, loads.

Finishing touches will include a matching disc for the front and maybe a black saddle (but I love my trusty brown Charge Ti saddle so much)

Nice. Needs orange valve caps though ;o)

Flatmount caliper on the front would be tidier too.

Yes yes… I hear you.
Both are post mount calipers with adapters. The cost of swapping to flat mount seems unjust. But agree it would look cleaner and save some weight/complication too.
It is on the list for the future.

Nice! I got a black one since I decided not to wait months for the next order. It now has orange tape, cages and cables to match the graphics!

And I’ve ordered on orange cervelo.

Maybe should have held out for the right colour bokeh! But it certainly ride well and got me round HONC no problem.

The orange is lush and very very shiny..!

That’s lovely.

What chainring is that on the chain set?

Some cheapo from Ebay!
Its really nice, 38t direct mount without a spider so very clean looking.
Wear seems fine and its only like £15 or somthing.

snap

international license insurance

Sweeeeet..! Although yours looks MUCH faster than mine.. 🙁

Don’t suppose you have an eBay link do you?
I’ve had a look and can’t find it but I really want it for my new build gravel bike.

Thanks.

Cat needs m(e)owing

Is that your correct saddle height? I think I’d want a bit more stand over than that looks like it’s got for unexpected dismounts riding off road. Love the colour.

Saddle height, its about 1cm higher now give or take. I’m pretty short so have this issue on pretty much all gravel/road frames so its an occupational hazard for me.

Cats been hoovered instead.

Neutrino Components are the makers of the chainring.
Google them and you will get their own website, or punch it into Ebay and you should find em.

I’m liking that. Good work

Very interested in a Bokeh, what’s the verdict on sram v shimano 1x or 2x?
Are they as good as they seem?
Thanks PJ.

Great. Been running force 1x for 2 years now. I removed the wide range 42t rear cassette for a narrower 36t, also dropped the front ring to 38t. It’s pretty flat round here so that gearing suited my fitness and the terrain better. I rarely hit the road so top end is not important and if I need 42t at the rear then the MTB comes out.

Yes sometimes on longer sections I’m slightly in between cadences but it’s a small price for such a simple and clean setup without a front mech and multiple chain rings. I don’t think there is any reason not to 1x unless you really require your cadence to be spot on all the time.

No problems apart from the top jockey wheel gumming up, apparently that’s a common issue in the mud for this mech.

As for comparing to shimano, I’ve never used a shimano road/gravel/cx setup, so I cant.

Thanks for the info, as I suspected that 1x would suit me fine,
cheers!

really like the look of the Bokeh but could never bring myself to leave one in our bike shed at work with the way people throw their BSO in there.

PJ – There isn’t really an off the shelf Shimano 1x road setup but nothing to stop you just using any shimano group and running a single ring up front on the chainset of your choice. What’s missing is the clutch derailleur but it’s not essential for road / gravel in my experience provided you use a narrow wide ring. The left lever has nothing to shift but thats not a problem either.

SRAM are more on the ball for this and have the dedicated 1x groups. I hired an Open Up last year that had Force 1x and it was great, I’d have no problem using that or Shimano. My bike has a franken group of SRAM cranks, shimano mechs and Sunrace cassette and it all works.

Finally re: gear ratios on 1x for road: it’s always going to be compromised between range and gear steps so you need to work out whats important to you. If you like to bowl along on the road and run up and down the cassette to keep your cadence then it might not be for you. With an 11-40 cassette the steps are a little awkward in that middle range where you are pedalling along on the level or rolling terrain but otherwise its ok. As far as range goes, 40-11 pedalled at 100 rpm will get you moving at 30mph, 40-40 / 1:1 should get you up most hills

If you felt like it you can run eTap as 1x. As long as you can cope with max 32 on the back.

If you felt like it you can run eTap as 1x. As long as you can cope with max 32 on the back

is there a reason you couldn’t fit a hanger extender for a larger cassette?

