News Season: Sea Otter

 With pandemic restrictions relaxed and the virus seemingly being on the downward trend, the trade show/festival in California known as Sea Otter is back full-force. In advance of this many brands and marketing firms are pushing new product news. Here I will show a few of the more interesting news items I've seen in the gravel cycling sector.

Otso Waheela C in Copper/Black (Image courtesy of Otso cycles)

Otso Cycles Has Three New Colors For Waheela C:

First up is Otso Cycles excellent, but underrated Waheela C. This is the carbon version of their gravel bike range which also includes the Waheela S and Warakin stainless steel bikes. Otso was one of the very first companies to put out a gravel bike that could hold a 50+ mm tire with ease and still have 2x and 1X compatibility. That's all the rage now, but Otso has been doing this for a few years already. 

The adjustable geometry is nice as well which is accomplished by their "Tuning Chip™" rear drop out which can turn the Waheela C into more of a cyclo cross geometry and flipped can allow for a lower bottom bracket height and slacker head angle. 

The new colors are "Copper & Black", "Turquoise & Teal", and "Lilac & Purple". See more on the Waheela C here: https://otsocycles.com/collections/waheela-c

Mason Cycles "Exposure" prototype (Image courtesy of Mason Cycles)

Mason Cycles debuts new "Exposure" Steel Framed Gravel Bike:

It isn't often that a company introduces a steel framed gravel bike anymore these days. However; Mason Cycles, a UK based company, isn't your typical bicycle brand. They have done a bang-up job of making some excellent road and adventure style bicycles and now they have expanded their offerings to include this new steel framed gravel bike.

They already have a fine gravel bike in the aluminum framed "Bokeh", (note the photographic theme to their bike model names?), but this steel frame is pretty cool and features some nifty details that many other companies do not hit upon. Most obvious of those being the seat stay mounted water bottle boss inserts. 

I like what Mason Cycles is doing with their designs. Too bad you cannot get the raw steel version shown here. That's a one-off prototype, but they will have a couple of exclusive introductory colors and some nice stock colors to choose from. See all the details here: https://masoncycles.cc/blog/mason-exposure-launch-edition-pre-order-now

 

Trek's new FX Sport Carbon blurs the lines between MTB Hard tail and gravel (Image courtesy of Trek Bikes)

Trek Debuts New FX Sport Carbon:

With a new frame and a bent toward adventure, Trek has taken the "fitness bike" theme out and has blurred the lines between MTB and gravel with a new model here which should be at dealers soon.

You kind of get the feeling that a few of the original tenets of mountain biking - adventure, exploration, and touring - are getting repackaged as "gravel" and this bike sure does nothing to dissuade those notions. Add in my next featured news bit and we'd be right there back in the 1990's MTB scene!

The new Fox TaperCast AX (Image from the web)

New Fox TaperCast AX Fork: A Bit Of A Rant

You've likely seen this ballyhooed all over the internet and on many endemic cycling news sites already. Fox has ditched the previous version of their gravel fork and have made several improvements to the design. Hey! You can change the travel now to 50mm! Woo!

I've read a few reviews of this, and of the new Rock Shox gravel suspension fork, the Rudy, and in all of the reviews there is a subtle theme which goes something like this:

"So, yeah, this fork does add weight, but you'll probably not notice it, besides, it is better than riding rigid!"

One reviewer was up front enough to mention that the Fox shock will require maintenance after 125 hours of ride time. For reference, that's about once every year for most serious gravel riders, which I know of, at least. Okay, add that cost in to your investment.

And on weight: If we are spending thousands of dollars on bicycles that are not bringing light weight as one of the benefits, we are probably buying motorized bikes, or what? More 'grace" on certain types of terrain? Maybe. A couple of the reviewers alluded to this by mentioning that they felt these forks were good for those "off-road" or single track sections of "trail" that rigid gravel bikes cannot go "fast" through. 

Excuse me, but is that not what mountain bikes are good for? 

These reviewers would agree that yes- a mountain bike is just for that, but what about on open roads? Ha! Well, they are saying gravel bikes are the answer outfitted with suspension and dropper posts. I'm saying that you are all cocked up here. The real problem is that (a) geometry of hard tail MTB's is too extreme toward the "slack & low" side and (b) your gearing is optimized for one thing: Winching your butt up to the next flowy down hill section. 

Look at that Trek above-  The frame can be set up with a front derailleur for wide range gearing that can do both the going up and the coming down. MTB's shed that versatility when they dropped front derailleurs and went 1X. The real fix is not to muddy the waters with gravel bikes bent on becoming drop bar MTB's, but to fix the extreme design of MTB hard tails which has gone too far off the deep end for anything but going down fast. 

Again: "Quit trying to make gravel bikes into mountain bikes."