Fara F/Gravel bike ride and review

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so the far or Farah not sure how you pronounce it uh F grel bike Farah I’m going to call it Farah uh it’s a company based in Norway um so they should know a bit about riding off-road um they do a range of bikes road bikes U and this is their gravel offering they do an all Road one as well um and it’s a carbon frame uh carbon Fork um and the silhouette when I first saw it I thought yeah it looks like a looks like a road bike and I was a bit intimidated thinking it’s going to be really Twitchy that front end but sort of instantly when I rode it the head angle is is suited to off-road um it’s not Twitchy at all actually uh it’s got loads of clearance far uh climb up to 50 mm and I think that is sort of underestimated this this is a uh 43 mil gravel King and there’s enormous amount of room there um it’s got a few mounts it’s got the uh top tube Mount um two sets of bottle cages uh and this which I presume is for the bespoke bag far far offer uh it’s got the MS on the fork the bolts are missing this is a test and review bike so they tend to get a bit abused um it wasn’t particularly clean when it arrived um it’s got Apex axis shifting so electronic shifting it’s got an absolutely enormous chain ring which is only 40 T but looks enormous to me um maybe it’s just cuz it’s so cut out it’s got Arrow bars here uh and these are quite narrow um I think these are 42 I’ll measure them and um you’ll see the measurement now on the screen uh so quite narrow really and it’s got a quite a long stem there again I’ve not measured it but I imagine it’s 900 mil which is quite long for the type of bike I normally ride um as I said this is what makes it look racy um but Farah far uh say this is their uh adventure bike um so yeah I mean it’s got It’s got a rack mount there um and you can fit mud guards it’s got muds Ms here it comes with a a cross brace in the Box um it’s a 27.2 seat post uh there’s no routing that I can see for uh a droper post and obviously being 27.2 you’d be limited anyway dropo are great if you’re exploring especially if you don’t know where you’re going and you might find come across some unexpected uh carbon seat post and this little thing here is a magnet uh and again a bespoke bag clips on to that um uh it’s got the quite fasionable now frame storage um which is ideal for keeping the sausage rolling uh um and I said two bottle Ms and that’s pretty much it there’s nothing oh there’s a mount underneath so you could put a tall cage or an extra bottle under there and it comes with gravel King tires which I don’t know what the conditions are like in Norway at this time of year it’s near the end of March in the UK but it’s terrifically wet and muddy and gravel Kings just don’t cut the mustard um those close space knobs just clog up and there’s nothing on the shoulders um to GP when you turn in but you know in defense of bar you can’t spec a tire that is going to compete in the conditions the whole world round um so tires are are relatively inexpensive so you know you change them to whatever you want so I really can’t criticize them um gearing as I said is 40 on the front and a 42 on the back um seems plenty enough at the moment um I usually run a bigger cassette um but what you might find is if you did go bike packing on this uh and you heavily Laden bike over terrain you might want slightly lower gearing again that’s the good thing about Shram um you could fit a much smaller chain there easily um it’s harder to do with shimano’s gravel offerings um what it has got is integrated cabling and I am not a fan of this I mean at least it doesn’t go through the bars and through the stem it just goes through the uh headset which um still is a bit of a pain in the ass if you want to change the headset bearings but there you go that’s the current fashion for Arrow is think which I can assure you it is not um yeah disc brakes definitely need those Offroad it’s got a unique well I’ve not seen this for a while it’s got a rear mount um bracket for the front brake caliper um which actually makes it much easier to adjust than when the bolts are on the other side and hard to get to so I mean be nice if there was a cover on that um but there you go works so the farer gravel um let’s have a proper ride of it Offroad uh funny shape cows I remember when this Reservoir was worryingly low it’s not low anymore so I’ve been riding this uh Farah F gravel bike for a couple of weeks now you can see by the state of it that I’ve been riding up my local Trails um which I thought is the best way to compare because I know how my gravel bite performs on my local stuff so that’s why I put this through but there are two things I have an issue with with the bike um because on the website and uh let me quote it it says it’s got a wide tire cleance and a rugged carbon frame impairing you to tackle the roughest terrain it’s shred ready the geometry is orientated towards fun side of gravel with a shorter wheelbase and sporty handling uh you can pack more D tube and top tube mints blah blah blah hatch on it robust construction you know I get that it’s it’s pitched to be a fun go