The Gralloch needs absolutely no introduction. Held in the Galloway Forest Park, it’s quickly become the premier gravel race in the UK that invites pros and amateurs alike to sample some of Scotland’s finest gravel, have a bash at a UCI Gravel World Series race and have a go at qualifying for the UCI Gravel World Championships, if they’re quick enough. With the event attracting top-level riders, there’s always some new and interesting kit floating about. Here’s the best gravel kit we could find.
Panaracer GravelKing ZX
We spotted a brand new (as yet unreleased) semi-slick version of Panaracer’s hugely popular GravelKing tyre up at the Gralloch. Called ZX, it’s essentially a race day tyre that utilises a fast-rolling, continuous central rubber strip to lower rolling resistance on smoother surfaces
The new tyre will come in three different ZX widths – 40, 45, and 50mm (although Panaracer’s website claims that a 35 and 55mm version are also coming soon). Made in Japan, the tyre weighs around 560g in 45mm and uses the brand’s 120tpi TuffTex R casing with its extra supple and lightweight race construction and ZSG Gravel Compound for £54.99.
Panaracer athlete Tom Martin chose to race the ZX at the Gralloch over the regular GravelKing version and finished in sixth place in Elite Men on the new tread. We’ve already found that the latest GravelKing models offer a great balance between grip and speed, so this new version looks like an excellent addition to Panaracer’s line-up.
Ventum GS1
Around for over a decade in the States, Ventum is an Oregon-based brand now on sale in the UK and distributed by Merlin Cycles. The company has some big-name supporters, including Lance Armstrong, Michael Woods and Bradley Wiggins, with the latter of the trio up at the Gralloch leading rides and repping Ventum.
Originally starting in the triathlon space before moving over to drop-bar bikes, Ventum has had big success jumping into gravel at the right time and growing with it, particularly at races like Unbound. And with advocates and sponsored ex-road riders of the calibre mentioned, it’s hardly surprising that Ventum is all about race bikes and zooms right in on speed, offering only one race-focussed model in each sector: a TT model, a road-racing bike, and this gravel bike.
The GS1 pictured is the brand’s third-generation model, launched last year at Unbound. The full carbon frame aims to be as light and stiff as possible, but still compliant enough for rough gravel. It comes with super short 420mm chainstays enabled by the swoopy design around the BB, and Ventum purposefully keeps its bikes clean and simple with no ‘extras’ like internal storage or rack mounts.
The brand says this look matches the race philosophy and also offers a key extra benefit of more durability, with fewer potential construction points to have issues arise. GS1 takes some aerodynamic cues like the hourglass headtube from the brand’s Tempus TT bike and is overall a very clean and lean-looking machine with keen UK prices to match.
We spotted Michael Woods was running Schwalbe Thunder Burts up at the Gralloch, so decent tyre clearance clearly isn’t an issue, despite the slimline racy looks here.
The GS1 is offered across four models with SRAM Rival AXS starting at £3,899.00, Shimano GRX Di12 at £5,799.00 and the top-tier SRAM RED AXS with ZIPP 303 SW wheels at £6,899.00. All Ventums are available online and in-store in the UK now.
Kona Libre CR
One of the things talked about at Gralloch was mountain bike brands moving deeper into the gravel space. Kona and Mondraker were both exhibiting, with this Libre CR, Kona’s do-it-all gravel bike that’s now a lighter, racier gravel mile muncher coming in carbon fibre.
The ‘typically Kona’ low-slung carbon frame is very clean and simple, with only dropped chainstays and a squared off rear dropout as extra design details. Look closer, though, and there’s also a removable alloy plate bolted between upper seat stays to mount a mudguard or rack or tune lateral frame stiffness when run open-stayed if preferred.
The Libre’s purple fork has the brake hose ported inside and offers 74mm of calculated trail with tyre clearance claimed at 45mm (at both ends). And there looks to be clearance for up to 50mm tyres.
Kona offers five sizes from 48cm to 56cm (all with a longer reach than previous), a 70.5-degree HA and ships with 1x XPLR drivetrains (with a blanking front derailleur plate). The bike’s sensible parts should be easy to live with, and it’s the same story for the internally (non-headset) fully tube-routed brake hoses with BB hatch access and easy-to-find 27.2 seattube. There are no internal storage doors or funky bag or rack mounts to potentially be damaged by accident, either.
