British titanium specialist J.Laverack has got in tough to let us know about its new gravel adventure bike. It has clearly been inspired by our hard work promoting gravel over the last few years, as the new bike is named the “GRiT”.
“The GRiT has been a long time in development,” said designer Oliver Laverack. “We have been determined throughout the design and testing process that this should be a no compromise, aesthetically beautiful gravel adventure bike that will inspire confidence no matter how gnarly the terrain. We also wanted to set our new gravel bike clearly apart from our extremely capable J.ACK, which has abundant offroad capability, but is more road and rough-road focussed.”
J.Laverack has done this by tweaking geometry and clearances: Up front, the GRiT fork (hopefully this isn’t too close a name to the Lauf Grit fork) offers ample tyre and mud clearance and features a longer rake, increasing the gap between your shoes and the front tyre; no one likes toe overlap on slower technical terrain. Longer chainstays, combined with the fork rake should increase the stability of the bike over rough sections at speed.
All models feature wider flared handlebars and shorter stems to take the riders weight off the front of the bike and keep handling responsive and light. The bike can be configured pretty much as you please, depending on the kind of riding you see yourself doing. J.Laverack reckons you can build it up with a full complement of frame luggage and tackle a transcontinental adventure, or simply run two bottles and head out on your local trails. As we are seeing on a lot of bikes, there is enough clearance to run either high-volume 650b tyres or almost as high volume 700c (48mm in this case). In our experience, we’d always go for the 700c option, but it opens up the possibility of two wheel sets. As you’d expect the GRiT comes with 12mm thru axles and a tapered head tube as standard.
It’s maybe not a surprise that a titanium specialist would sing the virtues of the frame material, but J.Laverack believes it’s the perfect option for the GRiT. “In our eyes, titanium is the best material in the world for a gravel adventure bike; it’s the ultimate metal with mettle. The rough and tumble nature of gravel and offroad riding means riders will push their limits and need a material that will stand up to repeatedly being ridden hard”.
J.Laverack offers the GRiT with a number of different builds, available with SRAM 1x or Shimano’s 2x. Shimano builds will feature an Ultegra RX rear mech and customers can upgrade to Hope RX4 brake calipers, an Ergon split leaf seatpost and ÆRA carbon 650B or 700C gravel specific wheels.
You can then pursue further customisation options, including an engraved headbadge, mudguard, rack mounts, a third bottle cage and internal dynamo cable routing and even a T47 bottom bracket as an alternative to J.Laveracks’ preferred BSA threaded bottom bracket. One upgrade that the company is expecting to prove popular is the ÆRA Dynamo Gravel fork, which features a crown mount and internal dynamo cable routing to work with ÆRA dynamo wheels (alloy or carbon).
All J.Laverack bikes are made to order with custom geometry and bike fitting available when visiting its showroom and HQ in Oakham.
Pricing is as follows
- Frame only for £2050
- Frame and ÆRA forks for £2500
- Complete builds starting from £3850
- Adding carbon ÆRA GR|36 650B wheels or 700C ÆRA GR|28 wheels with Hope RS4 hubs adds £1100
You can book a test ride at team@jlaverack.co.uk.
Visit the J.Laverack website for more information.
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Utterly beautiful!
Simply put. I want one.