Wilier Jaroon

'Dedicated to the gravel world' is how Wilier Triestina describes the Jaroon, the middle model in its on/off-road line-up. But while there are a lot of things to like about this rather handsome, steel-tubed frameset, its harsh ride isn't one of them – especially when you're in the saddle for a few hours on the rocky stuff, particularly gravel.

The whole gravel, adventure, enduro this and that is a very blurry market, and while testing the Jaroon I was also riding three others in this loose genre. The key thing for me is that they need to be fun to ride – exciting and usable both on and off the asphalt.

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Ride

If you're buying this style of bike, you're probably planning on a fair bit of your riding time being on rough roads, or off the road altogether, and to be honest this is where the Jaroon is most suited. The longer wheelbase and slacker angles than a road bike make it much easier to handle when the terrain is working against you.

A bit of singletrack through the woods, for instance. Nothing too soft, but mud and leaves are no issue, and if the bike starts to squirm about if you hit something wet or deep it's pretty easy to keep under control – fun in fact, as the bike twitches about beneath you.

Hit the gravel tracks, though, and things aren't quite so good. The Jaroon's steel frame is strong and stiff, made up of a set of double butted chromoly tubes, but there's little feedback getting through to let you know what's going on beneath the tyres. It's so stiff that with all the buzz travelling through the frame, any other 'message' is muffled and confused. Go barrelling into a corner on a loose surface and the Jaroon is way out of line before you know it, and everything becomes a white-knuckle ride.

It's harsh compared with the Fairlight Strael I'm currently testing (review to come) and the Mason Resolution I tested last year. Both of these steel frames offer plenty of feedback, whereas the Jaroon gives nothing back in terms of what is happening under the tyres.

To check this out further, tech ed Dave Arthur and I took to the gravel tracks of Salisbury Plain and the Imber Perimeter Path in Wiltshire for a near four-hour ride, which also included wooded paths and grass bridleways. He was on the Mason Bokeh while I was on the Jaroon, and at the midway point we swapped bikes for a bit.

It was instantly clear to both of us how much harder the Jaroon makes you work to maintain pace and the extra effort needed in terms of steering. The Mason's steering felt light and quick, making it much easier to chuck about than the Wilier, and more controlled when dodging potholes and ruts; you were working with the bike. The Jaroon under the same conditions is a bit of a fight; it feels out of control on loose terrain, somewhere it is designed to thrive.

> Cyclo-cross vs gravel/adventure bikes: what's the difference?

When you're riding on gravel it's a given that it'll move beneath you – that's part of the fun – and with a bike like the GT Grade I reviewed recently, things are still controllable because you know what is happening beneath that 10mm of rubber contact patch. With the Wilier, you are always a second or so behind; it's like a delayed response where you have to react to correct the handling rather than interpreting what is about to happen.

Having to work harder to ride the bike is telling, especially as time goes on. Anything longer than, say, three hours and your whole upper body starts to tire from both the handling and vibration. You can drop the tyre pressures right down to 40psi or so and it helps a little, but nowhere near enough.

Take to the tarmac and the stiffness issues are the same but obviously not quite so jarring, as the surface is much smoother, but to get the performance out of the Kenda Happy Medium tyres you need to whack the pressures up (I had them at around 80psi) to stop them feeling draggy.

The handling isn't as hard work on the road, but there is still quite a bit of vagueness in high speed bends, a combination of the tyres and the lack of feedback from the frame and fork.

One bonus of all this stiffness is that when climbing and accelerating you won't find anything flexing under load, even on those steep off-road climbs when you can really get the power down. Up front it's the same, the stiff fork handling the braking loads of the disc without faff or complaint.

Frame and fork

For a frame that might be used on a long adventure in the back of beyond, steel is always a good option as it can be fixed one way or another by anyone who can wield a torch. It won't look as pretty, mind, as the Wilier is manufactured using internal welding. The weld material is inside the tubes and they are heated from the outside to create the join, leaving just the elegance of the mitred joints on display externally, with a finishing coat of lacquer applied to ward off any corrosion.

The tubes themselves are chromoly and double butted, which means that the wall thicknesses are two different depths: thicker at the ends for stiffness and thinner in the middle to allow some flex.

For all the elegance of its construction, the Jaroon's frame lacks much of the subtle feedback you would expect from a higher end steel bike. It's hard to describe, but the ride just feels exactly the same throughout the bike no matter what your body position, speed or terrain. It's tiny details but something that is noticeable when these variables come into play, especially the shift of bodyweight from sitting to standing for instance.

Up front you get an oversized and tapered head tube to house the internal headset bearings. This, coupled with the stiff fork, has no hassle dealing with braking loads from the disc brake, helped by the provision of a 12mm thru-axle rather than a traditional quick release. You'll need to carry a 5mm hex key with you to remove the wheel, though.