Mondraker Arid
Another MTB brand in Gatehouse of Fleet, Mondraker, had a beautiful, retro-kissed and blinging Arid show bike built up for the event. The Arid name is unsurprising considering Mondraker is Spanish, not Scottish, but the brand’s build had many retro MTB nuts drooling, and the attention it got in Scotland nods to the fact that more riders from the ‘fitter’ end of mountain biking are moving into the gravel space.
This show model uses the Arid alloy frame with huge 50mm plus tyre clearance and a threaded T47 BB painted in-house by the Mondraker Blue Labs team with special chrome paint and custom-built for the Gralloch. The bike nods to the old-skool, but all the parts used, including Middleburn cranks, Selle Italia Flight saddle and red anodised USE Alien seat post, are still available today as new components.
The smooth-welded Arid chassis has the same lines as the carbon model, with seat stays hitting low down the seat tube, and this one also rocks very cool RockShox red Judy fork graphics on top of a standard Rudy XPLR fork. Colour-coded Hope brakes and wheels dressed in gummy Vittoria Terreno tyres and 90s-style dappled bar tape complete the look, and we reckon it simply looks the business.
The standard Arid alloy comes in five sizes with either SRAM or Shimano kit and starts at just £2,299.00 for the S model.
Cervelo Áspero 5
Cervelo’s latest gravel aero machine, the Áspero 5, claims to be the most aero gravel bike ever built. The futuristic-looking chassis comes over as much TT as a gravel race bike and claims a speed advantage of 37 Watts over the outgoing model. The new Áspero has already won the Gravel World Championships rainbow jersey with Marianne Vos on the pedals and pretty much looks rapid standing still.
Cervelo had a limited-edition Blackcurrant colour frameset on its stand with a ton of sculpting detail to nosy up close when the frame is laid bare like this. A key part of Cervelo’s aero philosophy is the downtube internal storage box that puts tools and spares out of the wind, but almost every surface on the frame is shaped and tuned, and it can’t hurt race speeds that the top-tier model weighs just 7.7kg complete.
The LTD frameset here retails for £5K, which includes Cervelo’s carbon handlebar, stem and seatpost. The aero-tuned bar and stem has a cutaway in the front edge that acts as a foil to the stem face plate and as a key part of Áspero’s design, offering a claimed advantage of six watts on its own.
As you’d expect, all this stunning tech doesn’t come cheap, with the RED Áspero 5 AXS 1 topping the £10K mark and the cheapest completes coming in at £8,250 with either GRX or new SRAM Force. All models use in-house brand Reserve’s 44TA GR carbon wheelsets.
Reserve 30/GR AL wheels
Speaking of Reserve, the Cervelo stand also had the brand’s new aluminium complete gravel wheels. Coming in a deeper section, 30mm tall rim, the alloy wheels have a 27mm internal width optimised for the wider tyres up to 50mm, many gravel riders are now using.
Rim walls are semi-hooked to make tubeless installation easier, while proven Centerlock DT Swiss 350 hubs add reliability and ease of servicing. Reserve has a good reputation for a smooth ride with its carbon wheels, and the GR AL aims to carry over this into a more affordable package priced at £649.00.
30 GR/AL wheels have 24 slightly asymmetric spoke holes per rim, come standard with Reserve’s high-flow Fillmore valves and hit the scales at a reasonable 1645g a pair. Each rim weighs 512g in aluminium and is rated for tyres between 30 to 50c.
As with all its wheels, one of the best features, though, is Reserve’s no-questions-asked lifetime warranty. This means the brand will replace any damaged wheels if you dent the rims and they no longer hold air or crack at a spoke drilling, which are two of the most common things we see happening to riders.
Cameron Jones’ Scott Addict Gravel RC
This stunning Scott Addict Gravel RC is a personal build for Cameron Jones and the exact bike he won the LifeTime Big Sugar Classic in Arkansas on.
The frame is Scott’s top-level HMX Carbon with a replaceable UDH mech hanger and special 1 ¼” to 1 ½” eccentric carbon fork steerer. Cam uses his own blend of Shimano and Wolf Tooth drivetrain, with a Dura Ace chainset and whopping 50t Aero chainring. An MTB-specific XTR Di2 rear mech and cassette completes the set-up, but the extra devil in the detail comes via a pair of custom ‘blips’ mounted under Cam’s head unit mount.
This nifty electronic trick means gears can be switched without coming out of an aero tuck, likely much-needed when Cam will be pretty far forwards thanks to his whopping, 13cm long, Deda stem. This carbon stem clamps an also-aero flat-topped Enve carbon bar with Shimano GRX brakes and shifters. The wheels here are 423g each, 40mm deep, Industry Nine AR40 carbon rims with Schwalbe G One RX Pro tyres. Cam uses the specially-damped Syncros R101 CF seatpost and a Syncros seat bag for race spares.
Scott’s own high-end Addict Gravel RC build is likely even marginally lighter still and comes with SRAM Red AXS and Fulcrum carbon wheels at under 8kg for £7,800.
Restrap Lightweight Race Hydration Vest
Launched at the Gralloch event, this is Restrap’s latest technical vest for gravel racing. Lighter and more compact than the previous Race Hydration Vest (that’s still available), the new piece has more mesh and slimmer, stretchy fabrics and fastenings.
Based in Leeds, Restrap has been at the forefront of the movement to shift luggage and fuelling from bike to body for ultra-distance riding and racing and has had great success and reviews on its Race Hydration Vest already. Feedback from the Ribble Outliers team (with racers like Jenson Young, Sophie Wright and Harry Tanfield) fed into the new product and was that they were looking for an even lighter, more streamlined vest that still offers 2L bladder capacity for longer races. The team at Restrap developed this new product in part to respond to that.
The brand-new ‘Lightweight’ model still sits high up on the back, but uses slimmer rubber bungees across the chest rather than clasped straps and swaps out thicker, heavier materials with finer weaves and mesh panelling to dump grams and slim down the overall silhouette. Some of the stuff pockets and stashes are also minimised.
The new vest will be released next week at £149.99, with full details coming shortly on the Restrap website.
Argon 18 Anti Matter
Canadian brand Argon 18’s new Anti Matter is a zero-compromise race machine prioritising speed, aerodynamics and stiffness. The brand claims road bike efficiency on gravel, and we caught up with Patrick Kiehlmann to check out the Anti Matter he rode to an amazing third place in the Gralloch 19-34 category in a time that bested many Elite riders in the process.
Patrick told us his Anti Matter is pretty much stock, aside from swapping to personal preference 165mm cranks and tyres. Even with all the aero attention, Argon 18’s frame is still competitively lightweight and complete with fatter tyres, the bike is only 8.9kg without the saddle bag (including pedals and integrated aero bottle cages).
After some late-night rolling resistance scrolling, Patrick saw 2.25in Schwalbe Thunder Burts might be the one for the Gralloch’s rougher course. They blow up 57.3mm on wider Zipp rims, which is 2mm outside Argon 18’s generous 55mm recommendation, but he’s had zero issues with rubbing and ran them as low as 20psi for extra suppleness (with double sealant of 100ml front and rear for his total rider/bike system weight of 70kg).
Extra Kiehlmann details include tubes with valve extenders pre-installed for the deeper Zipp rims in the saddle bag, and one CO2 can and a Dynaplug on the back of the post. Two Quick Links are taped to the top tube as well to cover all bases.
Patrick also sweats details on gears and sets new SRAM Force shifters, so the extra thumb button is also paired to the rear mech in the opposite direction on each side, so each shifter can control the whole bike with one hand. This means Patrick can stay aero with his fingers rolled in and shift, but more importantly, have a gel or a bottle on climbs and always maintain optimum cadence with one hand off the bars.
The Anti Matter is available in a wide range of sizes, and it’s also very neat. Argon 18 pays extra attention to size-specific geometry and construction, even offering different forks on different sizes to optimise ride feel, toe clearance and stiffness. The SRAM Force AXS XPLR E1 model here is £7,495.00 in the UK.
