When "Gravel" bikes became an official thing eight or nine years ago, I had a bit of a chuckle. Who would want to ride that? Anything one of these new balloon tire road bikes could do, a hardtail mountain bike could do better.Despite my misgivings, we were still among the first to have these new bikes on hand as we worked with OPEN Cycles, one of the first to launch this type of bike.
And they were selling, despite what I dismissively thought of as a poor component choice - a mega huge 42t pie plate cassette out back, giant brake/shift levers, clunky derailleurs, weak brakes, etc. Why??
Then I rode one. OPEN kindly sent me a first-generation U.P.P·E·R to play around with, and I took it out for an easy spin with a client. We mainly went on the road and in the hills for about 20 miles. It had 650b carbon wheels with 2.1 Schwalbe Thunderburt tires (still some of our favorites). I had a blast, jumping off of curbs, doing bunny hops for no reason, and basically just messing around and having fun - the kind of stuff you should be doing way more on a bike. The few dirt sections we did were a blast and felt much faster than on my mountain bike. I rode it a few more times in the next few days and fell in love.
But that was then, and this is now. I've had four gravel bikes since then and loved them all, trying newer parts and tech with successive bikes. My stable included two Pinarellos, a Mosaic and a Bastion Crossroad; the first three shod had 650b wheels (I still love that option) while the Bastion had 700c.
About five months ago, though, I received one of the most fun riding bikes I've ever been on.
Sarto, our favorite custom carbon company out of Venice (or close to there) told me they would be building me a custom Sarto Raso gravel frame based on my Raso road bike.This was going to be the very first prototype they were making, and they wanted me to give it a whirl and see what I thought about it.First, I was incredibly stoked that they thought enough of what I thought to do this, so thank you to everyone at Sarto; I was honored. Secondly, I will admit that it was pretty cool riding a one-of-one for a while.
We made the fit identical to my road bike with two subtle changes. We made the drop to the bars 10mm higher and 10mm less in overall reach. I also wanted to keep the finish simple, so we went with raw carbon and took advantage of the new Tri Composite fiber option, opting for a green finish.Sarto also told me the new bike would work great with a 2X drivetrain and still fit 48mm tires.
I decided to build this up like a road bike.I wanted a super fast, well-handling bike that would work well on some of the toughest dirt sections while still being fast on the blacktop.The spec looked like this:
- SRAM Red AXS road group with 48X35 rings and a 10-36 cassette
- I opted for the new 5 Dev machined titanium crank arms
- The same one-piece bar/stem as on my Sarto Raso road bike
- Duke wheels, 42mm depth and 25mm internal width with hooked rims
- Cadex saddle
- Ceramicspeed BB
- Tufo Thundero 44mm tires
- Titanium thru-axles
- Dura-Ace pedals
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The bike looked like a road bike.If not for the big tires I would think it was a road bike.The 44s fit great, with plenty of room. I have not tried bigger tires yet, but it looks like 48s could fit, but I'm not sure if they'd hit the battery. For sure, they would fit with 1X.The bike felt light. I don't remember the weight, but I will try to get it recorded before we publish this article.That said, I don't care what the scale says; it's how it rides, but more on that shortly.
The cranks looked fantastic and fit well.The tires looked fast and mounted easily on the Duke rims.Plus, we had the first of the then-new SRAM Red groups driving it forward, which looks and feels so much better than the last generation of Red AXS—good job to SRAM for their efforts on this one.
I prefer road pedals to mountain pedals and use the Dura-Ace model mostly unless it's super muddy out, and I think I'll have to walk/run a bit. That is what I go with on most gravel bikes.
Like I said above, it looked like a fast road bike and got a lot of attention sitting in the showroom. Soon, I'd see if it rode like that.
FIRST RIDE
It is one of the funnest bikes I have ever ridden! It's just like that OPEN all those years ago but on every good drug known.So good!My first ride was a good mix of road types and terrain.
Long story short, it was Kalara's birthday, and she wanted to do a 25-mile hike from Olema back home to Mill Valley. So I drove her (and our two pups) out to Olema, back down the coast and up BoFax, and parked at the top. I hopped on the bike for the first time and fired up Bolinas Ridge Trail to meet her. This is not a smooth fire road, and, for some reason, it feels worse going north than coming back in the other direction. I was hitting it pretty hard as I wanted to meet her as soon as possible to ensure she got more water bottles since it was a hot day and I was resupplying her and two big Shepherds.
It was the perfect test, though; there were no niceties, just straight to it. Even though the trail was rough, the 44s were perfect, and the bike still felt smooth. I think I was running 31psi in the rear and 29 in front. The gearing was fine, as this trail has no big or steep hills. I reached Kalara, swapped out water bottles, and returned to the van as quickly as possible. I wanted to do the BoFax descent and climb back up before she got back to us.As I said, heading south on the ridge seemed a lot easier than the other direction, and I could carry a bit more speed, which was super easy to do on this bike. I was super impressed again by how much this felt like a road bike, but it was taking everything the trail could dish out.
I returned to the van, grabbed a fresh bottle and headed down the ten-minute descent. Again, road bike. Felt even faster with the super smooth and big tires.Gripped everywhere. I'm not the fastest descender anymore, but wow, this setup made me want to push the limits a bit more than usual, but I felt super in check doing so.
I got to the bottom, flipped it and started back up the 7km climb. I wanted to go as quickly as possible without blowing to ensure I beat Kalara back to our meeting spot. I'm not kidding when I say that I felt like I was riding a pure road bike up the hill. Some of it had to do with the tires, but it was more than that.The position helped, but it felt fast, accelerated easily and held the speed.I had a massive smile on my face as it was just pure fun.
I got to the top before Kalara, so I was able to head north to Bolinas Ridge one more time. Going from smooth asphalt to a bumpy and ripped-up trail was super easy, proving how good this bike was at railing in different terrains. More smiles. I rendezvoused with Kalara, had a little birthday picnic, and then packed the bike and pups in the van while she set off on the second half of her hike.
I sent an email to Enrico and the Sarto team telling them they had a winner; DON'T CHANGE A THING!
Fast forward to a couple of months later, to the AC Invitational, I had the opportunity to ride my favourite gravel course with Enrico and 40 of our friends.After the ride, Enrico told me he was going to make some changes.Nooooo!Don't worry, he said, they will be good ones.He was right.He decided that the new bike needed to fit even bigger tires, so now you can get the new Raso gravel bike with 50mm wide tires (1X only) to get even deeper into the woods. But he also made me very happy and is still offering the bike like mine, 2X compatible and clearance for at least 45mm if not 48mm rubber. Again, big smile.
I've put a few hundred miles on the bike in this time (it would be way more, but since I'm trying to rack up the miles, I needed to be on the road bike more often than not) and can still say that this is one of the most fun bikes I've ever been on. I'll stick with the 2X version you see here, but if you want a fast, smooth, light gravel rig that fits even wider tires, we also have that.
These bikes are ready to order now, and in about 12 weeks, you can be having as much fun as I have had.
Thanks for reading, and see you on the trials!
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