It sounds like what you really want is just a gravel bike that you can put road tires on, e.g. a Warbird instead of the Warroad. Maybe consider selling the latter and getting a nice carbon bike that can take 45mm tires? Or grab a frame that can and move your parts over.
Re: gearing, eThirteen makes a 9-45 cassette that works with SRAM flattop chains and XPLR derailleurs. I have one on my Lauf, it gives you the same total gear range as an Eagle cassette without having to change over to an MTB drivetrain. Watt weenies will tell you the 9t cog is terribly inefficient, but I only use it on fast descents during group rides, so efficiency be damned.
Why not swap out the spider and chainrings?
You could go to 46-33 or 43-30. That would give you MUCH better gearing, and your current front derailleur is compatible.
I’m running the 43-30 on a regular (not WIDE) crankset and everything works great. I can explain the nuances of the front derailleur setup if you want…
My concerns would be 1) tire clearance? It’s build for 33mm cross tires but also presumably has a bunch of mud clearance so guessing it’d clear 40+ just fine. And 2) many cross bikes have pretty high BBs. Not the end of the world but this would make the bike a bit less stable on multi-hour rides. In general I think it’d probably work just fine but would not be the bike I’d buy for this unless you also wanted a CX race bike.
Yup, reportedly 40mm clears well enough. The BB is giving me a bit of pause, as is the general geometry of a bike like this for long gravel rides/races. I’ve got a Tarmac for the road and this is probably a bit too similar.
@RecoveryRider If you’re looking for one bike for road and gravel duty, maybe check out the Alchemy Lycos. It’s got a nice geometry happily between endurance road bike and gravel, clearance for 50mm tires, and they have builds with SRAM Transmission. Their site is a bit of a mess but they respond quickly to customer inquiries.
It sounds like what you really want is just a gravel bike that you can put road tires on, e.g. a Warbird instead of the Warroad. Maybe consider selling the latter and getting a nice carbon bike that can take 45mm tires? Or grab a frame that can and move your parts over.
Honestly, not even sure what I want. I came from a Cannondale Slate + Tarmac SL7 combo to wanting one bike. Those two bikes were so dissimilar that I really wanted one bike dialed in and could swap wheelsets. I think ideally I’d like another road bike (for road group rides, general road riding) and a 1x gravel bike with a 52t cassette on the back. But buying two bikes and only selling one is not possible right now.
An option for a one bike solution: Crux with SRAM wide crank with 46 or 48 front and 10-52 rear cassette and get two wheelsets (one gravel and one road). This is assuming you can handle the cadence changes between gears and make the long gravel climbs with the gearing.
I went the opposite and went all in on the Slate, not sure how fond of it you are. I built a set of road wheels for mine and run 700x30 and 700x32s, which along with the suspension, which makes for a great bike on the bombed out roads we have in this country nowadays.
The geometry on the Slate is fairly aggressive, with shorter chainstays than most road bikes. The reach is short, but HT is slack and soaks up the bigger hits well. Some narrow(er) tires really livens it up for the road.
It’s still aluminum I guess, but I have mine down in the low 18 lb range with the set of climbing wheels and 40c Terraspeeds and the Lefty fork.
Xcadey powermeter spider with hollowgram cranks.
Roval terra CLX wheels. Will have to redish a rear wheel if i want big tyres though.
Will use for road throughout winter, and will use 32-34mm road tyres without any dishing.
Need to pick up some narrow flared bars for it though, probably the terra 38’s.
I bought the new Canyon Grail last week and rode it 50 miles Sunday on easy gravel and road. So far I’m really happy with the purchase. The bike is very stiff and accelerates quickly, but is also very comfortable with the flexing seat post and ergonomic bars.
At 5’9" or 175cm I’m at the limit for a size small and I’m happy I went with that instead of the medium. The bike is very long and with the short stem it fits me perfectly.
Unfortunately all the accessories are unavailable in the US store until about February. I am using the Garmin bands to mount the Edge unit on top of the bars for now, but it’s not ideal.
If anyone is interested I’ll post a follow up in a month or so after I put some miles on it.
Be interested how it goes - definitely under consideration from me as n+1. Only thing kinda holding me back is the lack of internal storage on the SL, and I can’t stretch above that! Having said that. when I mentioned that to someone with a diverge, they had issues with the internal storage getting wet!
