I want a do it all bike, but more road focused. Like 40-45mm tire clearance is more than enough. I don’t ride gravel often and 45s is the biggest I’d need. So really I want a road bike that can fit big tires but still ride like a road bike.
ENVE Fray - 40-42mm tires from reports. 2x is a plus. Frame storage. Downsides are high stack and proprietary seatpost.
Allied Echo - fits 45s. But can’t run Shimano 2x. Also has a proprietary seatpost and stem. No frame storage.
Canyon Endurace - fits 40s officially so maybe 42-43mm in real world. Proprietary cockpit and seatpost. But does have frame storage which is nice. Probably the best value here.
Other option is maybe size down a gravel bike to get a shorter wheelbase and more road feeling. Aspero-5 and Factor Aluto might fit the bill. The Aluto actually almost has everything. Round seatpost, frame storage, 2x, road leaning geo. But it might be a little too gravel.
Just sharing in case you’ve never used it. I find this site really useful for comparing multiple bikes, and, for example, realizing that a 56 in one bike is more like a 54 on another. https://geometrygeeks.bike/
The gravel bike from Scott prior to the new one they just released. I mention it because an LBS I was in had one and it was beautiful and on steep discount. I believe max tire clearance is 40 or 45, hence the reason for the sale as this was in a mountain town where people want to run bigger tires.
I would also suggest the 3T Exploro Team or 3T Primo frame
easily ran 45’s and has esentially the original Cervelo R3, current Caledonia geometry - Gerard Vroomen moved from Cervelo and bought 3T.
Frame design is several year old, It was advertised as the all road gravel bike that could compete against road bikes. I just sold my frame to get wider tires and a more gravel geo, got soaked on the resale value as its a tweener, not really today’s gravel bike, and not a road race bike.
It can run 2x up front with max of 50, no frame storage. Would be more cost friendly than some of those on your list.
I had this (the original one) as by N-1 bike for about 4 years. 32mm road tires on one wheelset and gravel tires on another. Worked well for me, I thought it handled pretty well for a gravel bike.
The new Trek Domane is quoted as 40mm clearance. But not sure if there is much out there about potentially fitting wider tires.
OP - one thing to note is that a number of the bikes listed above are going to potentially have smaller tire clearance if you are running 2x rather than 1x.
Re-read his post and sounds like he does want 2x. I recently had a bike fit and put the results into an AI bot and said find me a frame and it came back with 4 solid answers. Let the bot scrape that info and it will give you some suggestions. Once I found a frame I had it find the best parts for my fit and it did a great job with parts suggestions and even highlighted potential compatibility issues.
I’m looking at the new trek Domane I had the previous version which was a nice bike just felt a little slow and heavy, even though it wasn’t. The new one seems to address a few of the minor issues so looking at that and maybe some 35mm tyres
Lots of votes for Crux 4 which wasn’t even on my list.
I did look at the Aspero (non 5) and both the new and previous models look decent when sized down. Both could be an option. I like the new pink option a lot actually.
It’s only the Endurace Allroad that has 40 mm tire clearance, which I suspect was not the model you had in mind. It’s 38 for the SL and SLX and 35 for the CFR.
Ah, good catch. Yea I would probably go for the CFR or SLX. I do know the CFR will fit 40s from a couple reports. Sounds like Canyon is pretty conservative.
