New gravel bike from Bird Cycleworks

We also like riding gravel, which helps!

Crosses Ben off the Christmas card list 🙂

Hopefully along the Fustle Causeway GR style rather than the road bike with fat tyres route.

Tidy looking!

Nothing on their website yet (unless I’m being inept)

Come on, it’s a Friday and snow means I’m wfh and I need to be distracted

@superstu I just saw the image here: https://www.bird.bike/news-blogs-and-more/

Ah so that’s a custom paintjob. Very tasty though.

On a tangent, is that guy really doing graffiti in white trousers? And spraying so close to his lovely gravel bike?

So looks like its carbon? Funky headtube junction too…

Ooh that looks lovely. Can take a front mech by the looks of it as well. That could replace my road bike and have 2 sets of wheels for tarmac and gravel….

That is lovely!

Yeah, looks like it can run a front mech from this pic.

Where are you seeing these @ogden ? That link just takes me to a couple of very old articles. Wonder if they were updating the website ‘behind the scenes’ and it accidentally went live momentarily just as you were looking?

Nothing on their IG yet either …

If that is the one, then I have to say it looks a lot like many other carbon dropped seat stay frames. That photo doesn’t seem to show much clearance for 2x. Not really the kind of thing that appeals to me, and being carbon it’ll have a premium, but good luck to them and hopefully it delivers the margins they hope for, mentioned above.

Just leaving this here for visual similarity/comparison: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005111904837.html?src=google&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21GBP%21582.21%21394.79%21%21%21%21%21%40%2112000031701221328%21ppc%21%21%21&src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=494-037-6276&isdl=y&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&aff_platform=google&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&gclsrc=aw.ds&&albagn=888888&&ds_e_adid=&ds_e_matchtype=&ds_e_device=c&ds_e_network=x&ds_e_product_group_id=&ds_e_product_id=en1005005111904837&ds_e_product_merchant_id=107779205&ds_e_product_country=GB&ds_e_product_language=en&ds_e_product_channel=online&ds_e_product_store_id=&ds_url_v=2&albcp=17859500389&albag=&isSmbAutoCall=false&needSmbHouyi=false&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA9IC6BhA3EiwAsbltOAVMNZoJhuU7pGgmMmvcyl6UjFPW2UomAXe3iZNoQSrn9KvA1l-VHBoCdPIQAvD_BwE

Where are you seeing these @ogden ? That link just brakes me to a couple of very old articles. Wonder if they were updating the website ‘behind the scenes’ and it accidentally went live momentarily just as you were looking?

Possibly; I had the page open still from when I first went to it. These were the only two photos on there. Just assumed it had gone live given it was online.

I just saw the image here: https://www.bird.bike/news-blogs-and-more/

Link from there no longer working so I hope this means Bird are updating the website and we’ll see the new bike soon…

@faustus … That Ali-Express frame, whilst similar, looks to have a few subtle differences, the way the top tube joins the seat tube, and the join behind the head tube for instance.

Hopefully not headtube routed cables or I’ll have to pass.

Please don’t be carbon…please don’t be carbon…I’m very keen on this but really don’t want carbon (I’ve an issue with old carbon going to landfill and not really easily recyclable)…aside from that, please external cable routing…keep it nice and simple and easy to work on!

Yep, was really just to show similarity and that it looks to be a fairly generic frame, perhaps with tweaks…

@benpinnick, @benpinnick, @benpinnick

Come on. Put us out of our misery, please. 🙂

Can someone give some context here.  Are we expecting Bird to update the website and have a buy now button so I can get some shiny next week?

Or is this just a ” look what we’re going to do in 2025, but don’t even think of buying it just now” type thing?

thegeneralistFree Member
Can someone give some context here.  Are we expecting Bird to update the website and have a buy now button so I can get some shiny next week?

Or is this just a ” look what we’re going to do in 2025, but don’t even think of buying it just now” type thing?

If it’s anything like the Aeris AM launch last year, suspect it will be a launch and opportunity to ‘pre-order’ for delivery in early 2025.

AERELON ?

Rear end of the top tube

Well it’s on their IG feed. Nothing on the website yet…

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bird Cycleworks (@bird_mtb)

Edit* oh there it is…

New Aerelon Gravel coming in 2025

.

Heed tube routing for all us “racing types” to save 2 watts, I’m oot.

I guess they hate us now 🙁

Apart from that, looks ace

there is a link to their website, 2x wide fitment, no mention of a dropper, and it comes with a carbon seatpost so suggests the intention is the racier side of gravel

Is the downtube really square in section or is it the paint job making it look like it is?

I don’t need a gravel bike, I do kind of want one though.

And as a mountain biker (who was a roadie a decade ago), this seems to hit all the features I (think I) want.

Custom paint being an extra £700 if I’m reading the article right… what are the “free colours”? I remember Dan once saying that every bike would always come in black as that was the most popular option.

Any images of the cable/hose routing?

