Dolan GXT RCCR-1

Dolan GXT Titanium Gravel Disc Campag Ekar 1x13

£4989.90

The Dolan GXT is a hugely capable gravel bike whose titanium frame offers a great balance of stiffness and comfort, while the geometry allows you to feel in total control whatever the terrain. It's beautifully made too, comes with all of the mounts you could need, and though not cheap it's good value compared with rivals.

Even though the GXT is one of the stiffer titanium frames, that underlying tone of vibration cancelling is still there, noticeable when riding on hardpacked gravel sections or the road.

With mounts aplenty, the Dolan can be used for some serious load carrying and the tautness of the frame will stop any flex when hauling all of that baggage up a steep climb.

With the bike's ability to take tyres north of 40mm wide – our test bike has 43mm Panaracers fitted – you can let the natural suspension of all that air take the hits.

The front end is slightly slacker than an endurance road bike, but not so much that you'd notice on the road. It gives a positive feel to the handling and the bike never feels out of control, even on fast descents or wet tarmac.

Dolan offers a good level of customisation on its builds, and our test model came with a fork upgrade – to the full-carbon fibre GXT Gravel Adventure Fork, which has three-bolt mounting points on each leg. Add those to the three sets of bottle mounts (one under the down tube), bolts for a bento box on the top tube, mudguard and rack mounts, and you get an idea of just how much kit this bike can carry.

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Overall, the Dolan GXT is a very complete bike. It straddles the gravel genre perfectly being able to cope with being an adventure machine and something on the faster end of the scale. The quality is great, it's well priced and the amount of customisation available in the builds lets you build the bike of your dreams