Many bike companies have two gravel models to choose from – one that’s their “race” bike with slightly less clearance (42-47) and another that’s dubbed as more “adventurous,” with bigger clearances.
I’m all for road parts working on those racier bikes, but I think it’s a missed opportunity not to employ boost axle spacing on bikes with 73mm BBs.
There are bikes out there with big clearances, short chainstays, and 68mm BBs, though. The Allied Able is one, I believe, and if they can do it without 73mm BBs, then I don’t see the need to start pushing into MTB numbers.
I do think that once you get into 2.25" tires, using MTB standards isn’t the worst idea in some cases, but there will, of course, be a handful of bikes that straddle that line and work well either way.
Instant dealbreaker. Same with the new Allied Echo as well. Got told by a rep that they don’t support any Shimano road groups, wireless only. So new GRX and XT/XTR are ok. But that rules out any 2x Shimano group. I’ve tried running SRAM XPLR but it’s just not great gearing-wise. The 10-46t cassette is way too wide for 1x. Used the XPLR group for about 2 months before swapping back to Shimano 2x.
Yeah, I’m not saying there isn’t a single person where it will be a deal breaker, just that lack of shimano support isn’t going to cause a material difference in sales for a 1x gravel bike. And it seems pretty clear that 2x support is only going to be on the “race” flavor gravel bikes with less tire clearance while the “adventure” flavor gravel bikes are going 1x only w/ more tire clearance. Good to have choices. The alternative is trying to create a bike that does everything, resulting in a bike that doesn’t excel at anything.
I disagree. I just built up a gravel bike for a friend with GRX 2x. Another friend only rides Shimano. Actually 3 out of 4 in my close knit riding group only ride Shimano. None of them would switch groupsets for a bike. And like I said above, I even tried SRAM XPLR 13s and it’s not been great so I’m going back to Shimano. It’s not an insignificant number of customers they’re losing. Just seems odd to alienate close to half your potential customers.
Except there are a lot of people who are exactly the opposite.
I love Dura-Ace on my Road Bike, but for Gravel and MTB I wouldn’t touch Shimano. Even the MTB Groupset 10-52 is fine on my 1X Gravel Bike and I have zero issues with the gear spacing even when using my gravel bike on the road.
And, Shimano Power Meters suck, to the point where I have a Quarq PM and SRAM Red crank on my Dura Ace Road Bike. So, it actually is possible to mix / match in certain scenarios.
And who knows, maybe they’re banking on new Shimano releases or a more accepted standard…
There’s a massive difference between not wanting to ride Shimano on gravel, and the bike being physically incapable of using it. Imagine it the other way around. A new gravel bike comes out without UDH. The backlash from that alone would keep the internet arguing for weeks. It would be roasted mercilessly. Make it completely SRAM incompatible and this forum (and others) would lose their minds. Again, just seems like a weird business decision to instantly cross it off the list for many consumers.
And yea, the Shimano power meter sucks. But there are so many better options anyways. Favero make the best power meter period. I pick it over Quarq already, which has been not great in my experience. So it’s not like SRAM have some special power meter. Or Shimano users are somehow stuck with only Shimano power meters.
My point is that Felt’s decision makes my decision easy. Instant dealbreaker and off my list. Just odd to lose sales so fast for a silly decision.
I’ll disagree with you on that too. I’ll take Quarq every time over my Favero’s. Definitely costs more to have them on every bike, but flexibility of different (and lighter) pedals, not worrying about pedal strikes and more durable, not worrying about switching settings if you swap between bikes with different crank lengths, and my Quarqs last longer from a battery perspective. Slope / power adjustment is easy on both so that’s a wash though.
I can’t imagine there are a tonne of folks running wired shimano group sets on big tire gravel bikes? None of my riding mates would consider doing that, but I appreciate this could be one of those regional issues where my view isn’t reality.
Agreed - I was thinking mostly of previous gen GRX, which probably is less of an issue on a new build unless someone has the parts laying around.
All that to say that I agree in general that limiting narrow cranks and wired di2 is really not much of a miss on a new wide tired racing gravel bike I’d totally rock one.
Yea, we’ll have to disagree on that. I’ve had nothing but issues with my Quarqs. Funky readings everywhere before they (Quarq) just replaced it. And even the new one is still way off compared to every other power meter I own. I adjusted the slope offset and it was ok for a bit but then one day it started reading 15W high for no reason. I have a $250 Sigeyi that I trust more than Quarq. It’s actually one of the reason I ditched SRAM. Seems neither groupset can make a great power meter
But that’s why we have (at least should have) choices. Limiting the groupset options to 1 isn’t good for anybody.
I will be until SRAM can produce a better cassette. 10-46t as 1x is terrible (10-51t 12s is even worse). That’s too much range for 1x. Shimano 2x is still king by miles.
I had the same concern with the 10-44t, and went with the 11-44t apex version to get rid of the 10-12 jump. The bonus is being able to use a shimano HG freehub still
I’m 4/4 on Quarq being good, with all of them within 2%, maybe one slightly more than that that was reading a little low that I had to adjust up. From a consistency and repeatability perspective though they’ve all been dead on without a hiccup and I’ve had more troubles with my two sets of Assioma’s.
That’s not to say they all get tweaked a little to make sure my different bikes all read the same though. I won’t use a PM (other than my trainer) where I can’t adjust the slope / output.
Back to the bike - I think the Felt is built for a specific Market - to be honest, I like it… Jumped right into the list of what I’d consider if I was shopping.
I’m curious about your gravel race courses and terrain, and where you see 1x limited. Shopping for a new drivetrain soon so it’s good to read all perspectives.
Tangentially related (there’s no gravel equipment thread I could see recently), but maybe new wheels? I’m not enough of a wheel nerd to identify if they are another brand badged, but since MVDP has a history of teasing new products for brands, it tracks that these are new Dura-Ace coming.
But when we are talking about large tire clearance we are generally talking about 1x almost exclusively, in which case Shimano 2x isn’t particularly relevant to the discussion.
Instant dealbreaker. Same with the new Allied Echo as well. Got told by a rep that they don’t support any Shimano road groups, wireless only. So new GRX and XT/XTR are ok. But that rules out any 2x Shimano group. I’ve tried running SRAM XPLR but it’s just not great gearing-wise. The 10-46t cassette is way too wide for 1x. Used the XPLR group for about 2 months before swapping back to Shimano 2x.
I’d totally rock one.