anywhere bike to make you smile um you know you can go on weekends away you can ride up and down mountains on it and you know and MTB Trails that’s what they’re pitching it towards it’ll take a 50 mil Tire it’ll actually take more than a 50 mil Tire there’s plenty of clearance but what I have an issue is the way they’ve speced it now I mentioned earlier the tires tires are horrendous in any sort of UK winter spring autumn conditions brilliant in the summer but not now but you know I mentioned that you can’t really spec a bike for the whole of the world so at some point these gravel kings are going to be brilliant for someone but the other thing is the bar and stem this is far too narrow for an adventure bike a bik that’s meant to go anywhere meant to be on trails that you’ve never ridden before you don’t know what’s around the next Corner they’re far too narrow this is a 56 CM bike I’m 6t it fits me perfectly but the bars are too narrow they’re 42 mil there’s absolutely no flare they’re quite a long reach and combined with this stem it’s far too long now if you’re riding Unbound if you racing on it you’re doing the king’s cup which is basically round around a flat field with some sand awesome this is brilliant you probably win on it but if you were like walk riding across a plow field and then dropping down to a stream and then going through a forest and you don’t know what’s around the next corner just gives you no confidence the arrow bars why do you want Arrow bars when you’re buy bite packing unless you’re racing and I admit lots of people do go racing but I would say the vast majority of us do not go racing we might do one of these glorious gravel events but they are not uh the Silk Road they are not unban gravel this needs a wider bar with some flare on it it needs a slightly shorter stem because the frame is absolutely awesome it rides really nicely all the stiffness stops your pedaling um Power going from side to side everything you put through there goes to the back wheel they’ve even specked it with a t47 bottom bracket there’s no push fit here you can get a tool in there and unwind it it’s threaded brilliant Farah brilliant those bars do not belong on this bike it’s got a great seat post it’s 27.2 it’s round it’s round like a normal seat post it’s not oval it’s not Square I’m looking at you Giant Bikes why do you spec your bikes with a non-r seat post so you can only use your products oh wait that’s why anyway it’s got a round seat post uh it’s got a little magnet here to fit your the bespoke bik packing bag there are little mounts underneath here for their bespoke frame bag it’s it’s all pointed towards adventure riding it’s not pointed towards narrow bar racing with a long stem with your head right down and you bum up in the air it’s a great bike I absolutely love it the geometry is perfect for UK riding because it’s quite slack but it’s not at all boring on the road and even though they say it’s got a short wheelbase I’ve had no issues with toe overlap there’s plenty of room if you were running M mud guards I don’t think you’d have trouble with toe overlap uh and this is a for 3 mil Tire there’s plenty of room in there if you wanted to put a mudu guard in uh and there are hidden mans for you to put a mud guard on it’s a brilliant bike this bike um I think retails at 3,300 don’t look at the norian croner price cuz you’ll have a heart attack cuz it’s like 70,000 or something um I even got on well with the saddle this physique saddle all the physique Saddles I tried before I didn’t like this one’s F so Farah F gravel awesome bike needs a different handlebar that’s the only thing I can find wrong with it well apart from the integrated headset bearings having to take the cables out to change the bearings thing but you know everyone’s going that by now so it’s annoying but so yeah Farah perfect bike but if only for the UK hey change the bars I know you can change the bars but it’s you know it’s a hidden expense because you know fair enough you can change the tires it probably Max cost you 100 quid for two tires you can change those yourself there’s a lot of people who because of this integrated design are not going to want to change these handlebars for something a bit more adventury rather than racy um change the bath you’ve got a perfect bik I really like it the only thing is though on today’s ride I’ve been chased by three dogs so it seems to attract dogs is that a drawback and like a lot of modern bikes this has got storage in the down tube it’s ideal for [Music] so the Farah F gravel bike what a stunning bike it’s really really good just a few or a couple of component issues um if Farah or Farah far um if they spec this with a wider more flared Adventure bar it will be absolutely awesome and like really really good and hopefully they’ll watch this and maybe they will Speck it with something like that if you’d like to watch other videos of me reviewing bikes eating sausage rolls potentially being chased by dogs then please take the time to subscribe it really helps my little Channel and to get subscribers it also helps if you click the like button um so hopefully I’ll see you on the next one thanks for watching