I am pathologically averse to road bikes… but need to get fit and am thinking something better on road, but would allow me to explore off it a bit, would help me on the way, especially over winter.

I aint got a clue about these things, so what is good in the sub grand price range?   This all started when I saw a Sonder Camino AL in the Ambleside store 😀

Ta

The Sonder gets good reviews….

I have a Camino AL and really rate it, it’s ideal for rough roads and exploring tracks and easy bridleways. I’ve not touched the HT or the road bike since I bought it.

I think for some it’s a master of none bike, I really enjoy exploring round local roads, dipping up a farm track or forest trail to see where it goes then carrying on as you were. Has allowed me to do longer days and multi day trips which are mix of road and off road. As for models – no idea! I’ve got a Peregrine but that’s not inexpensive nor available any more.

Kinesis, Tripster get v. good write-up, worth a look.

Oh and get decent tyres on itor at least decide which side of the road / MTB divide you want to go down..

If you can live with mechanical disks and the fact the frame price will likely drop in price to 3x innertubes and a 1.1/4 headset top cap at random over the coming year then Planet-X’s new XLA-SL looks like a good CX/road/gravel option.  The old one wouldn’t quite take Nanao’s so presumably if there’s more mud room this time then 40c’s might fit.  Ask them first. Only £700

My Gravel bike is a CAADX with big slicks, 2nd hand they’re often well under a grand but not particularly common.

And if you really hate road bikes, just pick up a cheap 29er hardtail, stick some narrow tyres on it, narrow flat bars and some bar ends.  It’ll be 95% as quick as a gravel bike on road, and still offer enough hand positions to keep it comfortable if you head out on any really long rides.

I’ve been riding enduro and trail bikes for about 3 years now, and I love them. I thought I would never own a drop bar bike, never even really considered it, wasn’t interested and didn’t want to know. Thought all drop bar bikes were lame.

Last week I popped into my local bike shop to buy a cleat bolt. Inside they had a second hand Genesis Crox De Fer 20 – it was £600 and pristine and I liked the look of it. Took it for a quick test ride, bought it there and then.

Its absolutely **** ace man, it munches miles on the road, gravel, bike paths, double track, fire roads, easy single track and beyond. Done 300km of mixed surface riding after work in the last week. Anyway, I dont really have any bike recommendations or any of that stuff for you, but you should buy an adventure/gravel/touring/cx bike thing because they are stupid fun.

I was thinking of using my old non-plus Stache ht and converting it… but thought something designed for the job would be better.

I take it hydraulic brakes are a worthwhile upgrade?

And if you really hate road bikes, just pick up a cheap 29er hardtail, stick some narrow tyres on it, narrow flat bars and some bar ends.  It’ll be 95% as quick as a gravel bike on road, and still offer enough hand positions to keep it comfortable if you head out on any really long rides.

Didn’t work for me. I don’t care about speed, but a narrow flat bar with bar ends was nowhere near as comfortable even on shorter rides as a drop bar. Might be just me, I know that people ride around the world with straight bars.

OP, make sure you get a bike with fender mounts!

And if by converting a HT you mean putting drop bars on it, DON’T do it! 😀

Im on my second. Frame material is irrelevant but fit is wierd. I tried with my first to get it to fit like an mtb but it wasn’t working. Ive now gone with smaller frame and layback post which is much better. I ride mine more than mtb in winter and i have two sets of wheels 650b with 2.0 xc tyres and 700c marathon Supremes on the other.

1×11 is better i was getting alot of debris and sticks in the front mech

Muguards for winter

Mechanical discs are ok but not great

They are especially great if you like riding to pubs.

I picked up a Merida cyclocross 500 for £800 which doesn’t attract much hype but is an absolute blast. It’s more than just a race bike too despite the name with rack mounts etc. Hydro discs, 105 11 speed, and great on mix of trails, gravel, roads.

