Mason Bokeh turns 10: the fast, do-it-all bike that refuses to be just ‘gravel’

Ten years ago, Mason Cycles introduced the Bokeh, a model which was never content to be pigeonholed as simply a gravel bike. It has evolved over the past decade, but its core spirit – fast and versatile across multiple surfaces – remains intact. This is a bike that encourages adventure without fuss, and that has earned it a devoted following.

How could you describe Mason Cycles? Think of a cookie-cutter bike brand – maybe one that sources open mould frames from the Far East and sticks its name on the down tube. Mason Cycles – or Mason Progressive Cycles, if you want to be formal – is the exact opposite of that. Mason bikes are meticulously designed for a specific purpose – and when we say ‘designed’ they’re thought through to the nth degree. No shortcuts here.

And it works. Dom Mason, who was the creative director and bike designer at Kinesis UK before setting up Mason Cycles, says, “We had a very strong end to 2025, and have had a very positive start to 2026. We’ve never borrowed, done the whole thing on our own money, and we feel very fortunate that we were up on sales last year, against the worrying background of many brands either being in trouble or considerably down on sales.”

That’s the business side of things – a story of positivity in a market that’s struggling – but you’ve come here to check out the bikes. The first Mason bikes were the road-focused Definition and the Resolution, which we first featured here on road.cc in 2015. The Bokeh came along the following year in aluminium and titanium versions. What was it all about?

“It’s an AdventureSport bike,” said Dom at the time. “It’s a response to this move in cycling towards venturing off road and using bigger tyres, disc brakes and lightweight packs and having adventures, but not necessarily on bikes with masses of luggage.

“To us, AventureSport is when you’re out there underneath a mountain, riding fast. I come from an off-road background – the first frame I designed was a Kinesis off-road frame – and now we’re getting back into that off-road stuff.

“We’re not talking about gravel. The word gravel sounds a bit dull to me. AdventureSport is about doing it fast. That’s what our original Mason bikes do well, and that’s what we’re continuing here.”

A fast bike capable of taking on multiple surfaces, then. And the Bokeh name? Let’s go over to the Oxford English Dictionary for this one: “Blurring or hazing in the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image; this as an artistic or visual effect, esp. as rendered by a particular lens.”

Dom Mason likes his photography. As mentioned, the brand’s first bikes were the Resolution and Definition, and everything else on the roster has a photography-related name: Exposure, ISO, Aspect, and so on. It’s a theme.

> Check out the Mason Definition that Josh Ibbett rode to Transcontinental Race victory in 2015 

Compared to the Definition and Resolution, the Bokeh’s frame angles were slacker, the wheel base was longer, and the head tube was a touch taller, but the bike was still designed to be sporty.

“The idea was to keep the stack height quite similar to the bikes we’ve done already,” said Dom.

“I didn’t want to have a really long head tube like a traditional gravel/adventure bike, because the idea is that you can get quite low if you want to. It’s not so aggressive that your neck hurts, but I wanted a bike that could cover a lot of different types of terrain fast. I didn’t want it to feel too upright, and I wanted it to accelerate and climb well.”

Okay, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We rode a Bokeh built up with a SRAM Force mechanical groupset in 2016.

We said, “The new Mason Bokeh is a highly capable adventure bike with a feature-packed aluminium frame, splendid aesthetics, and handling that ensures it’s as at home on the road as it is on the trail.

“It’s the Bokeh’s off-road capability that is the real highlight, and how easily it transfers from one surface to another. Head off into the wilderness and show the Bokeh some muddy bridleways or gravelled roads and it feels even more at home than it does on the road. Its stability, from the long wheelbase and slack head angle, is a massive boon when tackling rough tracks, and it inspires confidence on loose terrain.”

We were fans right from the start, then, and so were lots of other people. Josh Ibbett rode an early Bokeh to victory in the 2017 Italy Divide, for example, and it was Bike of the Year in the road.cc Reader Awards for 2017-2018.

The Bokeh has been updated over the years, of course. Our man Stu Kerton reviewed the Mason Bokeh 3 GRX in 2023 and praised both the build quality and comfort.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Thankfully, Mason Cycles hasn’t when it comes to the latest Bokeh 3.0: it has merely been tweaked, refined and enhanced to make this iteration even more capable and versatile on gravel tracks, or tackling a challenging adventure than ever before. It still has that lightweight, fun-ride nature to it, but with a bit more attitude.”

Tweaks and refinements: that’s very much the Mason Cycles way. Dom likes to get the details right.

That Mason Bokeh 3 was runner-up in road.cc Recommends Gravel/adventure Bike of the Year 2023/24, and finished top 5 in road.cc Recommends Bike of the Year 2023/24.

As of last summer, we’re up to version 3.5 of the Bokeh, built with revised UDH-compatible dropouts and space for tyres up to 50mm wide on 700C wheels (up to 55mm on 650B). It also features cleaned-up hose routing and dedicated dynamo routing through the top tube.

> What is UDH and is it the future of all bikes? SRAM’s Universal Derailleur Hanger explained 

A lot of bikes are changed out of all recognition with each new iteration. For instance, we like the current Gen 8 Trek Madone SLR a lot, but it has little in common with the fifth-generation model that was launched in 2015, and not surprisingly, even less in common with the first iteration from 2003. Mason has certainly updated the Bokeh over the years, but it’s still very much the same as the bike unveiled a decade ago.

Mason describes it as: “Our Italian-made custom Dedacciai aluminium bicycle for multi-surface adventures. We believe the term ‘gravel’ does not do full justice to the capabilities of this multi-terrain adventure machine.”

They’re not letting that ‘gravel’ thing go, are they? There’s still a titanium version, too.

This Facebook post gives a flavour of some recent Bokeh builds.

When we contacted him last week, Dom said, “You were the very first to see the Bokeh and BokehTi, and the only ones to see the raw pre-production versions, so it’s really nice and fitting that you are looking back on it now.

“We put out a call for pictures and memories of people’s travels with the Bokeh, and we’ve received a really nice response. It has been a very important bike in many people’s riding lives, it seems.

“We’ll be publishing people’s stories and images over the next few weeks, and wouldn’t a ‘10 Years of Bokeh’ ride be nice?”

We’ll keep you updated on that one. In the meantime, you can see the current Bokeh range over on Mason’s website.

Check out loads more Bikes at Bedtime here.