Bombtrack Hook gravel bike

The Bombtrack Hook is an elegant steel-framed machine that’s really versatile. It’s ideal for gravel, all-road, commuter or light touring duties; anything that requires plenty of tyre clearance and/or carrying a lot of kit, basically, if not necessarily carrying speed. It’s not the lightest of bikes, and it feels heavier than the scales would suggest. Also, it lacks the ride quality and feeling of rider involvement of its rivals. It’s decent value though.

Bombtrack Hook – Technical details

The Hook’s frame is made from double-butted Columbus Cromor tubing, with a claimed weight of 2,420g for a size medium. It’s a neatly-welded frame and comes in three metallic paint finishes: red, black, or this teal/black fade. I think it’s a good-looking bike – classic with some modern twists, such as in the use of a T47 bottom bracket.

The carbon fork is 600g with a 300mm steerer, and the tapered head tube visually flows into the fork – the head tube looks quite oversized in comparison to the slender tubes.

The Hook’s frame is decked with mounting points throughout, with triple bolting points for each bottle cage, another pair under the down tube, and another on the upper face of the top tube. There are mudguard and rear rack mounts too, plus load carrying mounts on the fork.

Tyre clearance is decent at 45mm (42mm with guards) on a 700c wheel, and 52mm on a 650b. The XS and S bikes come with the smaller wheels, while the other sizes get 700c.

Bombtrack has kept the gear cabling and brake hosing external, which makes the Hook a simple bike to work on. The only thing that can run internally is a dynamo hub cable, which the carbon fork has routing for.

The Hook is available in five sizes, covering top tube lengths of 509mm up to 580mm. This medium has a top tube of 541mm which, paired to a 130mm head tube sitting at 71.6 degree angle, gives a stack and reach of 565mm and 375mm respectively. The seat tube sits at 73.6 degrees and the fork offset is 50mm, while the wheelbase comes in at 1,014mm. Overall, it’s all very much as you’d expect for this kind of bike. There certainly aren’t any surprises.

The Hook uses Shimano’s 10-speed GRX-400 gravel groupset with an RX600 crankset running 46T/30T chainrings. The cassette is 11-36T, so there’s a decent spread of low gears for the type of riding the Hook is intended for. GRX-400 may lack the refinement and extra gears of the higher-end options, but it is a solid groupset that keeps working well even without much looking after. It’s a bit of a workhorse. The gear changes are smooth, and I’m always impressed with the way it shifts under heavy load.

The 160mm rotors front and rear provide more than enough stopping power, even when the bike is loaded up. There’s plenty of feel at the levers, which is especially welcome on loose surfaces.

As for the rest of the finishing kit, the majority of it is Bombtrack branded. The handlebar and stem are basic aluminium models, with the former having flared drops to give a bit of extra control on the gravel. The drop is a quite shallow 116mm, which I found worked well here, and the reach is a typical 75mm.

The seatpost is also aluminium, which is no big issue. Carbon is nice, yes, but the difference in comfort is minimal, especially on a gravel bike with larger volume tyres. It was easy to adjust and there was no slippage in the frame. The Seido Comp saddle worked okay for me, although it’s fairly flat. I prefer something with a bit more profile to it, typically.

The tyres are WTB’s Ventures. With their minimalist and compact tread pattern they’re well suited to hardpacked trails and they don’t roll too badly on the road, although they feel a little lifeless as they’re not that supple. There are some shoulder blocks that help on the looser stuff for a bit of grip in the corners.

The 650b models use WTB Resolute tyres instead, and they’re slightly wider – 42mm instead of the 40mm Ventures on these 700c wheels.

The wheels are a mixture of Bombtrack hubs and WTB ST i19 rims, with 32 spokes holding them together front and rear. It seems a tough wheelset and I had no issues throughout the review period, although the rims are only 19mm internally. That’s narrow even by road bike definitions, and definitely on the slim side gravel tyres.

This made the 40mm tyres feel more like a set of 36s. If I was going to take my gravel riding seriously on the Hook, I’d be looking to upgrade to something with a wider rim to exploit the room for 45mm tyres.

Bombtrack Hook – Performance

As you may or may not know I’m a big fan of a steel frameset, and I’ve ridden a lot over the last twenty-five years. The Hook I find a bit of an enigma: it just doesn’t quite offer that smooth, supple ride feel that I’ve come to know and love. I can tell it’s steel rather than anything else, but it just doesn’t have those subtle qualities that made me fall in love with the material. It just lacks a bit of feedback from the road, which makes it a slightly poorer rider experience than I’d like.

If you aren’t quite as worried about tiny little refinements as I am, there is a lot to like here. It has a comfortable frame overall, thanks to the steel tubing minimising road buzz and soaking up small bumps. It’s reasonably stiff, too, and provides decent resistance to high pedalling forces. The carbon fork keeps steering accuracy in check at the front end.

On our office scales the Hook weighs just over 10.8kg, which is slightly below the claimed weight of 11.1kg for this medium model. It is, however, a kilo heavier than something like Fairlight’s Secan 2.5 GRX 820 2x, and for some reason it feels heavier still. It actually feels quite lifeless, especially on the climbs. It doesn’t really respond to out of the saddle efforts, so it’s one of those bikes where you’re better off staying put and spinning your way up the climbs.

If you want a gravel bike for blasting around the trails, or something that feels efficient as a commuter or winter road trainer, look elsewhere. But if you want for something for adventure bikepacking or touring, the Bombtrack makes a lot more sense.

The geometry gives the Hook neutral handling and it’s an easy bike to ride, both as it is or when loaded up with camping kit. If you want a bike that gets the job done, and your focus is more on the surroundings than what is coming through to your contact points, then the Hook will definitely work for you. Overall the Hook is dependable and easy to live with. It just lacks a bit of excitement, at least in my eyes.

The Hook costs £2,360 for the full bike, or you can go for a frameset only at £1,040, which is a fair price overall.

The Genesis Croix De Fer 30 comes with a similar groupset and a Reynolds 725 chromoly tubeset, although the fork is steel rather than carbon. It’ll take up to 47mm tyres. I was really impressed with the ride quality when I reviewed it last year, and the price is £2,299.99 for a whole bike or £899.99 for a frameset.

Ribble’s CGR 725 is another option with its Reynolds 725 steel frame and carbon fork, 45mm tyre clearance, and full mudguard compatibility. The CGRs come with roadie-inspired builds: the Tiagra option is £1,699 and the 105 model is £2,149. Ribble also offers its Gravel model with a 725 frame, although all builds are 1x. The SRAM Apex XPLR option is £1,949, and it to will take 45mm tyres on 700c wheels. We’ve ridden both models, and generally we were impressed overall.

The Fiarlight Secan I mentioned earlier is now on its third iteration, and it’s a more expensive option. Secan 3.0 builds start at £2,649, but that’s with a step up to a GRX RX610 12-speed groupset, DT Swiss G 1800 wheels and Panaracer GravelKing tyres. A Secan 3.0 frameset, meanwhile, will set you back £1,499. More expensive then, but worth it if you want excellent ride quality from the Fairlight-tuned Reynolds 853 steel tubing and 48mm of tyre clearance with a 700c wheel and a 2x chainset.

Bombtrack Hook – Verdict

The Hook is a decent all rounder for a large range of riding types, it’s well built, and it’s finished to a high standard.

It’s not the liveliest of rides, however. For me, a brilliant ride quality and loads of feedback are the most important factors, and it’s for this reason I wouldn’t include the Bombtrack on my short list. If that isn’t the priority for you though, and you want a steel bike with easy-to-live-with geometry and impeccable handling manners, the Hook will fit the bill.