New bike day is always a good day. I am still waiting on the XDR hub body to arrive, should be here tomorrow or Monday, so I can put on the correct cassette I will be using, but in the interim, they put on an XD hub body and let me use an 11-50. Since SRAM pretty much controls the pricing, whether I bought local or online, the prices were pretty consistent, so I bought quite a few things at the shop, so they did not charge me to put it together, saved me some cost there. Always pays to have a good relationship with your bike shop. They always have a year end employee ride and I am not an employee and never have been, but have been invited a few times and I always get them some or make them some baked goods after thanksgiving. They love to see me coming through the door .

So the breakdown. The frame is the SL 7 model color Dark Aquatic\ Carbon Smoke, but since I altered the path with the parts list, I am labeling this a SL 7 custom .

Trek Checkpoint SL frameset 54cm - Still playing with handlebar height, going to try one spacer lower to see how I like that, if I do, will have them trim the steerer.
SRAM Rival Shifters\Calipers AXS
SRAM Force DUB 170mm with spider Power Meter 1x setup.
SRAM X-Sync 46 Tooth Chainring
SRAM XX1 Chain in oil slick
K-Edge 1X Chain Keeper
SRAM Eagle X01 AXS Rear Derailleur
SRAM Eagle X01 10-52
Bontrager Aeolus Pro 37V wheelset - these are new for this year. 25 internal width, 108 point engagement in the hub. 1505 grams for the set.
Pirelli Cinturato Gravel RCX 40mm tubeless
Shimano Ultegra rotors, not a fan of SRAM rotors, but I had these, so I decided to use them.
Zipp Service Course 70 SL XPLR handlebar
Bontrager Grippytack bar tape.
Bontrager Pro Stem 80mm
Bontrager RSL 27.2/20 setback/330 mm length. Bought this from one of the bike shop guys, they were not using it, so I got it for $100.
Bontrager Verse Elite saddle in 135mm
Wheels Manufacturing T47 Bottom Bracket
Time ATAX XC-6 pedals. I had bought them for my smart bike inside, but the wife could not figure out the clipping in and out bit, so I used them here.
(** FYI, if you or significant other has issues clipping in or out, look at the Magped pedal systems. Simple design. Strong magnets, worth a look, based on our shoes I opted for the gravel versions.)

Weight, as it sits today, 19.4, once I change out the NX cassette and XD hub body, should be around 19 or just a bit under. Going to take it out Saturday for a proper shake down ride.

looks better than my checkpoint. Nice job.

Let me know how those tires are on the road. I’m trying to decide if I should get another wheel set and tires or just new tires.

Yours looks good man. Just a horse of another color as they say.

Will do, they have a slightly deeper more spread out knob pattern to handle looser\muddy surface, but not mountain bike tire depth, but they feel pretty smooth going around the neighborhood. I too am interested in how they will be longer distance. I am already questioning if I should have gone with the Cinturato Gravel H instead which is a much tighter smaller knob pattern. I have those on my FX and they are surprising fast on the road for a 40mm tire and just last night, I was like, hmmmm, should I swap them around. At the time I bought them, I said, no, I have dedicated road bikes now, no need, but you know how that goes, but could this be the one to rule them all ? I think as I ride more of the off road trails, that will give me a better feel if I made the correct decision.

Sweet gravel bike! I'm sure you'll like it.

I took mine on a 75 mile 7500 feet of climbing ride right after I purchased it. After all the trouble I had figuring out what size I needed the 58 fits me like a glove. The tires made it feel like a slug though on the flats. Surprisingly my climbing effort was matched to when I did the same ride on a Pino grevail. I have an 80 mm stem on mine as well and because of the geometry the front wheel will not have enough weight on it in descents. I couldn’t go any faster than 55 mph because I couldn’t put enough weight on the front wheel and it would start to get squirely. Once I find the right tire and or wheels I plan on riding this bike a lot more just in its current state it’s too slow. 200 watts I am only going 16 mph. I ride at 4 am so I stick to roads, I am looking forward to actually getting it on some gravel.

Are you running the stock tires? I saw these and considering them. They are only $26 https://www.lordgun.com/pirelli-cintu...-1?color=Black

Yea the stock GR1 currently. They might be great on gravel but on the road they suck.

Yea they are pretty heavy and slow. They had the same tires on my FX and they exited stage left as soon as I brought the bike home.

I’ve got a checkpoint sl7. 2x because I use it for winter road rides a lot. Such a great bike. That colour is sublime.

Man, you and BAM are keepting Trek in business!

... yea seem to be working on it. Through the years, I have owned 9 Trek's, 3 Cannondale's, 1 from Specialize, and 1 from Raleigh. I've been on a selling and buying spree as of late.

They treat me well.

With the intent to ride mostly road would you do 40 or 45?

