I need your help.
I own today a Hakkalugi CX from 2012. The bike is awesome in almost every way. Its fast, snappy, agile, light and ive never ridden a more fun bike in my life. The issue is, its quite old and it got cantilever brakes, max tire width is 35mm, maybe some 38mm will do too.
Mostly i ride fine gravel roads and the bike handles that extremely well but its not the best bike when it gets a little bit more gnarly and chunky gravel and the cantilever brakes doesnt work very well in really steep downhills when its wet.
I tried a more “modern” gravel bike but i had to sell that. It felt clunky, heavy, more the opposite to my hakkalugi and i felt, why ride this bike when its not even faster then my full suspension XC bike.
Are there any bikes, modern bikes, who can take tyres up to say 45mm that feels snappy, light, agile, fast or do these worlds collide and you cant have both? I also dont want to spend a fortune but rather upgrade it with time. It doesnt have to be a 2025 model but i would like to have disc brakes and option for wider tyres.
Maybe looking at gravel bikes is wrong and CX is more what im looking for?
In general, bikes like the Cervelo Aspero and Specialized Crux would fit the description of a bike you are looking for….more of a road bike for dirt vs. a trail bike for road.
Hakka MX, the descendant of the Hakkalugi, takes 40 mm easily, can also take bigger with 27.5. I use mine mainly for CX, but if you like Ibis worth checking out
CX is riding at 0-10 mph, most CX bikes have geometry to suit.
You can choose to ride a CX bike for gravel but you might regret that down a 40 mph rutted downhill. Using the right tool for the job is usually better.
Yeah. I like to look look at a bike’s geometry to understand how it’ll ride, or at least compare it to bikes I like. Things like HTA, trail, chainstay length, and front-center all factor in. Compared to CX bikes, gravel bikes tend to have slacker HTAs and more trail to increase stability in loose and soft stuff. This definitely makes the steering response less “snappy”, but also less “exciting” in soft loose surfaces. The traditional trend from snappy to less snappy has been road, CX, endurance, and gravel. There are many bikes that overlap or cross these boundaries so I think you should be able to find what you’re looking for among the huge variety bikes that are out there.
Going off feel is a common trap. Feeling fast vs. actually being fast are often at odds with each other. In my experience with off road racing, feeling slower often translates to actually being faster. Bombing a descent on a bike with shorter wheelbase, narrower tires, and steep geometry can feel super fast, but it’s typically very slow compared to a smooth controlled descent on a longer and less twitchy bike. Boring and controlled can be very fast. It took a long time for people to realize this with tires, but smoother (which feels slower) almost always translates to faster. Nothing wrong with enjoying the feel of an “Agile and snappy” bike and that can be the right bike choice if fun and feel is the priority over speed. But agility and snappiness don’t necessarily translate to increased speed in normal situations and can really slow you down in technical situations. It’s really a question of priorities.
Ye i get that 100% and i agree
But im not looking for the fastest setup possible but rather the most fun
My hakkalugi is not the fastest, well on smooth gravel it is very fast and its a dream when climbing but its slow on more chunky gravel. But it feels really agile and snappy, even if im not very fast its very fun to ride