Bike Fitter RANKS Gravel Bikes Worst to Best

Gravel bikes are a great choice of bike for many cyclists, but they are not all created equal and some of them are quite aggressive racing bikes. Bike Fitter James Thomas Ranks them from worst to best in his opinion.

Check out James’ shop here: https://www.bicyclerichmond.co.uk/

Cade Media Podcast: https://podfollow.com/the-wild-ones/view

SUPPORT Francis Cade and Cade Media directly:
Via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/franciscade
Via our clothing brand WILD: https://wearethewildones.co.uk/collections/

AFFILIATE LINKS
Silca: 13% off with code cadepod13 https://silca.cc/
GoPro GRILL Mount: https://www.prostandard.com/?ref=0Wo1…
GoPro Hero 11: https://prf.hn/l/ryjmwQn
Tiny Insta360: https://www.insta360.com/sal/go_2?ins…
Bigger Insta360: https://www.insta360.com/sal/one_x2?i…
Styrkr: 25% off your first order with FCADE25 https://bit.ly/36WrFyn

Thanks to our CHANNEL SPONSORS:
Attacus Cycling
Garmin
Silca
Styrkr
Tailfin

gravel bikes have become popular for good reason they have relaxed geometries loads of Tire clearance they’re pretty versatile but they’re not all created equal James Thomas is a bike fitter with over 20 years of experience and in today’s episode he’s going to rank gravel bikes from worst to best so the first on my list and I might be doing this bike a bit of an injustice because technically it’s a racing bike but I’m ranking these based on their suitability for consumers uh the Scott addict Ravel bike uh first of all I mean it looks great you know it’s nice and arrow it’s got an integrated cockpit super light but has one of the longest reaches on this list uh it’s also very low at the front end effectively it is a gravel racing bike so renders it not particularly suitable in my opinion for most consumers cuz it’s just going to be really really long really really low and generally just overall uncomfortable as is popular in the gravel fraternity now uh it also isn’t rated for 650b wheel size uh so that that might limit some people’s wheel options Wheel and Tire options uh does have Tire clearance for up to 45 mm so the canadale top Stone so uh continuing the demise into building boring bikes canadale are no longer the Innovative brand that they once were uh the top stone for some reason has an integrated set of lights on it why you need that on a gravel bike is beyond me uh but it does have an integrated suspension system in the RA in the back end to make it a little bit more compliant 700c wheels and uh there’s a whole host of fork options like even do like a lefty suspension Fork option so if you really really want to use gravel bike for mountain biking why I don’t I don’t know why then you can uh it’s right at the bottom of my list because frankly I think it’s a bit over engineered and doesn’t really need a light system built into it the Tre Point that’s me abbreviating the TR check point this is again towards the bottom end of the list mostly geometrically because it’s relatively long one of the things to consider here with uh with gravel white geometry is they tend to translate to having longer reach figures because they’re generally designed around a slacker head angle and a shorter stem so you need to take that into consideration when you’re comparing stack and reach figures that being said the track Point still has very very long reach figures even though it’s got an 80 mm stem it’s still going to be excessively long again has a uh a kind of built-in suspension system by way of a decoupler uh what that tends to translate to is more compliance but also a more expensive chassis which is a little bit more difficult to keep serviced and running and running smoothly looks nice um it’s also got integrated uh frame protection on the down tube uh just in case you you kind of you know hit a rock or something when you’re you’re doing through Rock Gardens sorry this is a travel bike isn’t it not a mountain bike uh but internal cable routine keeps it looking nice and clean and uh also available through tracks custom project one scheme the eagle eyed of you will realize that this is a bike that’s constantly featured on the Cade media uh channels uh the triban or is it treeb ban triban treeb ban uh gravel 520 Ram Apex the tiny man recently rode this across Malaysia and he really liked it uh basically aluminum frame decent stack and reach Figures it’s got mountings for all sorts of bags and bits and pieces has 700 and 650b uh compatibility and a whole choice and a rate of transmission options I personally wouldn’t go with the Apex I par if it was my chice I’d probably go with the 105 bike which is a little bit more expensive but I prefer the shifting characteristics of of Shimano over the entry level stram group sets unlike many of