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| The new Stormchaser GRX 810 1X Sus. Image courtesy of Salsa Cycles. |
I was a bit shocked by the choice of a single speed, but using Mid-South as the debut event, well- that made sense. That event's red clay eats rear derailleurs when it gets wet, and usually Mid-South is wet.
Now it is two years down the road and the calls for a geared version have been answered by Salsa's debut of the Stormchaser GRX 810 1X Sus. It is pretty much what you'd expect, but for two component choices, which make it stand out from the crowd. Is that a good thing, or is it bad? That will depend upon who you ask.
Comments: And of course, I have opinions. The Stormchaser "Geared", (to make this flow a little better), is alright. Shimano GRX 810 is a proven set up. The Stormchaser can still be set up single speed, so if you K.O. the geared bits, you have that 'bail-out' option, which might come in handy at a place like where the Mid-South is held.
But this bike has the Rock Shox Ruby suspension fork which has a paltry 40mm of travel. For what this fork costs, weighs, and implies as far as maintenance goes, 40mm of travel doesn't really add up to a whole lot of value here. Sure.....you could go single tracking! Please! No one is really buying this bike to do that. Maybe at first the consumer may buy into that thought, but come talk to me after you've bottomed that thing out 50 times in one ride. Or after you blow out the seals and internals in gritty sandy usage. Or after you've done 10.000 feet of elevation in one go.
Nope.... Not worth the juice for only 40mm of travel. It's a laugher and we would have laughed that out of existence in 1992 as well. Things are very different today, but one thing remains- 40mm of travel for light MTB is not going to cut it.
But what about gravel? It'll damp out vibrations, right? Yes- but what does a Ruby weigh over a Redshift Sports ShockStop stem? A fair amount, and the stem requires zero maintenance. The fork? Keep the bike long enough and you'll be shelling out a couple Benjamins to get it OH'ed.
Look, these sus forks are the wrong answer to the question. They just are goofy for a gravel bike.
But besides that, the dropper post is something that I am a bit of a fan of, but not necessarily for the reasons you'd think, and that's an odd thing to most folks. So, I think this Stormchaser GRX will sell okay, and it will be a good bike, but it could be a heck of a lot better without that fork. That's my take.
4 comments:
Interesting choice to not offer it with the rigid fork and/or seatpost. Seems like that would make it a real value for gravel bike shoppers, particularly those OK with a metal frame but interested in nicer running gear than the Journeyman. Maybe that would pull sales from the Warbird?
@Blain - It is a weird spec, especially when considering that the drive train is Shimano and the fork is a SRAM offering. (Fox generally paired with Shimano as they work together often)
But that aside, I'm not sure what would amount to an aluminum Warbird would sell. When they made the Alloy 'birds they did not sell well at all. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Salsa dealers remember that and wouldn't order the bike if it was offered in big enough numbers to make sense. Adding a fork and dropper makes it different from a selling perspective, regardless of whether or not I think the fork makes any sense or not.
I found this iteration of the stormchaser a bit odd, considering it started as a low-tech option for days where you don't want to ruin your fancy equipment in bad weather. Then they added gears, a dropper, and suspension. Seems like the opposite of what I'd want to ride in wet, soggy gravel!
@Tomcat - Yes, I would agree with that assessment. I wonder if this is a product of the supply chain issues. A "This is what we can get" model, not what makes sense, or what consumers really want.
Consider that Salsa Cycles hasn't had any news to share about bicycles for quite some time, especially in the hot gravel market. "Anything" that they can get out there is better than continuing on with nothing to market, and thereby letting their share in the gravel market become further marginalized.
The plain black livery is also telling in that regard.
It just seems very odd, in my opinion, for Salsa to release such a bike for any other reason than shortages on other models they sell and for keeping their name out there in a hot market.
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