40

So took the bike out for a long ride today, eventually after I dealt with a slipping seat post. The RSL I was using seems to be a bit thin and would not allow the seat collar to hold in place, dropped about 6 cm in less than 5 miles. So back to the house where I pulled the carbon post out of my FX so we could be on our way. A friend and I end up doing 78 miles total of which 26 was on hard pack grass and dirt with no roots. As I do not have any power data for tires in a 40mm width or this style of tread, any numbers given are an apples and orange comparison, not to mention weather conditions, so again, grain of salt here.

Wind was pretty light, maybe 5 to 8 initially, but out of the NE\E which created a mostly cross tail wind on our way down along with traffic wind assist on occasion, then of course the ride back was a horrific 10 to 15 mph out of the NNE, which meant a crappy 26 mile return headwind. When I look back at the numbers, my avg speed on the asphalt was around 17.5 roundtrip, which I thought was actually quite good due to the wind and tires, and my power increased about 10 to 15 watts overall. I have ridden the road portion of this route often, and can generally maintain 19 to 21 with an avg power of 195 to 205 on my own. With an additional rider or two, 22-24 avg speed and a slight reduction in power as we paceline. Today, the avg power was 218, again, calculations could be a little wonky here as I am pulling just for the road from my segment times and power readings, so this could be a giant pile of crap. However, I felt like the tires rolled fantastic on the asphalt and when we were heading down, there were sections where I was in front and we were rolling at 22-24 and I was in the 46-18 combo, again, tailwind assisted, but they did not feel wonky on the road, felt very grippy, did not feel like they would roll over on the corners due to the aggressive edges at all. I was able to hear the slight buzzing of the knobs, but not unexpected. I ran my pressure around 38 front, 40 on the rear. Knowing I would eventually run offroad, I set them lower for that, if it would have been an all road ride, I would have raised the pressure a bit, 42\45 or something around that. Conditions were exception dry and warm today.

Overall the bike was so comfortable, the Rival hoods absolutely 1k times more comfortable than my Force D1 hoods on my Domane\Emonda, fit my hands so much better, I am seriously considering changing them out to the Force D2 or the Rival hoods on my Domane, I am sort of stuck on the Emonda, it is rim brake and they have not offer a rim brake smaller hood option. The handlebars are 1 size wider than I normally ride, at 42, so that felt a little off initially, but less so as the ride progressed, but the reach to the shifters from the drops were outstanding on the Zipp Service Course SL 70's I combined with the 80mm stem setup and couldn't be more happy with that. Running from the lower bars was also good and I plan to leave the spacing where it is at so I will not need to trim the steerer any.

I think in the long run, since a vast majority of the off road paths for the gravel scene around here is hard packed grass and dirt, I am going to swap out tires for something less aggressive, either the Gravel H or possible a 35mm road tire such as those Pirelli All Road I mentioned, or even the Cinturato Velo in 35. The guy I rode with today was riding on 40mm Maxxis Re-Fuse tires that were basically road tires with a little bit of rough surface and handled all the offroad we did with ease except for the small, maybe 100 yard segment, that had some loose sand. He had to roll to the outside of that. I wont use Maxxis tires, bad experiences with them in the past, and that is where they will remain. I will hang on to the Cinurato RCX tires for when the surface will be more wet or sloppy as they will work fantastic even with some asphalt riding.

So if you are going to be doing more road than off, I think something of an all road type or a wide road tire will definitely be worth the change.

Thanks homie.

Are you doing single track or just dirt/gravel roads? If the latter, get some slicks like gravelkings or Strada Bianca. All of the dirt I do around here is on slicks and it’s more than enough.

With me having to ride at 4 am it’s only roads at the moment. I don’t ride the checkpoint since it’s so damn slow with the current tires on pavement. Was asking Jax how his tires were, current plan is to get another wheelset to put all road tires on and to use on the road and light gravel and keep the other wheelset for gravel gravel. You know my schedule who knows when I will ever get to ride a true gravel ride.

Didn’t think about it until I bought the checkpoint but I should bought another emonda ALR frame with ultegra Di2 and just built another bike. At the time I had the parts for it and I would have used the crashed emonda strictly for racing. OH well. I didn’t need another road bike, and I didn’t have a gravel bike so here we are.

The bike shop I do biz with, the owner just has a Checkpoint for road riding and is using the Vittoria Terrano Zero 700x38 TLR version setup tubeless and said they work great for when he does any dirt\gravel riding and are fantastic on the road.

I’ll have to look at those. My mind is blown with all the different tire choices.

This is what I did. 40mm and 25mm. The latter look anaemic with that huge fork space but it rides great.

Getting the wheels on and off without scraping the paint on the chainstay with the rotor is bloody difficult though so if anyone knows the knack?

Did you use the same wheel\hub model? If not, do you have to adjust the caliper when you swap them?

No and no. Fit fine. The original wheels cause the same issue, as the wheel drops down and forward (even with the mech pulled back), or the reverse to get it back in, the rotor hits this inside area of the stay which curves in.

New bars. FSA A wing.
New tape
new tires wtb exposure. Will test ride tomorrow


Jax. Looking at hunt alloy gravel wheels, boyd alloy gravel wheels or the bontrager paradigm 25 gravel wheels
Thoughts?