The Baum Turanti is the titanium cycle cross frame from the Australian company. But for most people it will be much more than, or even anything but, a cycle cross racer. These days, in the ever-expanding role of what bikes are specially made to do, the gravel riding bike is gaining ground. A lot of builders make 'gravel grinders' but base them off of a road disc platform. The problem with this is that with most disc compatible road forks you can really only fit up to a 28 or maybe a 30c tire with enough clearance to ride in any kind of grimy terrain. What we've (and a lot of others) have been doing for a long time is simple, build a cross frame with geometry more suitable to riding the road and you have the best of both worlds. Room for very fat road or knobby cross tires but the geometry to do any length of road rides.
The bike we're showing here is an example of building a bike with no limits. Every part was selected to offer the best in performance and durability and the geometry was designed to work off road as well as doing long road events. And while we don't find it necessary or even desirable to put disc brakes on a straight up road bike, for the steep dirt trails and fire roads they do help in making any off road duty easier and more stress free.
44mm head tubes are standard now for most disc braked bikes as they allow for beefier forks to withstand the braking forces of the disc brakes which are located at the bottom of skinny fork legs. If the fork is too flexy you'll get a ton of chatter which can negate any benefit of a disc brake. The same holds true for most cantilever forks as well, though we see those less and less. Chris King handles the headset duties as well as anything out there.
We chose the magnesium XTR mountain bike caliper and Petaluma, CA based White Industries, T-11 CLD hubs in red to go with the AC blue frame. Also, the Shimano Dura-Ace skewers keep everything locked down. We could have gone with the through axles as well, but again, chose the simplicity of the standard quick release and are more than happy with how secure and stiff the system works.
King titanium cages are just right with any ti frame and a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 group has shown great durability in extremely bad conditions such as cross or trail riding.
For wheels we chose Zipp 303 clinchers with Sapim CX-Ray spokes and red alloy nipples topped with Continental X king tires.
Baum calls this paint scheme GTR Pins. And again, we used AC Blue with Black Metallic for the frame, fork, Enve seat post and stem.
The rear White Industries hub with a Shimano Dura-Ace 12X28 cassette. Also visible is Baums standard setting welds and machine work.
Shimano XTR pedals and a 52X36, 172.5 crank. The gearing is great for where this bike is headed, but if lower gearing is needed an easy swap to a 50X34 can be made due to the fact that Shimano now uses only one crankset for any ring combination.
A good shot of the rear end. This bike also got one of the first Fizik Aliante saddles in the new shape. Fizik wraps an extra layer of carbon on the rails to protect them and this can lead to a bit of a headache getting it to fit on the Enve post, but with enough elbow grease it will work.
A good picture which shows the underside of the down tube and gives you a better idea of what the GTR Pins scheme looks like.
A few things that are hard to see but are definitely worth mentioning is the Busyman (another Australian company) hand stitched and dyed bar tape and the Ceramicspeed coated (as good as it gets) bottom bracket and rear derailleur pulleys, which are also made of titanium.
This is hopefully the cleanest we'll ever see the bike as it should be out in the mud tearing it up as we type this! Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoyed the show! You can also check our gallery page for other Baum (among others) builds. If you have any questions on this or any of the bikes we sell don't hesitate to give us a shout!
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