I’ve been riding a Planet X London Road, with the infamous over sized seat tube for a few years now and it’s been great. It was bought primarily as a cheap commuter but since then, on road it’s done Pyrenees cols and 100 mile Yorkshire Dales and Tour of Wessex routes. Off road (with conti CX speed tyres) it copes easily with bridleway/canal tow path stuff, and my canal tow path is pretty rough.

I’m taking out to the alps next month to do the Col du joux plan, and a few other rides around the area on and off road. Although i’ll also have a 160mm travel full suss for MTB duties!!

I’ve had it a while now and fancy something different/fancier, but have been looking at the sonder camino and pinnacle arkoses and they look great. Also like the Cotic Escapade, but would like something lighter than my LR…..

I’ve got Shimano mechanical disc brakes and am 100kgs and I’ve only ever had one issue with them when I cooked them on a steep decent in the peaks on a very hot day and had to bail into a nicely placed farm entrance on a hairpin that I wasn’t going to make it round….. Swapped the pads for Organic after that and they’ve been great since.

I take it hydraulic brakes are a worthwhile upgrade?

I would say yes, but I’m muddling by with Cable discs just fine.
You can probably have Hydraulic discs within your £1k budget but I’d worry more about the fit of the bike and tyre clearances than the parts spec.

The other thing to consider a wee bit more now is brake mounting, bikes from a couple of years ago (like mine) were using a mixture of IS and Post mounts, but now Flat mount has come in for road bikes (and Gravel bikes seem to be more aligned with road groups) I think you’ll be seeing some with flat mount and some with PM to Flat mount adaptors (IS is sadly Dead now), I sincerely hope they don’t invent yet another “gravel specific” brake mounting standard, but you never know.

I sincerely hope they don’t invent yet another “gravel specific” brake mounting standard, but you never know.

Given the trend for putting the calliper between the stays I’m surprised no one has resurrected the old 3-bolt formula standard.

i never saw the neurotic hang up people have with cable disks

Kona rove AL cost about 600 quid and i believe is even heavier discounted on this years model at wiggle just now.

My mate bought one after borrowing mine for a bit – and he just bought another for his wife.

Lotta bike for the money – takes a 40c Nano and a pair of PDW full metal fenders , ive toured canada on mine and i used to take it through the woods on the way home from work when i commuted on it …… new job means itll be back on the commute route again shortly 😀

I picked up my Crosslight 5T disc off here for £700, I’ve taken it on Monday Night Pub Rides and done 100k+ road rides on it. Bloody love the thing.

And if you really hate road bikes, just pick up a cheap 29er hardtail, stick some narrow tyres on it, narrow flat bars and some bar ends. It’ll be 95% as quick as a gravel bike on road, and still offer enough hand positions to keep it comfortable if you head out on any really long rides.

Good advice, could even put on some rigid carbon forks (i.e. xotic for £100).  Have you ever ridden a road bike/dropped bar bike, guessing not if you have an aversion to them?

i never saw the neurotic hang up people have with cable disks

Hydraulics work better, no question. It’s not even a debate in the MTB world, actually I don’t think anyone argued with it in years.

I have TRP Sypres with compressionless housing, SwissStop pads, XT rotors. I’m not sure if there is a better cable disc on the market and i’ve upgraded all the bits possible.

Yet I wish it had more power. I ride my gravel bike everywhere, sometimes even bombing down on rocky singletrack. I would also appreciate the automatic pad adjust that hydraulics have, because at the bottom of a big offroad descend I can feel that I need to pull the levers more. I’m also a bit jealous that hydraulic calipers deal with water better.

For more tame riding of course cable discs work fine.

Hydraulics work better, no question.

I agree, but I swapped mine (Ultegra hydro) to sintered, finned pads for a bit more longevity on long descents and, this weekend, discovered that the trade-off is almost unbelievably noisy brakes in the wet. Constantly, both brakes, the whole time. Bloody terrible 🙁

Umm, not sure I understand, the same thing would happen with cable discs too. 😀

I bought a Boardman CX comp from Halfrauds.