Looks really cool!

Can anyone find the geometry chart?

@phil5556, it does look good and the F&F set would have been a top pick for my next build.

Alas I’m not **** about with hydraulic brake lines through the head tube, red line for me.

SRAM AXS has simplified the gear issue and further cable routing.

Frame/Fork Price is £1345

I expected them to come in with a more value-orientated aluminium frame / carbon fork closer to £600 TBH.

And full bikes for the above frameset price.

Can’t see a geo chart on the webpage, but it looks on the racy side – especially with the hidden cable routing.

Feels like they’re trying to take on Canyon, Trek, Giant etc, rather than Sonder, Boardman and other value brands?

OK so the elephant in the room… through the headset routing….

3 reasons why. Actually 3 3/4.

1 – You tape the hoses into the bars anyway. There’s no such thing as a ‘quick swap’ or easy brake re-hose on a road bike. SO the only thing we’re looking at is headset servicing.
2 – We expect zero bikes to be sold with cables, and only a handful of people who might have run cables, so now its only a couple of hoses we’re talking here.
3 – The headset features 440C stainless bearings with a lifetime warranty against corrosion. You won’t be needing to change them out very often (if ever for some people), you can clean and re-grease bearings without disassembling the bars, and when you do its really not as much faff as it sounds.

The 1/2 – I have at the moment got some hydraulic hose couplings on test, that allow you to split the hose without needing to bleed the brake – similar to how Formula speed-locks that we’ve been using for years work. If they work out, they’ll be standard on all bikes, but as this time I can’t make any promises.

The 1/4 – On a road bike the form and function of this style of routing just works. It looks nice, and works better than standard routing depending what you want to achieve, as now I can run hoses into under bar channels like on the Zipp XPLR carbon bar, lay blips over the hose, clean routing into the frame and still have a nice profiled bar to hold onto thats not distorted by the hose under the tape. On a mountain bike however, cable tourism has no place as unless you go to Dangerholm levels of integration with through bar and stem routing, as it always looks worse and functions worse than ‘normal’ routing.

I’ve had my one for getting on for 8 months now, and its really not p****** me off at all. I actually think I couldn’t go back to semi-external routing now, but at the same time its had zero impact on my desire to add it to our mountain bikes, which is still at Zero.

Sad to see them go carbon – I would really like to see the industry move away or people find ways of recycling carbon to make it a more environmentally friendly option than it is now.

I think it looks stunning, would love to get a ride of one.

Out of my price range (at the moment) unfortunately, but am going to have a top-to-bottom spring clean of the house in search of cash that might have gone missing!

Feels like they’re trying to take on Canyon, Trek, Giant etc, rather than Sonder, Boardman and other value brands?

Yes and no. Canyon for sure, Scott, Trek, Specialized? Why not, but were not looking at the MTB/Gravel crossover side, not yet anyway which rules out some of those more value brands straight away. This is definitely looking to developing a road side to our business.

Can anyone find the geometry chart?

It will be out in Q1 next year, we’re still deciding whether we preferred our first or second offset choice.

Is the downtube really square in section or is it the paint job making it look like it is?

No, its squarer to blend the HT into the rounder back end more, but its not ‘square’.

Can someone give some context here.  Are we expecting Bird to update the website and have a buy now button so I can get some shiny next week?

No, it will launch in the first quarter of next year as we are not expecting to ship them until Q2 for various reasons. We put it out there because its been a really quiet time for bike launches (incase you hadn’t noticed) and we’re ready to launch the custom paint service, and this was a nice example of it.

Ooh that looks lovely. Can take a front mech by the looks of it as well. That could replace my road bike and have 2 sets of wheels for tarmac and gravel….

Thats the idea because thats what we’ve been doing and ultimately we’ve always sold the bikes we want to ride. We’ll even sell you two sets of wheels to go with it.  Probably not Zipps though, they’re a bit spendy on the aftermarket side! But we can certainly do you some DT 350s on DT rims at a great price with a bike. Keep the Zipps the standard 303 style for the road and the alu wheels for off.

There’s a bit more info. in Hannah’s article – https://singletrackworld.com/gritcx/2024/11/bird-cycleworks-now-with-custom-paint-and-gravel-options/

paint job is amazing, but for me to looks too much on the road side of the gravel spectrum, though nice to allow for 2x – hope it sells well for them though.

How many Ti bikes are recycled? Al , steel? Honestly now..

That looks absolutely stunning, but it appears to have both things I really don’t want (carbon and internal cabling)…which is a real shame as all this week I’ve been desperate to find out about it as I’m keen on getting a gravel bike. Annoyingly, this isn’t going to be it. However, I do think plenty will be sold as it looks a great looking bike and the kit seems to be superb.

Another nice job by Bird…in my opinion.

OK so the elephant in the room… through the headset routing….

Fair enough 🙂

It does look great and headset routing will allow bar bags to fit without interfering with cables.