I moved house in January, to the flat lands… Not far but all my local ‘off road’ now involves a serious amount of ‘road’.

The idea was to do a frame swap with my road bike (which was only ever ridden in Watopia) – it’ll only cost me a frame, right?

So here is the new Sonder Camino Al, Mint green, Medium, all custom. And the only recycled bit is the rear Ultegra RX derrailleur. The rest is brand new. Oh well.

Its nothing like a Road Bike, but also very different from a regular hardtail MTB, and for me its exactly where a Gravel bike should sit – not the skinny aero racy things with 35mm tyres.

I will also not be attaching 10 kgs of ‘kit’, a gas stove, a sleeping bag, emergency flares, pack of firewood etc just for a 3 hour ride, not really my bag. Would have preffered it without all the mounts all over the frame, just a singe bottle cage for me!

Isnt it lovely? Its looks very ‘chonky’ with 50mm tyres, big-ish bars with squishy bar tape, but feels reasonably light. Built up some XTR hubs and DT rims for really nice wheels, 11-42 Shimano 11 speed, Ritchey bar/stem/post/tape because mathcing.

(New house. Bike priority over lawn!)

That does like really nice and clean in terms of lines – I like it! What size chainring have you got on there?

Round here, the local rides I’ve been doing, it’s been quite hard just getting my hardtail up some climbs with a 30t chainring / 42t lowest gear. Not failed yet but I do wonder how I’d fare with a gravelly type of bike with a bigger chainring at the front.

Very nice. I have the Ti version. Its a lovely lovely thing.

Cool, yeah, I do like the chunkier tyres. Mk1 Tripster doesn’t fit em though, so don’t diss yeah!?
Does that take a 31.6 dropper by any chance?

That’s really nice!

Are they 650B or 700c? Looking at the specs I didn’t think these were rated for 50mm in either size, be good to know that they are as I think I’ll be ordering one when the books open up again.

Would it be able to handle a club road ride if you stuck skinny slicks on it?

Thanks!

40tooth chainring – very little elevation where I live (hence this bike and not my Hardtail) and I alao found that on a gravel bike with drop bard its easier to honk up a climb with a bigger ratio than it is on a MTB. I can drop to 38t If I need too but I doubt I will.

Tyres are Goodyear Connector 700×50 on a 23mm DT XR361 Rim – still with plenty of mud clearance. Its not far off an older MTB in that regard. Its one of the things that I liked about the frame, its just about the best of whats available for budget alloy stuff.

As an aside, they were really, really easy to seal up tubeless, Three squirts with a track pump and they were onto the bead. I was impressed.

Would it be able to handle a club road ride if you stuck skinny slicks on it?

I’m pretty sure the bike would! 90rpm with that gearing should give around 27mph which is fast enough for me.

That’s some impressive dirt splashback on the wall.

Nice ride. 👌

That’s some impressive dirt splashback on the wall.

The curse of the white rendered wall.

Looks great, but am biased as I have an XL Camino acquired in February. Much better for me than the race bike with bigger tyres some gravel bikes are (which is fine, horses for courses). I like doing country rides and spotting new bridleways or byways I wasn’t aware of and having the confidence to just dive off road to explore.