So when are Shimano going to jump on the road/cx/gravel 1x wagon..? They must be losing many customers to SRAM who want an off the shelf group, rather than bodging one together.
Do they have anything in the pipeline that is public yet?

No idea but it can’t be hard to add a chainset, rebranded mtb mech and a lever without a shifter mechanism. They’re probably trying to invent some daft new proprietary chainring or cassette for it first though

Thanks for the replies, I’ll have a good look at all the options over the weekend, at the moment I’m thinking bokeh with 650b and rival, hope to order something in the next week.
Cheers.

Go Force if you can, its a top line frame and decent wheelset so seems a shame to stick ‘only’ Rival onto it. ? If you do go for the Force chaninset ensure to get the crank boots to protect them.
Don’t make my mistake and leave it until they are chipped up well and look tatty..

Shimano do have a clutch road mech in the Ultegra RX, but it has a 34t sprocket limit. It does work very well though; I have one on my Gradient (ooh, back on topic!). Surely only a matter of time before they do a 1x system.

Interested to know how a 650b ‘gravel’ bike compares to a rigid 29er mtb. With a rigid mtb you can ride tech stuff, within reason, all be it rather slower that suspension. Appreciate that it is subjective, but at what point would I be out of my depth on something like a bokeh?

When I was setting up my gravel bike I wanted a clutch mech and a 10-42 cassette run off a 1X set up.
In the end I settled on Shimano Ultegra Di2 levers mated to an XTR Di2 rear mech. Cranks are Next SL with a 40T Superstar round ring.Cassette is a Sram mtb jobby. Because the left lever was redundant I set it up so that the right lever changes up the block and the left lever goes down.
So far all this works very well. My riding is 95% off road in the forests and hills of the Purbecks and Dorset (and Paris-Roubaix a week or so ago) I do have a 38T ring ready for some alpine stuff.
As someone said above, I’m not absolutely sure you need a clutch mech if using a thick/thin ring, but we do have some rocky downhills so its an insurance.

Ordered a bokeh this morning with ‘only’ Rival on it, will upgrade in future as bits wear out, went for 650b option as planning mostly forest roads and towpath with road to join them up.

Appreciate that it is subjective, but at what point would I be out of my depth on something like a bokeh?

Only you know that but the question is more at what point you’d be having more fun on another bike. It’s probably when you wish you had bigger tyres, flat bars and more distance between your genitals and the top tube.

Good work Peajay… !

The Bokeh option works for 90% of my riding year. I live in an area with hundreds of miles of relatively smooth gravel paths though fields, bridleways and shoddy roads.. My MTB is too much for this stuff and I dont enjoy it as much.
The other 10% is when I fancy some wheely/bunnyhoppy/jumpy action or when I go to the Lakes/Dorset/Peaks for the family holiday twice a year.. Then I take the MTB.

To be honest, both bikes feel crapy in the other ones world.
Dont get me wrong; The Bokeh will do gnarly, the MTB will do miles… I choose the most suited bike in advance as its pretty obvious what trails I’m planning to hit that day.

I dont fully enjoy descending nasty rocky trails on 40cm drops, rigid, on relatively skinny tyres.
I equally dont fully enjoy miles of fast gravel trails between open fields sitting upright with massive tyres, old skool 26″ wheels and wide bars.

Its all about what you ride most of. Both bikes will survive in the others world for a short while.
I suppose the risk of crashing a gravel bike on a MTB trail is higher and subsequently has a larger negative consequence compared to being a bit slower, bored and fed up on a MTB on the miles of gravel..

Does that make sense or have I babbled?

I feel like mountain biking has left me behind, spent the last 3 1/2 years using my fat bike for everything and loving it but now feeling like a change, the fatty will still do the commuting and play stuff and the bokeh will be used for longer stuff. I’m sure modern mtbs are brilliant things to ride but I’m just not into jumps and drop offs and berms, and these long bikes just don’t look right in my old school eyes!

My set up.
2×11 using the FSA gravel crankset. 30/46 with an 11-34t on the back.
Hope rx4 brakes
Hunt wheels.
Thomson bars, stem and post.

Amazing bike