Do not expect any decent service from Halfrauds, they couldn’t even set our bike up properly from day 1, let alone ‘first service’ where it came back with dragging discs…

That said, a new bike ex display cost me £450, with a years 0% finance and £45 worth of stuff thrown in. Full warranty etc.

It’s grown on me, although I still don’t get dropped bars off-road. It’s done two tours and a bunch of commuting, a few days of forest track, and just spent this morning ripping along the Great Glen way.

Getting brakes adjusted and tyre pressure dropped has transformed it – much more comfy, better control and surprisingly good gears and brakes (apart from huuuge lever throw for gears).

“Hydraulics work better, no question. It’s not even a debate in the MTB world, actually I don’t think anyone argued with it in years.”

by better you mean the constant steam of * i cant bleed this , my shimanos leaking , why wont my hopes shut up* threads on here ?  or do you mean as most people do , they self adjust ergo must be better ?

ive got various bikes with cables and various hydraulics and they are all much of a muchness bar the tech3 levered/E4s on the Big bike – but then they are a big brake expected to do alot of work and are noticably more progressive and much more powerful than every other brake i have for sure but that doesnt make them better for every circumstance…..for example my gravel/touring bike where the cable hayes do the job just nicely(even with 50lbs of gear on the bike)  and require a couple of  quarter turns of the pad adjuster every couple of months – even the wifes promaxes on her geneisis tour de fer are just grand. I really wouldnt get hung up on hydros on a cheap bike (and thus pushing up the lower boundary of cheap)

For most folk they are overbraked – especially as on a gravel bike youll lose grip before you run out of brake.

im also not entirely sure how hydraulic calipers deal with water better ? mine get wet and they dry – just like all my other brakes. I did how ever strip them and use anti sieze on all threads and moving parts before i put them to use after years of working in shops and having to deal with other folks siezed calipers (both hydraulic and cable) after a winter of commuting.

I have TRP Sypres with compressionless housing, SwissStop pads, XT rotors. I’m not sure if there is a better cable disc on the market and i’ve upgraded all the bits possible.

Sorry, slight hijack, I’m trying to reduce squeal in wet conditions and was thinking about upgrading my Spyres with Swisstop organic pads and XT rotors. Did you notice any improvement in noise levels? What are they like on wet/cold rides?

Ta

I picked up a second hand Kinesis Pro6 for £900, 105 with Ultegra disc brakes / shifters, Hope / Stans. I put 38c Gravel Kings on the front and 35c on the rear. Has been the perfect bike for quick local blasts around the rough lanes and byeways.

I looked a new and sale bikes but nothing was as good value and the racier geometry and higher BB of a CX bikes suit my use.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/29D1m5k]2018-07-30_03-01-32[/url] by Rob Johnson, on Flickr

Sorry, slight hijack, I’m trying to reduce squeal in wet conditions and was thinking about upgrading my Spyres with Swisstop organic pads and XT rotors. Did you notice any improvement in noise levels? What are they like on wet/cold rides?

Ta

Cold, not sure, I bought the pads in Spring. SwissStops are better than the stock pads in every single way, including in the rain. I’m using the e-bike pads. What I like is that they basically never fade, you will burn your rotors first.

You can still get squeal in wet conditions but at least they won’t evaporate like the stock pads.

Rotors, not sure, I didn’t use the stock ones.

For most folk they are overbraked – especially as on a gravel bike youll lose grip before you run out of brake.

Not true at all. With the right technique you can fly with a gravel bike offroad, and as I just said I constantly run out of brake power on steep singletrack because yes you can ride a gravel bike there.
Do a google search and you can find forum threads about people having problems with every single bike product ever released, including cable disc brakes. And in a lot of cases it’s because people are … very very smart. 😀 (not).

They’re better because unless you go with the absolute cheapest option they’re more powerful than cable discs, they self adjust, and they’re better sealed. Those are pretty dang important things.