the bikes on this list these two bikes hover around the ,000 price point uh which generally makes them you know obviously much more achievable uh and they do offer fantastic value for money nice one to Caton the canyon Grail uh again one of one of my favorite director consumer Brands Canyon who H from Germany of fantastic value for money especially given the got by on sale at the moment uh the Grail I mean I’m looking at a di2 bike here which has got 16% off at 4,000 quid but that comes with a full carbon frame onboard storage Shimano grxd 2 and carbon wheels it’s got an integrated cockpit again the thing you need to be really really careful about with uh with Canyons because just because they’re direct consumer that the sizing structure is not great uh I I’m 510 I would probably rather a small and as a result that that kind of leads to quite a lot of confusion uh a medium bike is huge they are colossally long something else like I said like I mentioned earlier is that the the stack and reach figur are based around comparatively much more shorter stems so there’s another thing you need to be very careful about with these because they are a little bit long the gravel OG the open unbeaten path usually uh abbreviated to up and also the upper which is a kind of higher end Carbon High higher end carbon version uh these bikes have fantastic stack and figures they’re generally very very short uh which generally gets my vote because it results in either long stems or just generally a better saddle interaction uh it’s a sub th000 G frame and this is basically what this kind of started the gravel Pras this is one of with with the drop chain stay uh design which allowed you to use both 650b and 700c tire widths and sorry wheel sizes it’s compatible with 1 by two by mechanical and di2 Transmissions uh I actually rode one across the length of Vietnam and had you know I had zero problems with it it’s a fantastic bike it’s lightweight it kind of does everything it says on the tin they many people will Market it as a sort of Jack of all trays and it’s very so you could use it as a road bike I had a bit of a LoveHate relationship with it for a long time because I used it as a winter bike for a little bit and it just doesn’t ride well as as a road bike off-road however the thing completely transforms they have recently launched a new bike called the wide which is coming with wide tire clearances but interestingly it’s it’s one by specific the benefit of the wide model though is that it does actually have even better stack and reach figures particularly the stack it’s a much taller bike uh but also has uh range the reach down as well so from a fit standpoint uh particularly if you are predisposed to having kind of Saddle issues or or hand problems the wide might be a better option uh again obviously gives you slightly better Tire clearances but you have to be careful with that one Buy spefic specific transmission one of our bestselling off the peg brands in fact it’s our best selling off the peg brand is Pinella they launched a the grevel a few years ago the grevel F and curiously so they do two bikes they do they do a racing bike the grevel and then they do an endurance bike called the Granger curiously the grevel is taller and shorter than the Granger is maybe Pinella could tell me why that’s the case anyway I’ve never even seen a Granger in the F in the flesh uh we have sold countless grevel though offers fantastic stack and reach figures uh again it’s it’s kind of light stiff it comes in a number of different uh transmission options uh you can have B you can fix bags to it has 650b and 700c uh compatibility but the main thing for me is that the stack and reach figures on this bike are superb super short super tall means that it fits really really well Shameless plug to my single favorite bike brand to work with fesco ha hell from Prague in the Czech Republic and they are specialists in full custom carbon construction they make a bike called the Rover which funnily enough is our bestselling gravel bike it uses tubeo tube uh carbon construction tubes are selected specifically for the rider then they’re they’re then wrapped together with carbon over the top uh which again is specific to the rider this offers the best fit possible uh as well as the fact you got custom paint and and custom geometry so you can tune the way the bike’s going to ride you can tune the compliance properties of it and you can tune the aesthetic as well uh it is very much at the top end of our spe price Spectrum having said that it’s still cheaper than you know a top end track or specialized frame sets coming in at around £45,000 for frame foren headset but that is for a full custom frame same goes for their road bikes as well give them a look [Music]