Gravel is an incredibly broad genre. At one end, you’ve got super racy, lightweight, and aerodynamic machines, much like Basso’s recent Palta III. At the other end, you’ve got go-far-go-anywhere machines like Rat Bikes’ Dad Rat. Now, Dangerholm isn’t one to create a ‘regular’ bike, and he’s worked his magic on Scott’s Scale Gravel, the brand’s genre-bending XC/gravel platform, and has sprinkled a dashing of road bike aero into the mix.

At first glance, this bike doesn’t look all that much like Scott’s Scale RC. It’s certainly more aero, and Dangerholm seems to outdone himself a little here, as this isn’t a standard Scale RC frame. Rather, the Daisy Dukes-wearing, serial tinkerer has taken that Scale RC frame, and added the seat post and seat tube section from Scott’s Foil RC road bike. In fact, this portion of the bike came from a crash-damaged foil.

As you can imagine, Frankensteining these two frames together was no easy feat. Dangerholm had to carefully cut both frames to achieve a spot-on fit. Once happy, the pieces were taken to a carbon repair expert to bond them together. To make the frame look whole, an extra piece of carbon tube was added to achieve a more aero shape.

2026 dangerholm scott scale rc hero 2
2026 dangerholm scott scale rc hero 2 (Image Credit: Gustav Gullholm)

But that’s not all, as the driveside chainstay has been tweaked in order to fit a larger chainring. Any mounting points on the fork were also removed to push the final build’s aero focus.

While it might be a bit of a stretch to call the Scale RC a mountain bike or a gravel bike, throwing a drop bar onto a bike that’s derived from a mountain bike throws in some fun geometry changes. With that, Dangerholm chose to forgo his usual large size, opting for a medium instead, to compensate for the extra length when in the drops. He says that this results in a near-identical riding position as his large Addict Gravel.

When it comes to gravel bikes, they use a very different specification to regular mountain bikes, but as always with a Dangerholm build, he hasn’t taken it easy. The bike runs 2.25″ wide tyres and has picked Syncros’s CFT seatpost to encourage a bit of compliance for comfort. There’s also a Syncros Campbell 20 Aero iL rear light and a Berk Lupina Monocoque saddle. Apparently, this saddle weighs just 99g.

Elsewhere, there’s Darimo’s Nexum Drag gravel cockpit with a -12 stem angle. Then, the headset wedge, cover and spacers have been custom-made for perfect integration.

2026 dangerholm scott scale rc crank
2026 dangerholm scott scale rc crank (Image Credit: Gustav Gullholm)

As for brakes, Dangerholm has gone for SRAM’s RED E1 levers, but those are hooked up to a pair of 612 Parts calipers, for a more aero design. Those slow a set of Carbon-Ti X-Rotor Aero rotors, as he admits, “while falling in the marginal gains category when it comes to aerodynamics, they sure do a lot for the looks”.

The SRAM theme runs throughout the bike with the brand’s RED XPLR groupset but boosted with CeramicSpeed’s OSPW X Alpha cage and Alpha pulleys. CeramicSpeed has also provided the BB Alpha bottom bracket.

Last but not least, check out that crankset. It’s a titanium unit from WERT Cycling dubbed the StW-M. These are drilled to reduce the weight to 314g, according to Dangerholm. The bike finally rolls on a set of prototype aero wheels with a 45mm internal width and 70mm deep waved profile. They’re wrapped with Maxxis Aspen ST tyres, by the way.

You might also like: