Sonder Broken Road experiences?

Looking at potentially buying one of these as a distance bike as my body can’t take the vibration of a gravel bike/rigid mtb anymore.

Anyone got an experiences they want to share of these?

No experience but the steel one looked lovely in the hathersage shop the other day.

I went from a 35c gravel bike to 50c on a ridgid mountain bike. It made a world of difference to wanting to ride gravel. I think it was mostly the tires.

Could you fit bigger tires to the bike you have?

I’ve had one for a couple of years and I’d say the terrain it really excels on is stuff you *could* ride on a gravel bike but it would suck. Mine’s built up with a surly moloko bar to give a few hand/body positions and rebas.

Just a note of caution, when I was buying the stock bikes were built fairly heavy – worth keeping an eye if weight is important to you.

I really like mine, an own build spec and fairly light. The geometry is a good halfway house – it feels comfortable for long distances / loaded but can also tackle some techy trails. It’s basically a good all-rounder, not too steep and not too slack.

Thanks, that does sound close to the balance I’m looking for. I’ll keep an eye on the weight on the stock builds, not a weight weenie though as I’d be loading it up with frame bags a lot of the time anyway.

Anyone tried one with a 120mm fork? Make it a bit more MTB.

I love my Broken Road. As mentioned above it’s a good all-rounder.

I use mine for the majority of my riding and never had an issue. Good for blue and gentler red trails, comfy for long distance/multi-day rides and with enough attachment points for bike packing and load lugging.

Alpkit/Sonder are great to deal with as well and will build up the bike to whatever spec you want. You can specify components and they will source them or you can supply the components for them to fit. When I bought mine they only used SRAM parts but I wanted Shimano and they were perfectly happy to do that.

Feel free to drop me a DM if you have any specific questions.

Anyone tried one with a 120mm fork? Make it a bit more MTB.

@vww – I asked Sonder about this as I fancied increasing the travel on mine a bit. They recommended against it and said 110mmm would be ok but 120mm is probably a bit much.

A friend has one as his only bike. The terrain around us not quite gravel not quite MTB. It seems great.

However I express the opinion that there are plenty of hard tails that would work in this role and that titanium may not be any more or less comfortable

Had one for a few years. Also run it rigid with a Travers Prong. Hunt wheels added but pointless as shaved about a nano gram in weight. I ride everything on it from full reds, xc, and long 240 mile one hit gravel and road routes. It will take just about anything. I also bike pack on it.

Only annoyance, the early ones seat tube is oversize so needs a double clamp.

I also have a Frontier MK1 which I call my wrecking ball. Snap it and throw it away basically but just can’t snap it.

I ride everything on it from full reds, xc, and long 240 mile one hit gravel and road routes. It will take just about anything. I also bike pack on it.

That sounds great to be fair. Does it feel ‘sluggish’ at all or is it fairly spritely?

Concur with all of the above, well most of it!

I have owned my BR for 4 years, it’s such a great all-rounder.

Mostly used for local XC winter hacking, done some bikepacking, but also rip it around my local woods, jumps inc doubles!

I swapped the fork out for a 120mm Reba and it rides real nice. I have also had it set up rigid – not for me, prefer some front squish (nothing wrong with the bike tho).

So a big thumbs up from me 👍

Titus Silk Road as a Ti alternative?
Rigid

Rebas

Think PX doing the GX version for £1500, and Axs for a bit more…

I’ve had mine for 5 years – love it. I sold my full suss as I never chose it over the Sonder. Great company to deal with – I just bought a Camino Ti which is also a thing of loveliness.

I replaced the stock wheels with Hopes and now run 2.6 tyres rather than 2.8s.

A friend recently sold his because the seat post is 27.2mm so can only put a 100mm drop post in it. Depends if that is important to you?

That’s history. They are 31.6mm now

If you are looking for a XL I have a nearly new one with the rigid fork will hopefully get listed for sale on here this week

I replaced the stock wheels with Hopes and now run 2.6 tyres rather than 2.8s

Is that with 27.5” or 29” wheels?

I use 29 x 2.4 tyres on mine and the only time I thought a wider tyre would be good was descending from The Gap fully loaded for bikepacking with rigid forks fitted. The arm pump was horrible!

I also have a Frontier MK1 which I call my wrecking ball. Snap it and throw it away basically but just can’t snap it.

I’ve also got a Frontier I built up from a bare frame (mainly using the parts I’d removed from the BR when upgrading). It was intended to be used as a winter bike to ‘save’ the BR but I’ve only ridden it 2 or 3 times as I tend to just grab the BR whenever I want to ride MTB.

Going back to working in the office a couple of days a week soon so the Frontier will probably become my commuter bike.

I’m going to go for one of these, don’t suppose anyone fancies a like new Signal to free me up some space..😊

I must work out how to reply with that copy thing.

Not sluggish as long as you aren’t expecting it to be a Roadbike. I put it on 2.25 fast rubber also.

Re the Frontier. I went to buy a Signal but don’t like the bit of pipe welded to the top tube to seat so got the Frontier. Really great bike but just fancied something TI. Ride quality I.e compliance is miles better on the BR.

I have an earlier generation Broken Road with 100mm Reba. Last winter I bought 2.6″ 29er Vittoria Mezcals and there’s now only 3mm of clearance between tire and fork arch. I will need to buy a new fork and thinking of 120mm of travel. Would it make the geometry bad? Anyone here have a BR with 120mm fork? Sid with 35mm stanchions has better clearance for such a big tire and it would probably be my choice.

It’s been a great great bike, riding here in Finland year around. Usually fit my rigid Sonder Pathfinder fork for winter riding.

I just came across this angleset made for IS headsets, 9point8 Slack-R. I’m probably now ordering a 120mm Sid and if it feels too high, I can slacken the headset angle by 1.3° to 66.7°, which will make the stack and bottom bracket height a bit lower. I’m not an expert what it comes to bike geometry, but I feel like it would be a great option. Sometimes I feel that I’d like a bit slacker HTA anyways 🙂

I ran an old pike (2016) at 120mm with 2.6 specialized. Butchers and a mudguard with no problem.