Originally Posted by
dwmckee
X2 on this! Jamis has been making great steel bikes for 3 generations now. The Renegade is on the third generation of frames and really has it dialed in. Great carbon fork as well. Very reasonable price and looks good too.
BTW, I have a new never ridden Steel Bombtrack gravel bike frame with carbon fork available that will fit someone about 5'10" - 6'. PM me if you are interested. It is European Columbus steel and very beautiful! Never ridden...
I'll admit it, the Renegade Escapade is one of the only (mostly) black bikes that I've really liked, it looks amazing. My wife has a Renegade Expat so I'm very familiar with them. For the price we paid it has been an absolutely ridiculously good deal. The problem with the Renegades is that their geo doesn't suit me well. I'm very in between sizes :/
PM me on that bombtrack, that's my height so I'm curious what you have.
Originally Posted by
mstateglfr
The Black Mountain MCD frame, as mentioned, is an option. I really like the geometry and set up my old rim brake frame for commuting/touring. The geometry is very 'middle' in that nothing is super aggressive or super slack.
The frame is made with .8/.5/.8 heat treated tubing and the paint is really quality. Its wet paint with a clear coat powder.
50mm tires fit, thru axle, post mount brakes.
The MCD frames have a good bit of stack height to them, just a specific mention since you've said you like a more stretched out setup. The reach is a bit more than most frames I compared, for what its worth.
Then you have Surly.
And then you move on.
As mentioned, Soma is a great option and there are multiple forks to give you a more custom setup based on how you want to ride(low trail or mid trail, basically).
All City Spacehorse is a full steel frameset for a reasonable price and comes in 3 colors.
And I bring in something outta left field- Fairlight Faran. Not one that would be mentioned, just due to small size and being across the pond.
Reynolds 631 shaped main tubes with S bend stays. Room for 42mm tire. Post mount brakes. Geometry that is more road than slack. 3 different frame colors.
$770 for frame, fork, headset, and seat collar.
If you do go with a steel frame and carbon fork, there are obviously tons of option- many already mentioned.
And bombtrack seems to be a popular option to see mentioned...its columbus cromer tubing which is .9/.6/.9 butting. It's perfectly fine, but I mention this because generic tubing or 631 is thinner/lighter and strong.
I always love your insight, you know a ton about these bikes, so thank you
I saw the Fairlight Secan mentioned but for the life of me I cannot find a geo chart for any of the Fairlight bikes. Do you have that by chance?
Originally Posted by
Metieval
I've been pondering the 650 vs 700 thing. I'm not opposed to 650 but I think I'd want the frame to be able to handle to 700 as well. Not sure if the Midnight Special can do that. And the other thing about this bike I just can't seem to get over is how ugly the fork is. It's just plain awful.
Originally Posted by
mstateglfr
Yes, not a feather.
I often find this among the under $1000 steel framesets- they certainly arent light and in the case of the Faran, it's to meet whatever the certifications over there are.
The Jamis Renegade 631 frame in size 56 weighs 4.93#, so in line with a slightly smaller Faran weighing slightly less.
Meanwhile, the largest Black Mountain MCD frame weighs 2275g or 5 pounds with what I would guess is probably the thinnest butting and profile on this price range of frames.
Since you built up the fog cutter, what does that frame and fork weigh?
This stuff always interests me since it is so uncommon to list on websites.
Very interesting on the weights there. I'm also definitely curious to know what the Soma frameset weighs in at. I have one local to me that could be a contender.