Morning all

I’ve got a bit of a yearning to do some fairly long distance gravelly stuff next year – Camino de Santiago, perhaps from Paris or Le Puy and maybe on to Lisbon – so I have been looking at bikes which would fit the part. I’ve been looking at the Lauf True Grit, it seems amazing value for money and a little bit different.

Does anyone have one? What are your thoughts, particularly in light of my use case and also the fork – I’m 110kg, so with luggage the bike will be pretty loaded, will the fork be over worked/useless/like a pogo stick?

Any other bike suggestions greatly welcomed. Preferably 1x and hydraulic discs. Upto about £3k and a little bit niche (Surly, Salsa, Lauf etc), because I am a tart.

Thanks

I’ve just got one but waiting for my wheels to arrive before I use it (wanted carbon wheels but didn’t want to stretch to the race spec). It looks nice! Comes with brakes euro-style but Lauf will cover the cost for your LBS to swap them round.

Richie Rothwell (a long time gravel bike sceptic) got one recently (before the Dirty Reiver and Further East – there’s a GCN video following Simon Richardson doing the Further East race and Rich was riding with him a big chunk of the way) and he really likes it. Fork is enough to take the sting out and improve comfort (and it’s also zero maintenance which appeals to me!)

Can’t comment on the Lauf but I’m sure it would be great. I did the Dirty Reiver with the Redshift suspension stem fitted to a pair of Ritchey Beacon bars. Great combination and IMO the stem works really well on gravel.

Yes I have one. Great bike and lauf are easy to deal with . I (and my wife) recently rode the Gbduro on ours,so fairly loaded over pretty rough terrain. The forks only have a small amount of travel and I didn’t notice any issues with the front luggage over weighting it. Build quality seems good

A bit more info on our Laufs. We got the basic model, the weekend warrior. We’ve used them for a few mixed terrain events,like gbduro, king alfreds way and the west kernow way. All of these carrying our luggage. We made a few changes for this, going up to 45mm tyres for a bit of extra cushioning and grip. Gearing was changed to, with a 38 chainring and a 11-46 cassette. The rival derailleur handles this fine. I swap back to standard when doing unladen rides. Overall I am very happy with it.

I did the Dirty Reiver with the Redshift suspension stem fitted to a pair of Ritchey Beacon bars.

Interesting, never heard of it – last one I used was a Flex Stem in the 80s IIRC.

I can think of a few places on the Camino Santiago where a loaded gravel bike won’t be much fun. I like gravel bikes but I was happy there on a rigid 29er with a more MTB ride position, 2.3s etc. Had a lot of fun. I’m a fair bit lighter than you and pack light too. A gravel bike would do it, I just see their appeal waning when they’re loaded, off-road, for multiple days. For me it’d be all the negatives of skinny tyres and the road-bike esque ride position and few if any of the positives – not like a rider with luggage is going to be zipping up hill on day 5, 8 etc.
Also depends what use you’ll get from it as a day to day bike at home of course.