Originally Posted by
mstateglfr
My current gravel bike is a Fairlight Secan 853 steel frame with carbon fork. 44mm head tube, tapered steerer, 2x11 shifting with hydraulic disc brakes, and thru axles. Its simply been incredible.
Anything to add about the Fairlight?? Did you discuss sizing or anything else with them prior to purchase? My next bike will be either the Secan 2.0 or Faran 2.0 when the time comes. Likely the Secan to avoid some overlap with another bike. They seem to tick just about all of the boxes in what I’m looking for.
As for C&V ‘gravel bikes’ I think of primarily tire volume and gear range. As others have said, it really comes down to where you want to go. 25mm tubulars will ride hardpack all day. Apart from a ‘91 Rockhopper MTB I have three bikes that I built with mixed surface riding in mind.
‘83 Woodrup 753, 32mm rubber, 50/28 x 13-30 7sp gearing:
‘71 International Gugificazione, 42mm rubber, 46/30 x 11-42 11sp gearing:
(I was still playing with fit when this photo was taken)
‘81(? I forget off the top of my head) Grand Touring, 38mm rubber, 48-16 fixed/SS (I need to drop the gear inches a bit...):
Just to throw it out there...a word of caution, if running fenders off-road it’s good practice to keep the stays snug, but not tight. If you pick up a stick or rock with the front wheel you want the stay to pop out of the mounting hardware at the eyelet rather than things getting jammed up. I’ve had that happen once and was glad all I had to do was pop the stay back in place and snug it down trail-side. The next bike for mainly off-road riding will be fender-free.