Certainly not creating the category, as Chad mentioned, they kinda pre-date gravel bikes. My Mosaic isn’t what I’d necessarily want in a pure “gravel bike”, but others might. There are pretty substantial changes to allow for(and thrive with) up to 2.3" tires, such as 20mm longer chainstays, 40mm longer wheelbase, and a full 2 degree slacker head tube. I certainly could run it with 45mm gravel tires, and probably will at some point, but its not my ideal “gravel” geometry. Plus I’ve got a Crux for that…
It’s essentially a tweaked GT 2X, with lower stack, and longer reach, to get a bit closer to my required fit.
Yep, I wasn’t sold on it myself, but they did a great job. My only nit would be I’d rather have seen the logo on the downtube should have been taped off and left as bare Ti.
I think that is my next bike. I have never ridden a ti bike but I only hear great things. Also i have to decide between the R3 and the omni. such a nice bike.
If I didn’t have either, It would be a tough choice between the R3 Omni and X3.
If I get an updated X3 (they changed geometry enough to make it tempting) I’d go with the Hue paint scheme which paints the fork and puts a highlight on the seat tube, but the rest is brushed, but with polished T-Lab logos.
Correct. I’ve actually got the Garbaruk cage and larger pulley so I could run an 11-50 if needed. Although I have several front chainrings that I could swap to for a bit easier gearing when needed and would probably swap that before going bigger out back.
Excellent choice. I got the same cassette on my XC hard tail. I was very skeptical at first, but after using it, I really appreciated the bailout gear.
My custom Ti frame welded up by Titan in China. Slowly upgrading parts hence the groupset mishmash
I love riding this bike — it’s incredibly capable! This photo was from my last shakedown ride before a 320 mile, 27hr ride with some friends last fall.
Woah, I def thought I posted here already but doesn’t look like it. This is my Bearclaw Thunderhawk, built up to be the ultimate rowdy drop bar adventure rig.
Force/X01 mullet AXS with a 40t chainring and a 10-52 Garbaruk cassette. Quarq PM to clearly tell me how slow I’m getting. MRP Baxter 2.0 suspension fork with 40mm of progressive travel and bottle mounts for cargo cages. Rene Herse 650bx2.2in knobbies set up tubeless on some Hunt 650b carbon wheels. Enve gravel handlebar. Since taking that pretty pic upon finishing the build, I’ve also added a Reverb AXS 100mm dropper post which has been such a sick addition. This bike absolutely rips, and will be my whip for Unbound XL and a few ultradisance bikepacking races this summer.
It was right around $1200 shipped — $1k for the frame and then $200 for the slow shipping option, which took about 2.5 weeks.
On a personal note, I loved the design process. That being said, it’s such a deep rabbit hole haha and it can get overwhelming.
If you go the self-designed custom route, spend a lot of time thinking about exactly what kind of bike you want to have at the end and then research from there, because there’s so many decisions to make and if you’re not super clear on the end goal it’s easy for things to drift.
Would you be interested in contributing to a potential thread I’d like to start about ordering a custom bike from china / custom bikes in general? I would love to finally get resources together about how to do custom builds and have people contribute their experiences here. Still need to search the forum to make sure nothing else has done so give me a bit on that.
God that sounds heavenly Would love to know what specific options were needed to be decided upon.
And to your second question: you get to decide on literally everything…tube shape/butting, geometry, dropout/bb style, water bottle boss location, and the list goes on. They’ll give you a template but everything can be changed.
Let me look through the forum for a bit and then i’ll start up something. I’d love to get a full range of resources people can look at as well as what to consider when ordering a frame from abroad (china, Peru etc). Would be neat to get this all together
haha and it can get overwhelming.
Would love to know what specific options were needed to be decided upon.