I haven’t seen anything, but I expect they are terrible. Most are simple round tubes, which is bad for aerodynamics. Doing some kind of kammtail fairing/shape around the lowers would help, I guess you could even put a fairing up over the exposed stanchions. I’m honestly surprised it’s never been effectively addressed for XC racing (aero matters there also). This is where the lefty design might have a good story since I assume a single leg would have much less drag.
I went out for my first ride with my new Red E1 shifters this weekend…all I can say is “Holy schitt!”
With the extended length, I used this as an opportunity to narrow my bars and put ENVE AR bars in 38 on. Rotated the levers inwards a decent amount and BAM…I was instantly in a position that I can hold all day. Unbelievably comfortable to just wrap your hand over / around the tops with your thumbs resting on the satellite buttons. Forearms parallel to the ground, lightly resting on the bars coming back from the hoods.
I only got the shifters and not the calipers, so they were “only” ~$800 and couldn’t be happier. Worth it for the ergonomics alone, let alone the vastly improved braking feel.
5 Likes
Takes a 52. Heavy as hell lightest bike is 19.6 lbs
Ooooof…while I am glad to see a lower BB than the Super X, that geo would never work for me. I ride a 56 Crux and even going up to a 58 Topstone would leave me 10mm short on Reach and completely jacked up for Stack (61.5 vs. 57.8).
Even going with the idea of being a bit shorter / higher for a bike designed for rougher trails vs. gravel, that geo is a complete non-starter for me.
1 Like
Takes a 52 with 4mm of clearance. Pretty much every other company uses 6mm of clearance so really this takes a 48mm if you want to compare to basically every other frame.
5 Likes
Cannondale changing clearance numbers to aid marketing. ISO Standard is 6mm
6 Likes
Weird specs, too…highest level bike is Rival / GX Eagle. And that comes with the Lefty fork.
Do they think the backpacking / aggro crowd doesn’t want higher level components than that?
1 Like
Same here! I think it’s even a bit shorter in reach than the old Topstone. With many rowdier gravel bikes moving towards longer reach/shorter stems, I just don’t get it.
I’m not seriously in the market but I keep window shopping for a new gravel bike and this was immediately crossed off the list (and I LOVE my SuperSix Evo)
1 Like
Well that sucks. Factor did that with the ostro gravel also.
Everyone is making new bikes, but they all leave something to be desired.
Are we still a year away from seeing clearance at 55?
Cannondale updated both there gravel bikes in 2024 and they leave something to be desired. So they won’t update till 2028.
Maybe specalized gives us what we all want?
I feel the same way. While it is easy to say all these companies are “missing” on the new releases we do have to remember they were building these years ago. That being said I don’t see anything new that is going to be better than my current Crux set up. To your point - curious to see what Specialized cooked up this year.
2 Likes
Yeah the Crux has amazing clearance for when it was made.
Feel like we almost need to wait for the dust to settle on new standards but that might be 2030
1 Like
I’m not too keen on the new Sram, so UDH isn’t something high on my list for a new bike. So the Revolt is up there for me along with Lauf. My previous gen revolt can run 50s up front easily and 47s in the back no problem. So maybe I’ll wait if Giant gets rid of the flip chip and does go UDH in '26. I think I could even run a race king when it’s dry if I really wanted in the fork.
700cx55 clearance will become standard just about the time 700cx42mm tires become the fastest option, again.
7 Likes
This is just a Tideace Noah, which you can have for $800-900 depending on color, not sure what the point of paying an extra $500-600 gets you …
Also I don’t know how they claim 2.2" clearance for 29 inch wheels when Tideace says 50mm, seems very misleading …
3 Likes
Probably more builds yet to be released. I’m still hoping a new force group is coming soon to get the shifter updates. I think we’ve seen a couple new bikes launched recently without higher end builds on the first release. But ignoring the shifter updates, I’m a rival/gx guy all day. With axs, it all shifts the same and the weight difference is immaterial. I’ll do higher end chains for durability, but go cheap on everything else.
It seemed relevant given that State is essentially doing what Allied is doing… at a third of the price… I’m halfway kidding. Obviously Allied is putting a bit more work into the actual development of their Able, as we’ve seen several iterations of prototypes in the last year.
I mentioned TanTan in my post, who is the actual manufacturer for both Tideace and State on this one. I’m sure there is a not insignificant portion of the population that hasn’t, or wouldn’t, order directly from a Chinese brand, and wait the three to four weeks for the item to arrive, now along with a likely significant duty/tariff to be collected… hence, where that $500 doesn’t seem terrible.
1 Like
I have the ENVE AR bars in 37cm and while I generally love them, the limitations for their clip on aero bars does disappoint a bit. Because of their shape, most round aftermarket attached aero bars aren’t an option. I recall that in the past you have mentioned that with your geometry, aero bars don’t work on your bike. I’m wondering if they might if you found one of the manufacturers that makes aero bars with good sized spacers to raise them up?
I LOVED aero bars on my diverge, but haven’t been able to get the ENVE ones quite right yet on my Mosaic build with its more aggressive geometry. It seems to aggravate my hips being down to that level (on an already very aggressive geometry).
I’ll probably give them another go in a couple weeks when I get some upcoming races behind me.
Yeah, probably…as you noted, my issue is I am already pretty long and low. Even raising the bars 1cm as I prepped for Unbound last year wasn’t enough to get me really comfortable once I put on aero bars (and I can hop on my TT bike with no transition time and hold that position, no problem).
Agreed it would be nice if the AR bars were compatible with aerobars…