Yes, a monkey can change the cable and housing on mechanical discs, but that’s about where the advantages end.

Again, if you’re touring, road riding, or don’t have big hills where you live, sure go with cable discs.

But for any harder offroad riding, which again is very possible with gravel bikes, especially now that we have frames that can clear 650b MTB rubber, hydraulics 100%.

Didn’t work for me. I don’t care about speed, but a narrow flat bar with bar ends was nowhere near as comfortable even on shorter rides as a drop bar. Might be just me, I know that people ride around the world with straight bars.

I agree, ish.

My OH refuses to entertain the idea of drop bars, whereas I’d think of them as the default. Some people just don’t like them.

But my commuter* has a flat bar, I would probably have prefered drops but it was too good a bargain to overlook and I wanted cheap reliability and easy servicing (i.e. £25 deore hydros I can bin if they need anything more serious than a bleed or pad change). I agree it’s nowhere near as comfortable as drops over long distances, but it still works.

And looking around the world, drop bars on anything other than racing bikes is a rarity. Britains sort of skipped 50 years of cycling from the 60’s to now and still things touring means a Dawes Galaxy or Claude Butler Dalesman, whereas the rest of the cycling world evolved.

*I have to call it that, despite my pathological upgradeitis meaning it will end up as yet another blinged singlespeed mountainbike

I have a PX London Road I picked up frame and forks and at a good price. It had a random collection of part thrown at it, but it was so much fun I’ve pretty much upgraded everything. It is a giggle in singletrack.

I like the look of the new Kenesis G2, but might not qualify as cheap:

https://www.kinesisbikes.co.uk/Catalogue/Models/Adventure/G2-BIKE

Was wondering why I couldn’t find the SwissStop Exotherm pads anywhere and then found this:

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/recalls/2018/03/13/swissstop-recalls-some-disc-brake-pads

…looks like they were all recalled earlier this year. Boo 🙁

And looking around the world, drop bars on anything other than racing bikes is a rarity.

Yup, although that’s changing with gravel/adventure bikes.

Also, because of this, a lot of people also associate drop bars with a super stretched out position, because that’s what you get on a road racing bike. But with more relaxed geometry drop bars are heaven.

Other than long distance comfort (and aero, but let’s forget that word exists) straight bars are better in every way for sure. I can’t argue with that and I won’t. 🙂

the world is not black and white but i manage to *fly* down hills as you put it on my gravel bike with cable disks just fine….. – the eastern and southern cairngorms being my stomping ground so far from flat.

and while in theory hydraulics are better there is not enough of a gap for me to say that i would be blinkered enough to say to someone who wants to buy a bike on a budget that hydraulics were a must.

Now if it were cantilevers/vbrakes and disks that would be a different story.

I can ride my gravel bike with cable discs down steep singletrack fine too, but it would be even more fine with hydraulics. 🙂

Again, if you’re not on the limit of your current braking system, there is no reason to upgrade.

There is a reason why cable discs pretty much don’t exist in the MTB world and why no one argues about cable vs hydraulic anymore. Nowadays with big tyres you can tackle some pretty chunky offroad terrain with gravel bikes, makes sense to use more powerful brakes like MTBs do.

Nowadays when even road bikes come with discs hydraulics are not that much more expensive when looking at complete bikes. Upgrading on your current bike from cable is definitely not cheap sadly.

I bought a Genesis Croix DeFer 10 for this. Very happy on road,easy MTB trails, river canal paths. Comfortable for rides up to 70 miles which is about my limit. Planning on few bothy tours in Scotland on it. Use it round town a lot. Has cable disc brakes which are fine. Few upgrades when stuff wears out. Also managing with full length mudguards to look supercool.

