Well, I love my Jamis Renegade Expert. Great for riding around on bumpy city streets and can do some off road trails too. I really like the hydraulic brakes.

Great find. Best of luck. I rode a Diverge A1 Sport (2016) for about 1.5yrs. Great bike and only switched recently to the 2017 Sequoia Elite this last winter for larger tire clearance and more optimum gearing for the roads and area I ride. I like the curves of the 2016 compared to the 2018 frame.

Exactly. Tuck the shift cables under the tape, the pull changes, and suddenly mix-n-matching is gone.

Nice bike!

I would seriously consider one if they would just sell the frameset.

I prefer to build from a frameset when possible.

FWIW A guy I ride with has an Expert. He put on a Niterider light system, a Cambium and Compass Barlow Pass tires.

For a front rack, he put on a Tubus Big Apple with Ortlieb panniers.

It is an incredibly impressive bike for the $$$.

Say what you will about Specialized, but they are really churning out impressive machinery atm. imho

[QUOTE=Lazyass;19652819] "The Claris 8spd group is 100% perfect, it shifts better than my 6700 10spd. I may not even upgrade..."

Congratulations on the new bike. I, too am a confirmed C&V guy who recently picked up a bargain gravel bike, a Felt V100.

I just wanted to second your good impressions of that Claris group. Seems to work great with a wide range of gearing. Unlike you, I must be old and weak because I swapped my rear cassette to an 11-34, giving me a nice 1:1 low gear. The Claris RD handles the bigger cog with no problem.

George in NoCal

For those hung up over the "gravel bike" name/marketing: who cares, the important thing is that bikes with ample tire clearance are becoming mainstream again.

You can buy frame set (frame, fork,neck, handle bars and seat posts) for both the Sequoia and Diverge (see below)
https://www.specialized.com/us/en/bikes/road/adventure/sequoia-pro-module/116172

I just found out about Compass tires. I am planning a century ride for September. It is in Delaware so it's flat and on asphalt ( different than what I usually ride). I like to build another set of wheels with thinner tires built more for road riding.

Ah, interesting!

Thanks for the links.

My "new" 1987 Gravel bike by Raleigh Canada. Stupid fun to ride and built with all circa '87 parts!

I have always liked the shapes they are able to get with the hydroformed alum frames but haven't ridden one. I had a cannondale R800 with Alu frame and carbon fork that I loved....until I rode a steel bike and realized I didn't have to be jack-hammered on my local (crappy) roads. You comments intrigue me though and I might have to try one some day, or course my 09 Handsome Devil can take up to 47c tires so it would make a great gravel grinder/Monster Cross if I ever got the itch.

Nice bike btw and a heck of a deal.

I also don't think it's just marketing, and I think it may also be more than just the ability to fit significantly wider tires. I would most definitely defer to gomango & others here who ride serious gravel mileage, as well as to Jan Heine and others who have extensively ridden vintage lugged steel frames, that also fit mega-wide tires, on gravel.

The gravel bike design brief, oversimplified, is "Cyclocross bike with lower bb, that fits wider tires." The lower bb increases stability and the feeling of being "planted," with the wider tires providing enough cush to enable higher speeds, with less shock transmitted to the rider.

My nearby trail/gravel rides are maybe 15-20mi max round-trip. I've ridden classic-ish race-geo CX bikes like Barrettscv's Simonici, which I never tire of seeing BTW---those usually max out at maybe 32-33mm rubber; newer proto-gravel bikes that maybe get you up to 37mm; a rando-type Boulder All Road that can handle 42mm 650b Hetres and, most recently, a Wraith Paycheck that can run 650b tires fatter than the Switchback Hill 48s I have on now.

I run similar light/supple tires on all of these, not tubeless 'cause I'm an old scaredy-cat wanker, and I'm a clyde, so I'd pinchflat at those floaty 20-30psi pressures. YMMV.

My Fuquay/Serotta Custom CX & Kelly Knobby-X CX racers are fun and OK on gravel, but I get beat up more and the handling can be a little vague sometimes. The Boulder and my Zanconato proto-gravel are better on both accounts, smoother and better-handling, esp the Zanc---I'm not yet a huge low-trail fan. The Fuquay is lugged steel, the Kelly a tig'd CX frame, and the Boulder is a modern tig'd Rando design. The Zanc is a lugged steel neo-mod design from 2006, when the gravel thing was still kind of just a Hershey bar in your poppa's back pocket. The Zanc's bb drop is 80mm, really deep/low compared to the low-60s for Fuquay/Kelly, and very unusual for a true CX bike.

There's nothing C&V about the Wraith, other maybe than it being built from steel. Fatter tubes, massive head tube and fork, significantly fatter tires than I've ridden before in my life. The Paycheck is the only bike out of this group that really pushes me to go faster, almost regardless of what's under the rubber. It actually scares me a little because it easily lets me get to, and sometimes beyond, my comfort/ability zone in the rough stuff. That "OK, this is getting too choppy so you better not go faster" feedback...just isn't there.

So I think it's frame/fork design combined with really wider, supple tires---it definitely goes beyond marketing for me. And as much as I love-love-love steel, the idea of a modern carbon gravel machine that only weighs 21lbs is kinda drooly.

'90 Greg Fuquay/Serotta Custom CX:


Pre-'05 Chris Kelly Knobby-X


'06 Mike Zanconato CX/proto-Gravel:


'11 Boulder All Road Rando:


'15 Wraith Paycheck: