Norco Search Alloy 105

The Norco Search Alloy 105 is a great example of the new breed variously called gravel bikes, adventure bikes or, if you're a proper curmudgeon, touring bikes. It's intelligently specced, go-anywhere versatile and lots of fun thanks to its beefy tyres and powerful disc brakes.

If you were going to have just one bike for everything except racing, the Search would do the job, though you might want a second set of wheels to save faffing with tyre changes for road-only rides. It'll cheerfully handle anything from tarmac to well-surfaced singletrack and from the commuting run to days out exploring lanes and dirt roads.

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Today's ride shows the Search's versatility. In a nutshell, I got lost in the droves and byways of the Fens. Byways gave way to bridleways, which gave way to (say it quietly) footpaths, and I ended up trying to reach a drove the other side of a field. The Search took it all in its stride even when I was just following a farm vehicle's tyre tracks in the hope of finding firmer ground.

The only thing the Search couldn't do was help when I had to scramble across a six-foot-deep irrigation ditch to get out of a field and back to a drove. But when that drove turned out to be more like a field than a road, the Search coped fine and got me to the next bit of proper road. (I should explain that Fenland droves are historic stock routes – some have been surfaced with gravel, concrete or tarmac, but some are still grass-surfaced lines on the map.)

This versatility is largely down to the Search's 35mm Schwalbe Tyrago tyres, which have enough tread to grip gravel, dirt, grass and dry earth, though they do get overloaded in proper mud. There's room in the frame for fatter tyres still (up to 40mm), but these are a good choice for mixed surface riding and fat enough that you can pretty much ignore potholes round town.

The Search's steady handling allows you to exploit the grip that those tyres provide. This isn't a razor-sharp road racing weapon, but nor is it a barge-like traditional touring bike. The neutral handling means it doesn't require constant attention, freeing you to admire the scenery, pick a line through the mud and wonder whether there really is a decent surface on the other side of that ditch.

That handling is revealed in the very torsionally stiff front end. The beefy carbon fibre fork ends in thru-axle dropouts and the whole front end feels very precise; it goes where you point it with no twang or wander, and it's not easily deterred from finding a line, even on a fast trail descent.

When you get a chance to go for it, the Search is just as stable as when blatting along on the flat. I have to admit I miss the bolt-on skill of my mountain bike's suspension, but being forced to read the trail is fun, and the Search is as forgiving of mistakes as it's reasonable to expect of a drop-bar bike without mountain bike-style fat tyres.

It's helped by the TRP Spyre twin piston brakes. Unlike most mechanical disc brakes, they have a piston either side of the rotor which makes it much easier to set them up so they don't rub. There's plenty of easily modulated power on offer here and – vitally for a bike that's going to be used off-road – they're far less affected by wet and mud than rim brakes.

The other thing you really need off road is as wide as possible a gear range. The Search has a 50/34 chainset and 11-32 11-speed cassette, with Shimano 105 gears and shifters. That's as wide as you can go with a Shimano double, and matches the range of SRAM's WiFli wide-range double.

The almost 1:1 low gear will get you up anything on the road and all but the steepest trails. I wonder who really needs a 50x11 top gear, though. Maybe we need some evolution of adventure bike gears like the developments mountain bikes went through a few years ago, sacrificing high gears for low gears and simplicity; 46/30 chainset, anyone?

Details, details

I've ranted before about Norco's odd liking for in-line seatposts and there's one on the Search too. It's less of an issue here because you want a more upright riding position when surfaces get grotty, but I still swapped it out for a 25mm setback post because I'm simply comfier further behind the pedals.

That post and the rather ordinary saddle that sits on it are Norco branded bits, as are most of the finishing components. The wheels have been plenty tough enough for the battering they've had and are still straight and tight. Even if they had been banged around, it's an advantage of disc brakes that a few millimetres of rim wander doesn't matter much.

Up front we find a compact bar and – on this 55.5cm frame – a 100cm stem. This is spot on for mixed-surface riding for me, giving a position that's fairly upright for cruising along on the road and manhandling the bike on poorer surfaces. Given that I'd normally like a longer stem on a bike with a 56cm top tube, you might want a shorter one.

The Search's tidily welded double-butted aluminium frame has lots of thoughtful touches. One of the cleverest is the Flip dropouts. Undo a fixing bolt and an aluminium piece slides out with a threaded hole for mudguards so you can tidily fit both a rack and mudguards. Up front there are mudguard eyes hiding inside the fork legs.

The gear and brake cables are internally routed, entering the frame through plug-in ports that should make the hassle of changing cables rather less aggravating than if they just vanish into a hole. It'll also make for easy upgrading to electronic shifting when Shimano finally figures out how to do 105 Di2 for a sensible price.

The Search comes in under the all-important £1,000 Cycle To Work Scheme threshold, and it's a very decent package for the money considering you get a tidy double-butted aluminium frame, Shimano 105 transmission and the best cable disc brakes around.

Don't call it a touring bike

I kicked off this review with a crack about curmudgeonly types calling bikes like this 'touring bikes'. It's true that the bike industry keeps coming up with new niches and at first glance gravel/adventure/all-road looks a lot like touring.

But the Search is substantially different from a traditional touring bike. For starters those bikes usually have space for tyres no bigger than 32mm – 35mm at a pinch. That's fine for tarmac touring, but limiting if you want to get away from the roads.

Touring bikes are optimised for carrying luggage. The Search will carry panniers, but it handles just fine without them. Its mid-length chainstays suggest you might not want to get too enthusiastic adding very big bags though – you'll run out of heel clearance or have to push them so far back they'll wag the back end.

> Check out our guide to the best adventure/gravel bikes here

There are plenty of other differences, most notably the disc brakes, which are still rare on trad tourers, and the weight. For this price you'd be looking at a heavy steel-framed tourer. It might be repairable by a village blacksmith in Kyrgyzstan but it's going to be no fun when you do ride it unladen.

And fun is what sets apart adventure bikes from tourers. The Search is a blast to ride because it always tempts you to see what's down that gravel side road and, well, get lost. Tourers encourage a more stately, planned exploration of the countryside, all OS Landrangers and sandwiches in bar bags. They're both great, don't get me wrong, but they're different in style and attitude, and there's a place for both.

Verdict

A go-anywhere bike that's great for 'accidentally' getting lost in the wilds