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TECH NEWS

Quick look: Reilly Gradient 2018

Gravel/adventure bike now has flat mount disc brakes and greater clearance than before, and news of a sub-600g road bike

Reilly has updated the Gradient gravel/adventure bike for 2018. It’s still made from seamless 3Al/2.5V titanium but the biggest differences are that it’s now compatible with flat mount disc brakes – it was post mount before – and tyre clearance has been increased. It’ll now take 47mm tyres whereas 44mm was the maximum previously.

Check out Dave’s review of the Reilly Gradient here. 

Reilly Gradient - front disc brake.jpg

Mark Reilly dropped a new Reilly T640 road bike here at road.cc last week (keep your eye out for more on that soon), and brought along the updated Gradient so we could have a quick look. This is the most popular bike that Reilly makes. The frame can actually take tyres wider than 47mm, it’s the fork that’s the limiting factor.

Reilly Gradient - fork clearance.jpg

When Dave Arthur reviewed the 2017 version of the Reilly Gradient he said, “It's fast and steady on the road, but plenty of fun if you throw it through corners at high speed. The Gradient is right at home negotiating narrow tree-lined singletrack with loose corners and steep climbs and would be a good choice if you're looking for a bike to tackle one of the growing number of gravel events like the Dirty Reiver.”

Reilly Gradient - rear disc brake.jpg

Go to Dave's review for all the other tech details.

Reilly Gradient - head tube badge.jpg

Gradients start at £2,799. That gets you a model built up with a Shimano 105 groupset. A Sram Rival 1x version is £2,899 while both Shimano Ultegra and Sram Force are £3,099.

Reilly Gradient - rear drop out.jpg

Oh yeah, we’ve invented a new term for this genre: ‘gradventure bike’… because we definitely need more terms to describe this sector! Course, someone else might have come up with it first. If ‘gradventure bike’ does turn out to have originated with road.cc, we’ll allow you to use it as long as you stick 5p into our Drink At Your Desk Friday tin every time you do so (we don’t want to price ourselves out of the market).

Reilly Gradient - top tube.jpg

One other thing that’s on the way from Reilly is a carbon-fibre road bike called the 500SL (we don't have any pics of this one yet). The big news is that Reilly reckons the frame is going to come in at under 600g! That’s quite a claim! Reilly has been busy optimising the carbon layup and believes this is possible. We should have more info on the 500SL in the next couple of weeks. 

Reilly Gradient - frame sticker.jpg

www.reillycycleworks.com

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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3 comments

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ideax | 6 years ago
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Thanks - that's a good suggestion but I currently have the Hunt 4 Season Gravel Wheels fitted and wanted to get the 650b version

 

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StraelGuy | 6 years ago
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Why don't you see if a local bike shop  has any 650B gravel type wheels that you could try in your frame?

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ideax | 6 years ago
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This is really a nice bike.

 

I've had the 2017 model for about a year.  It's the same except is has post mount brakes, no bottle mounts on the underside of the downtube and isn't specifically designed for 650b wheels.  I'm loving this bike:)

 

Which leads me to ask - has anyone tried fitting 650b wheels to the earlier version?  I'd like to give it a go but am reluctant to rely on my own measuring skills.

 

 

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