Sonder Camino Ti GRX1 Di2

The Sonder Camino Ti GRX1 Di2 is a very well-considered titanium gravel bike that’s solidly specced and nicely made, and it’s fun to ride on a range of surfaces whether you’re carrying gear or not.

Sonder Camino GRX1 Di2: the ride

Sonder says it’s developed the Camino Ti, “to give you the perfect mix of speed and confidence. Light, zippy titanium with a slack head angle and longer wheelbase, Camino excels both loaded and unloaded, absorbing imperfections in surfaces you ride.”

In reality I’d say it tips more towards confidence than speed, but I found it a very enjoyable bike to ride over a mix of surfaces.

The slack 69° head tube angle and 50mm offset fork gave our test bike a 1131mm wheelbase, and it’s a lovely stable thing out on the trails. It’s not a bike to be hurried off line, and on the flatter and smoother sections it’s a great platform for cruising with minimum rider input. It’s the kind of bike you could ride no-handed on gravel. You definitely shouldn’t do that. But you could.

Once things start to get a bit more chunky, there’s a lot to like about the position and the control you get. It’s not at its best on really tight and twisty stuff, but it’s great over rocks and roots and on tricky descents. The limiting factor is generally how much the tyres will take, rather than the ride or the position, and with the Camino Ti able to run a 650b wheel with a tyre up to 2.2in, you can spec it for some fairly serious terrain.

Once you’ve reached the foot of the descent and you’re on the inevitable winch back up the other side, the Camino Ti is a decent climber. At 10.4kg it’s not a lightweight by any means, but it makes easy progress, and even on steep stuff you don’t feel like you’re fighting to stay on line. The long wheelbase and the fairly steep seat tube (compared to the head tube) keep your weight well centred.

Shimano’s latest GRX Di2 groupset is a great companion to this frame. You can spec this bike with either a 2x or a 1x system, but with 12 speeds and some big old cassettes, there’s little need for 2x on a bike like this where you’re not looking for top-end speed or worrying about gear jumps. Our test bike had a 40T single-ring setup with a huge 10-51 cassette at the rear giving a 510 per cent gear range from top to bottom. That’s a range that’s great for general gravel riding and was even okay when loaded.

If you’re really heading into the wilds with full bikepacking gear then it would be easy to gear down with a smaller chainring. 34T is (I think) the lowest you can go with the GRX chainset, which would give you a 0.67 smallest ratio – enough for dragging yourself up most things, even with plenty of cargo.

Functionally, GRX Di2 is hard to fault. Shifting is precise and quick, battery life is good and it’s easy to set up. Braking is excellent too, and I found the lever shape plenty comfortable.

How about the fabled ride qualities of titanium; its bump-soaking springiness? To be honest, any bike that’s sporting big-chamber tyres run soft on shallow rims is going to feel fairly comfy. I suspect that with over 2kg of metal in the XL frame (around 300g more than you might find in an allroad bike), it’s more built for reliability than a supple feel. It feels solid rather than springy when you’re putting down the power. It’s not uncomfortable though by any means. I was happy on short and long rides, on all surfaces. The 27.2mm seatpost adds a bit of give at the rear too.

This is a bike that’s designed to be loaded up, and so it’s important that adding baggage to the bike doesn’t negatively impact the handling. I stuck an overnighter’s worth of kit on the bike – tent, stove, sleeping bag, mat, down jacket – to test the loaded performance and I was impressed. Of course you don’t make such quick progress, but the Camino Ti was very neutral when loaded and the extra weight didn’t expose any idiosyncrasies in the ride. You still get the confident feel, and it’s well balanced and easy to like.

Sonder Camino GRX1 Di2: frame and fork

The frame itself is constructed from “aeronautical-grade” titanium, which in the absence of any information to the contrary I’ll assume is 3Al/2.5V alloy, since that’s what practically all titanium tubes are made from.

It’s nicely put together. The welds aren’t the absolute neatest that I’ve seen, but they’re well-executed with no signs of any undercutting or other defects. The only non-tubular sections are the chainstay behind the chainring, and the rear dropouts. The dropouts are quite heavily cowled, which sometimes makes for issues when fitting things like a Tailfin or some other rack that attaches to an extended through-axle, but I didn’t have anything I could check during testing.

