Stormchaser Gets Geared And Sprung

The new Stormchaser GRX 810 1X Sus. Image courtesy of Salsa Cycles.

Yesterday Salsa Cycles released the news that a new variant of the Stormchaser bike was out. That original version, which came out on the weekend of Mid-South 2020, was the copper colored single speed. 

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. 

Stormchaser Gets Geared And Sprung

The new Stormchaser GRX 810 1X Sus. Image courtesy of Salsa Cycles.

Yesterday Salsa Cycles released the news that a new variant of the Stormchaser bike was out. That original version, which came out on the weekend of Mid-South 2020, was the copper colored single speed. 

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.