- Global Mountain Bike Network presenter
Neil Donoghue and I have just raced
the Dolomiti Superbike mountain bike marathon.
(invigorating music)
It was brilliant. Really tough,
but cracking good fun. However,
despite it being a mountain bike marathon,
someone thought that with me being a GCN presenter,
I shouldn't ride a mountain bike,
and instead, I should ride this,
which is my cyclocross-come-gravel bike.
Now, you can find out exactly how we got on,
and, in fact, whether I managed to salvage any
honour at all for GCN, by checking out the full video
over on GMBN. But I thought, that given how hot a topic
gravel bikes are right now, in our little world,
That you might wanna know a little bit more about my bike,
complete with a thick layer of dolomite dust on it,
the components that I've chosen,
and how it's all fared.
Okay, so the frame is a Trek aluminium Crockett,
and it's got a full carbon fork on there.
Very much a cyclocross bike. However,
given how versatile cross bikes are,
Trek have made just a couple of tweaks
to take this well beyond the confines
of just a cyclocross course.
So the clearance is boosted for tyres up to 40mm wide,
and then, the other really neat feature
is over on the dropouts over there.
So, they're adjustable, which means that you could,
if you wish, run it as a single-speed.
But then, it also means that you can tweak
the geometry of the bike, so you can turn it from
a really agile machine to something a lot more laid-back,
relaxed and a true gravel-grinder.
The main question for me, though, was the gearing.
So, the Dolomiti Superbike has 3300 metres of climbing in it
over the course of 113km. And you might get the impression,
given our location, which is actually
the top of the final climb, that it probably wasn't easy.
So, I went for a SRAM Force 1 bike,
which as you can see, has just a single
chain ring up front. I went for a 38-tooth option.
And that's paired with this 10-42 cassette out the back,
which is, frankly, a bit of a monster.
But, 38-42 gives me a really, really easy low gear.
And I could actually, comfortably turn the pedals
right down to 6km per hour, without feeling the temptation
to get off and walk.
At least everyone around me's walking.
All right, okay, so I did walk for one little bit,
but so were all the mountain bikers around me,
so I didn't feel too bad.
At the other end of the spectrum, then,
We've got that tiny little 10 tooth sprocket,
which is actually so small, it won't fit
on a normal cassette body.
You need SRAM's special XD driver for that.
And a 38-10 works out roughly as equivalent to 50-13.
And so, you can comfortably turn the pedals again
at about 50km per hour this time.
And admittedly, with a large cassette like that,
you do have slightly bigger jumps between the gears,
but when you're riding off-road,
and you are going that bit slower,
you don't actually notice it.
And then when you are on the road,
and you're further down on the cassette,
the jumps between the cogs are that bit smaller.
And I must say, that when I was building this bike up,
I didn't think I would need a 42 tooth cassette on there.
I put it on there for emergencies,
but actually, on the brutal middle climb,
I was in an emergency state for quite some time,
and actually, I did use that sprocket a lot.
Now, if you're not familiar with SRAM's 1x technology,
then I'd probably better explain how it works.
'Cause if you were to just remove your front derailleur
and a chainring, then your chain would fall off
about every 30 seconds.
And I know that first-hand because I did it.
Back in 1998.
So, what SRAM did, firstly on mountain bikes,
before they migrated their technology across
to drop bar bikes, is to launch a two-pronged attack.
So, firstly, the rear derailleur has
what's called a clutch in it.
And effectively, that just holds your chain extra-tight,
to stop it bouncing off. But it is much, much tighter
because actually, as a brilliant side-benefit,
you don't get any chain slap anymore,
so you have a completely silent bike.
Then secondly, the chainring is also really quite different.
So it's called a Narrow-Wide Chainring, and that's because
the teeth alternate between being a narrow profile
and a wide profile to fit much more tightly
with the correspondingly narrow, and then wide,
links on your chain. It is, I think you'll agree,
a pleasingly simple system, and it looks super clean,
particularly when you get rid of your front derailleur,
your chainring and all the associated clutter
that goes with it, like chain catcher,
and also front derailleur mount.
Naturally, I've gone with disc brakes.
They are a complete no-brainer when you're riding off-road,
given how often you encounter crappy conditions.
But it also meant I was able to use
these beautiful, new Zipp 303 disc-specific wheels.
They've got a slightly wider rim bed, so 21mm.
And that's able to then really
support the larger tyres that I was running,
and they're also tubeless-compatible, as well.
I did, however, choose to run continental cyclocross tyres,
rather than a wider gravel-specific tyre.
And they're not tubeless-specific,
so I did put inner tubes in them.
But I only punctured twice,
which I think's pretty good going, given the conditions
that were out on the course.
With the benefit of hindsight, though,
I probably would have spent a little bit of time
trying to see whether they could be made to work tubeless.
So, effectively bodge them, just so you can then
make the most of the wheels.
Other bits I thought you might be interested in,
so the Fizik Cyrano handlebar,
I went for their compact, "bull" option.
I always choose a compact bar when I can,
'cause I like not having much of a difference between
all the hand positions, particularly when off-road.
And these are also slightly wider
than I tend to run normally.
These are 44cm, as opposed to 42cm wide.
Just 'cause you get that little bit more control
when you are running wider handlebars.
Now, the other thing,
I've got to say a big thank you to Fizik,
'cause they color-matched this Tundra saddle
to match the bike.
Which is quite a treat, I think you'll agree.
So how did I get on, then?
Well, you definitely need to check out the full video
over on GMBN, but I did get round.
It's not a gravel bike race, it is a mountain bike race,
and so there were a few, more than a few,
really quite sketchy moments.
Like, for example, quite near the beginning,
where I actually found myself right near
the front of the bike race, after the first climb.
Then we hit this really quite sketchy
steep and slippery descent,
where I had to pick my way down really very carefully.
And so I found then, ten angry Italian mountain bikers
all trying to squeeze past, 'cause they were still
very much racing.
So I was on the limit for a good few sections.
And I think, for me, that's because gravel bikes
don't really like big rocks.
You'd need to run at least 45, even 55mm wide tyres on there
to have lower pressures, for a bit more comfort,
and not run the risk of pinch flats.
Take for example the last descent,
which was really rocky, really rutty,
it should have been mega-fast,
but it was like absolute torture.
And we checked the stats afterwards, and it actually
turns out that Neil literally went down it
twice as fast as I did.
And while the upside, though, is that this may have been
like holding onto a pneumatic drill,
it was at least a quiet pneumatic drill.
Because that one bar rear mech, with its clutch system,
did stop any chain slap.
So there we go, a small mercy.
Climbing, for the most part, was an absolute joy on this.
Particularly any section where I had enough traction
to be able to get out the saddle,
and for it to actually feel like a road bike.
And there was also one really beautiful, joyous section
of 20km of flat gravel, where I was finally
able to get my head down, and take some time back
on those pesky mountain bikers.
And that, for me, kind of summed up the day, really.
Definitely gravel bikes are not as enjoyable
as mountain bikes, on mountain bike trails.
Surprise, surprise.
But what they do do, is make simpler trails
way, way more fun. And that was absolutely great.