Cable and hose routing is sensible. There’s no internal headset routing, and the bike is set up with configurable hose and cable ports that will handle more or less any setup. The CNC chainstay section has been drilled to accept a cable to the rear mech, if a cable’s the way you wanted to go, and wired Di2 is also catered for. It’s not as easy to work with as full external routing, which you’ll see on other titanium and steel bikes and makes wilderness fixes a lot simpler. But it’s a sensible middle ground. For this build, your only concern is the brake hoses, but cheaper mechanical builds are available.

The fork is carbon, with fairly deep legs front to back and clearance for big tyres. Both front and rear wheels use a 12mm through axle. I found the fork plenty stiff enough to guard against any fore-aft chatter under braking, even on steep and technical stuff, and I didn’t feel that the bike was unduly stiff or uncomfortable at the front – although again the tyre/wheel combo is doing a fair bit of the heavy lifting there.

Both fork legs have 3-bolt mounts for various cages, and there are mudguard mounts too. The frame also has mudguard mounts, as well as rack mounts, three sets of bottle bosses and a bento box mount on the top of the top tube. The main downtube bottle bosses are dual position, so you can fit a bottle low down to accommodate a frame bag, or you can fit a multicage for carrying something bigger there.

Sonder Camino GRX1 Di2: geometry and build

I’m riding the XL frame as I’m a big lad. I could have also ridden the Large but I prefer a bit of extra room for a bike that’s going off-road.

The XL geometry is more aggressive on paper than you might imagine. With a 440mm reach and a 615mm stack you get a stack-to-reach ratio of 1.39, which is maybe more what you’d expect from an endurance road bike than a bikepacking bike. The ratio gets bigger as you move down the sizes, with the smallest frame at 1.47, the same as the excellent Merida Silex 400 we tested last year. Even that’s not particularly upright: Something like the Genesis Vagabond is up over 1.5 in the smaller sizes.

It’s not unusual for bikes to get more aggressive (on paper) in the bigger sizes, and also it’s designed to be used with a 70mm stem, so it probably reports as being a bit longer and lower than it actually feels if you’re thinking of it in road bike terms.

Our review bike came with a sensible 30mm of spacers below the stem and I found the position very comfortable – well, after I swapped the handlebar. It came with Sonder’s Bomber bars, and those are a hard no from me. They have almost no shoulder on the tops and I struggled to hold the hood comfortably. I swapped them out for some no-name 12°-flared gravel bars from the parts bin, but you can spec the Camino Ti with one of a dozen different options, so there should be something that’ll suit you. Bear in mind that the Bomber is the default though.

There are masses of other customisation options: stems, dropper posts, suspension seatposts, wheels, pedals, racks, lights – even a Skarper e-bike kit, which we had fitted to this bike and will be reviewing separately. Aside from that, our review bike is the stock build: a 1×12 Shimano GRX 827 Di2 electronic drivetrain, Sonder Alpha I25 Gravel wheels, a Carbon monocoque fork, 45mm Schwalbe G-One Performance TLE tyres and Sonder finishing kit. Our full build weighed in at 10.4kg without pedals, which is pretty decent given the type of bike and the finishing kit. The frame in an XL size weighs just over 2kg, with another 500g for the fork.

Sonder Camino GRX1 Di2: value and overall

The Camino Ti costs £3,499 in this build, which represents good value. You’re getting a nice frame, an excellent groupset and solid wheels and kit for your money.

The frame and fork retail for £1,899, which is above some of the other options (Gloria’s All-Gravel is £1,499 – we haven’t yet tested it but we’ve liked their other bikes), but cheaper than a Tripster ATR v3 (£2,400) or a Ribble Gravel Ti (£2,000).

The quality of the build you get for your extra £1,600 on top of the frame price is good. GRX Di2 is hard to beat, and the Sonder Alpha wheels, while not flashy, have proven to be excellent. The Sonder finishing kit is all fine – okay I didn’t like the bars, but that’s a personal thing, and you can spec from a range.

This is a bike that you could do a wide range of riding on, from a quick gravel smash to a continent-spanning adventure (although I’d probably recommend a mechanical groupset build for that), and for the money I think you’re getting a very well-considered bike with a good spec that’s fun to ride.

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