Would have to go with the Pivot Vault (“gravel bike”) for me. I don’t have one, but it’s one I’ve been looking at. Also the one presumably that Keegan Swenson got the Everesting record on.
The Vault can be used as gravel, CX, and road with the tire clearance and gearing. Has a dampening seatpost that acts as suspension to give added comfort on bumpy and long rides, and rumor has it that you can even put on front suspension given the clearance (though I have yet to see it).
I know a guy who uses his on just about everything, and he says it’s one of the best things he’s ever purchased.
Guess because we are going over rough stuff we would want something with a clutch rear mech - plus helps if you want to go 1x
Would you go 1x? Personally I have always been a fan of having 2 cogs up front just for the added flexibility. After all we are talking about a highly flexible bike here.
Shimano GRX?
Ultegra With RX rear mech?
Dura ace with XTR rear mech?
I realize I’m very much in the minority and it also depends on where you live/ride, but I’ve been running 1x on all my bikes for at least three years. My gravel bike has Apex 1 with a 44t chainring and 11-40 cassette, my road bike is Force 1 with a 50t chainring and 11-36 cassette.
I honestly don’t know if I could or even want to go back to 2x at any point. Maybe if I move to a place with more dramatic climbs, but even then…I just don’t know. I’d probably have to go AXS for Sequential Shifting mode.
I think that more and more bikes will go 1x. I just haven’t been that thrilled with it to this point (i have it on my CX bike) but there are probably a number of reasons for that, the main one being my 1x is not off the peg from SRAM, its Ultegra with a woolftooth chainring so i don’t think the ratios are entirely optimal.
I think if i could have n+1 bikes then having 1x on them is great because you can have all the ratios optimised for the kind of riding that bike is ideally suited to do. e.g 50T with a 10-28 for TT’s, then maybe a 46T with a 10-33 for road, then a 38T or 40T with the eagle cassette on the back for CX gravel etc
but for a quiver killer that is going to be in a paceline at 45-50 kph and also trying to go up steep loose terrain i think it would be tough to have 1x - so I think something with syncro shift would make a lot of sense
I can only speak to GRX - the group is amazing. The braking is excellent and the shifting is what you’d expect from a top tier Shimano group. +1 on a FD for me too. I almost went 1X and I’m very glad I didn’t. I need the range.
I thought the idea of having the left shifter for a dropper (not that i have a dropper) then setting up syncro shift on the right shifter would be quite cool
That said i dont plan to put a dropper on mine so i think having shifters both hands makes sense.
I’m a SRAM guy through and through, but dammit if those GRX Di2 shifters don’t look absolutely awesome. I am still very tempted to go with that on my next bike.
And they feel AMAZING! It just falls into the hand and the control (my first owned Di2, but tested a few over the years) and feels so good. It was a splurge for me to get this model, but man, I am happy that I made the extra spend for them.
My Open U.P. frameset arrived yesterday! Beyond hyped to get this bad boy built! Keeping my Allez Sprint as my racing/training rig so it’s not technically a quiver killer, but I could absolutely see it being one if I wanted to only have one bike.
Yeah, the hood shape is really great for road or off road. As far as using the left as a lever for a remote - totally. I’d be all about it if I was just riding technical areas but I need a FD, and am willing to use a slightly less than ideal dropper remote lever. I’m running one, it’s nice but it’s not as necessary as one on a mtb is.
3T EXPLORO, i had one (was stolen recently) and man that thing could do it all. I raced it on crits, road races , gravel, mixed) it did it really well. when i had it i did not ride my road bikes. I think its mtb capabilities we ok but never tried it with 650b’s but really that comes down to turning into a flat bar bike.
What qualities do you look for in a do-it-all “quiver killer” bike?
I can imagine that many of us have a dream of having an arsenal of bikes for many different uses but that’s not exactly in the cards for those of us on a budget. Let’s say you are a single discipline cyclist that has a bike purpose-built to your discipline, what would qualities would your ideal #2 bike have? Does a bike like this already exist or would you be forced into the realm of custom bikes to get what you want?
As a road cyclist, I will always have my road bike with race geometry and carbon tubulars. In training, I ride my road bike on all surfaces and lack of tire clearance seems to be my only limiter. So basically what I would want in a second bike would be the same, snappy road geometry but with clearance for cross tires. With that I could race cross, gravel, and even road races. I’m not too worried about comfort, as I am already comfortable on my road bike.
Does something like this exist? Maybe not exactly, but the most recent model S-Works crux looks like it has racey geometry and of course plenty of tire clearance. If I ever have the money for it I would totally talk to a custom frame builder about making a bike like this.
Do you have a do-it-all bike? What are it’s plusses and minuses?
I would love to hear what you think about this topic.