It's the same setup at the rear, which makes wheel and disc alignment noticeably easier.

As befits any bike likely to see all-weather action, the Jaroon will take full mudguards, plus there are mounts for a front and rear rack too if you fancy going for a bit of a trek across a continent or something. There's clearance for up to 42mm tyre widths.

It's rugged too. On the gravel tracks the frame took a good few whacks from large stones and branches and just shrugged them off with barely a scratch. If the lacquer does get chipped it should be easy to touch up, unlike matching a paint colour.

Finishing kit

The Jaroon uses Promax finishing kit throughout and it's decent enough quality, made from aluminium and reasonably lightweight and stiff. The handlebar is flared at the drops, which seems the norm on bikes of this style. It gives loads of clearance for wrists and knees, and having your hands further apart in the drops brings a bit more stability at speed.

The Velo saddle was okay, though swapping this out for one of your favourites could bring a little more in the way of longterm comfort. The seatpost it is fitted to has simple adjustment.

For the gears and brakes, Wilier has chosen SRAM's Rival 1x11 groupset. The single chainring with 44 teeth, paired to the 11-speed 11-42 cassette, gives a large range of gears, though it is quite gappy with some large jumps between them. It's not really noticeable off-road where your cadence changes a fair bit, but on the road, especially into a headwind, it can be a struggle to find a gear that is just right.

For climbing on a loose-surfaced off-road track, the lowest 44x42 combination is near perfect, allowing you to stay seated on the majority of hills. This helps you maintain traction because your bodyweight is over the rear wheel, and it's more efficient, especially if you're going to be taking in a lot of elevation over the course of a ride.

Obviously, with a single chainring setup you don't need a front mech, which is why SRAM's rear derailleur has a clutch mechanism to keep chain tension in check. Even high speed rough descents never saw the chain unship.

Wilier has gone for an external threaded bottom bracket; in my experience these always stand up to wet weather and mud abuse well so it seems a sensible choice.

The brakes are SRAM's hydraulic callipers and levers, which work very well, with a 160mm front and 140mm rear rotor setup. I always find SRAM's are more progressive than Shimano's versions, so are a bit better for off-road use, where Shimano's grabbier approach can see you skid easier.

Heavy braking from 50mph on road saw nothing of any concern show up, and it was great to feel the fork and thru-axles doing their job. On some disc-equipped bikes, braking from massively high speeds can see the quick release struggle as it twists in the dropouts because of the loads of a single-sided disc – but no such issues here. The Jaroon's frame is set up for the flat-mount disc brake standard, so it's aesthetically pleasing too.

Wheels and tyres

The wheels are Wilier's own and are super-strong. The gravel test roads on Salisbury Plain were brutal, being designed for tanks and army traffic to get around the firing range, and over five weeks of testing the Jaroon took a real pounding on the unforgiving rocks and potholes, but the wheels stayed true.

The rims use an asymmetrical shape – obviously designed for rear wheel use but used front and rear. The rim is drilled off centre, which on the rear wheel means that spokes can have more dishing on the drive side, which in turns creates a stronger wheel.

The bearings felt smooth and, again, considering the terrain and weather conditions, they have sterling durability.

The tyres are Kenda's Happy Medium, and that name sums them up rather well: they could tackle pretty much any terrain other than really deep mud. They were way better than I expected pretty much everywhere. Puncture proofing was okay, although they are quite thin on the tread so small thorns could get through and I did pick up a couple of flats. They were a bugger to fit and remove, too, being very tight.

Value

Having a flick through some of the other gravel and adventure bikes tested on road.cc over the past few months, the Jaroon does look a little on the pricey side, especially against something like The Light Blue Robinson, which costs £1,399.99 with the same groupset, a Reynolds 725 steel frame and similar weight. Okay, it has a chromoly fork and mechanical disc brakes, but it's £800 cheaper.

> Buyer's Guide to gravel and adventure bikes

Or there is the similarly priced Raleigh Roker Pro. It isn't quite as full-on adventure-ready as the Wilier, but it is running the same finishing kit with a carbon fibre frameset and a whopping 2kg weight loss compared to the Jaroon.

Conclusion

For a bike 'dedicated to the gravel world' it's odd that that's where the Jaroon seems most wanting. Stick to tarmac or smoother trails and, on the whole, the Wilier has good geometry for getting your bodyweight right on varying terrains and it is very simple to knock out the miles. If things turn technical, though, you're in for a tough day.

Which leaves me thinking that, overall, although the Wilier looks very 'top end', with its raw finish and minimalistic decals, and the riding position is great, it's just too stiff to provide an enjoyable ride on the terrain it's designed for. At this price, it has too many flaws to be considered a good investment.

Verdict

Geometry, looks and durability are hard to fault, but its stiffness on rough surfaces can be uncomfortable