I’ve got the Planet X Full Monty. Works well, rides and handles well. Only think I didn’t like is the Avid cable brakes, but some people love them. I’m struggling to justify replacing it

i never saw the neurotic hang up people have with cable disks

Nothing neurotic about it, Hydraulics are just better…and I’m talking from experience with Hydraulics on my road bike and cable disks on my commuter/gravel/pub/knocking about with the kids bike. They’re just better no matter how you want to cut it. In all conditions all  the time. No contest.

 I swapped mine (Ultegra hydro) to sintered, finned pads for a bit more longevity on long descents and, this weekend, discovered that the trade-off is almost unbelievably noisy brakes in the wet. Constantly, both brakes, the whole time. Bloody terrible

As you’ve discovered you can’t have longevity AND quiet brakes… so go to Organics and you’ll have no issues. I use Oranics on my MTB and road bike and they’re quiet…Sintered on my cable disk commuter and they squeal. Will be replaced with Organic when they run down. Organics also work better and last quite long anyway so not a faff at all.

The cheapest way to get a gravel bike is to buy something second hand….plenty of second hand bikes kicking about, doesn’t have to be a ‘proper gravel bike’…just a road bike with bigger tyres will work just as well..or a Hybrid bike with drops (assuming you want drops) would be fine too.

“The cheapest way to get a gravel bike is to buy something second hand….plenty of second hand bikes kicking about, doesn’t have to be a ‘proper gravel bike’…just a road bike with bigger tyres will work just as well..or a Hybrid bike with drops (assuming you want drops) would be fine too”

so long as it has hydralic disks apparrently.

i never once argued they were better – i said theres no need to get hung up on having hydraluics – thats along way from saying they are better. what i have infact said is that the gap between hydro and cable isnt big enough for me to say its a must have if you want a gravel bike and your on a tight budget.

there is a reason i have hydros on my enduro bike but ill tip my hat to anyone that can keep up with that on the trails i ride it on on a gravel bike !

and just for completeness of me apparently being the odd one out  i run sintered on all my brakes the only noisy brake is my front brake on my TD-1 and thats because the rotor rivits on the floating disk have come loose and it lets the brake disk vibrate.

We’ve never said hydros are a MUST, but when looking at complete bikes it’s worth to spend the extra $$$ because it’s not that much.

You said “i never saw the neurotic hang up people have with cable disks”, we just explained it to you. It’s because hydros are better. End of story.

i never once argued they were better – i said theres no need to get hung up on having hydraluics – thats along way from saying they are better. what i have infact said is that the gap between hydro and cable isnt big enough for me to say its a must have if you want a gravel bike and your on a tight budget.

Good point well made…I guess this is STW so we’re always starting from a position of THE BEST without any reference to budget or anything else. My commuter cable brakes would only get upgraded if I were to upgrade the groupset on my road bike, then the removed groupset would get flowed down, but my commuter is supposed to be a cheap and rugged tool and cable disks work fine on it. It doesn’t see heavy gravel duty, just the usual trails that have been converted from old disused railway lines, so pretty flat and not much use for hard braking.

Slow and heavy on road and uncomfortable off road.  But able to ride on road to some light xc trails which suits me sometimes.

Was wondering why I couldn’t find the SwissStop Exotherm pads anywhere and then found this:

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/recalls/2018/03/13/swissstop-recalls-some-disc-brake-pads

…looks like they were all recalled earlier this year. Boo

I emailed SwissStop and got a reply pretty much straight back:

Exotherm was recalled at the end of last year. The relaunch is Exotherm2. Exotherm2 #34 will be available someday end of September I hope. I think until then, RS 34 is a very good alternativ for a road bike and should be available in the UK

So, just a temporary thing. I may give them a go.

I’ve just bought an Orro Terra Gravel from UBYK.  As I’ve discovered they are in very high demand / short supply but if you go to the Premier Singletrack benefits there’s a 10% discount code for UBYK.

13thfloormonk- I run XT discs on my spyres with Superstar pads, seems fine. Road riding especially in the wet gets the rotors cacky IME.