With two road bikes of 15yr and 10yr vintage I decided to go N -1 ( ) and replace them with a <whisper>gravel bike</whisper>. This would be a retirement present (actually a couple of months away) I'd intended to go custom with GRX Di2 etc. but after a tour of the local bike shops looking at what was available, Wheelbase had the Cannondale Topstone reduced to £1900 (from £3200!) https://www.wheelbase.co.uk/blog/cannon ... -2-l-2022/ but it's actually the 2023 version. A bit of a no-brainer really.

Carbon frame but with a threaded BB - Cannondale are one of a number of companies reverting from pressfit back to threaded BBs.

There's a couple of things I might swap out: the handlebars are 44cm wide but I might need to go a bit wider; in the same area I might fit a Redshift suspension stem to ease any pressure on my right shoulder ( I broke that collarbone just before lockdowns started and it can ache at times - one of the road bikes has 40cm bars and that does make it ache). I'll probably get a road specific set of wheels as well then swap to whatever makes sense for a ride.

Gloss black frame - I might call it "Heart of Gold"

Hopefully you'll enjoy some infinitely improbable rides on it .

Gr@vel bike indeed. Pah!

RIP wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 8:19 pm Hopefully you'll enjoy some infinitely improbable rides on it .

Just so long as I don't get lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists!

RIP wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 8:19 pm Gr@vel bike indeed. Pah!

My opening gambit was: "I'm looking for what we used to call "a bike"!" Really I was just after a bike that is decent on the roads but if I see a track leading off I can satisfy that "Where does that go?" itch without having to remember where the hell I saw it.

Nice bike Bob!
Looks like it will ride up hills itself that

whitestone wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 8:33 pm My opening gambit was: "I'm looking for what we used to call "a bike"!" Really I was just after a bike that is decent on the roads but if I see a track leading off I can satisfy that "Where does that go?" itch without having to remember where the hell I saw it.

Yup, that's the benefit of them. It can get you into trouble though

Congrats Bob. That does indeed sound really rather lovely. Redshift is interesting in that (from a brief ‘tyre kick’ test) they feel very clunky. Surely they don’t do much other than cause a bit of an extra clunk at the handlebars!

Topstone, I was looking at one of them too, but more ‘window shopping’. Hope you enjoy!

Most reviews of the Redshift seem positive but you need to dial it in to your weight/riding.

From what the manager at Wheelbase in Ilkley was saying - they bought all the unsold Cannondale stock at a knockdown price so just selling them on cheaply. My 15yr old road bike (Specialized Roubaix with 105 groupset) was £1600 so £1900 for a full GRX (equivalent to Ultegra) equipped bike is a steal.

Itchy feet got me out this morning prior to the rain (the last ten minutes were increasingly wet) on a mixed surface (road, canal towpath, gravel track) 30km loop that I use as a quick go-to blast.

Handles fine on easy off-road stuff as you'd expect. I'd have extended the loop with some slightly trickier but still easy tracks if I hadn't known the weather was going to crap out - I've done one of them on my old On-One Pompetamine in SS mode so it's not that hard. I'll start to push things as I get used to the bike.

Saddle needs a bit of adjusting to put things nose-down by about 5deg. Bar width seemed OK, still might go a bit wider, maybe 46cm Cowchippers https://www.bikemonger.co.uk/salsa-cowc ... 3738-p.asp, the 50cm might be a bit too wide for road stuff plus it could be a bit too much of a stretch for the gear cables. The tyres are Vittoria Terreno Dry https://off.road.cc/content/review/tyre ... eview-7865 nominally 38mm wide but supposedly come out at just over 40mm on i23 rims. They seem OK, I'm not one of those who can supposedly distinguish between 0.1psi difference in tyre pressure, blah, blah, blah, One of the tracks had a moderately sloppy mud covering and there was no skittishness or feeling that they'd wash out. Again I'll leave them on for now, especially heading into spring and summer when, allegedly, things will dry out then maybe have a look for something different.

Nice!

Do love a gravel bike, certainly where I live they are perfect for exploring. Would never go back to a road bike now (after owning them for just under 20 years), gravel bikes work well for me keeping a decent pace on the road (mine is setup with a double) but allows me to go off and see where that path goes

I've come to the conclusion that most 40mm tyres have similar grip off road in the wet (i.e. not very much) unless you go for something like a 'cross mud tyre. Including Schwalbe Marathons!

If you are looking to keep the glaur off you Bob, I can recommend the mudhugger gravel guards. As with the Jones I also use a lightweight down tube guard and a bit of old SKS mudguard between the BB and seat stays.

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2025 7:34 pm I've come to the conclusion that most 40mm tyres have similar grip off road in the wet (i.e. not very much) unless you go for something like a 'cross mud tyre. Including Schwalbe Marathons!

If you are looking to keep the glaur off you Bob, I can recommend the mudhugger gravel guards. As with the Jones I also use a lightweight down tube guard and a bit of old SKS mudguard between the BB and seat stays.

I think it's more about a consistent and gradual (even if over a short timespan) loss of control is what is really being talked about rather than actual traction/grip - really don't want something that just "goes".

The bike has internal cabling so having something cover the back of the BB/chainstay area is nigh on essential.

Redshift is interesting in that (from a brief ‘tyre kick’ test) they feel very clunky. Surely they don’t do much other than cause a bit of an extra clunk at the handlebars!

I put one on my cutthroat, set up the elastomers as recommended, didn't notice it on the road, was good on tracks and trails and fully kicked in on a surprise step down

Would recommend without hesitation, when you are fully loaded it's a very small weight penalty

Congrats on the new bike. Looks great. Have a nice set of digest bars that would suit it just fine

https://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/phpB ... hp?t=25275

The bike has internal cabling so having something cover the back of the BB/chainstay area is nigh on essential.

Bob, do you mean where the outer cable seems to enter the frame? I think you might find that it’s a full outer going right through the frame. At least that’s how I managed to set up the Santa Cruz (but not the Canyon Ultimate, also internally routed but was set up with the inner going inside the frame) as it appeared they’d designed it for full ‘outer cable into frame routing’. Bit of a mouthful but you get what I mean.

Actually ignore me. I just re read it and you’ve obviously seen the little bracket sitting under the BB where the inner is routed through. What a shameful design for a gravel bike. Don’t Cannondale know that our gravel is just muck!

Shaf, the rear of the BB area is, for want of a better term, a sloping shelf. The front derailleur cable and outer comes up through the centre of this and up to the front mech. It's a bit of a crud trap so some form of guard to sit in that triangle between the chainstays and the seat tube is needed. Given the number of mounting bosses elsewhere on the frame I'm surprised they haven't added a couple in this area to fix a mud guard as muck building up on the front mech was always one of the selling points of 1x setups.

OK, one month usage update...

Done 450km on it so far. The first few rides were in damp conditions which certainly showed the limits of the Terreno Dry tyres - they really don't grip in mud or on wet grass (AKA green mud!) In the last couple of weeks things have really dried out though and they run much better. Even with slight/moderate dampness I think I'd be happier with something chunkier/more grippy on the front. I did a ride on the southern edge of the NY Moors and one green lane descent had me walking for a hundred metres or so as similar conditions on the flat had been "twitchy"

The handlebars seem about right, I don't have any inclination to go wider at the present moment.

Gearing is a little high for round here, it's an 11-34T cassette but once it wears out I'll fit an 11-40T.

I've done a few tracks that I knew would be ideal for the bike, a couple were tricky in the damp (limestone doesn't have much grip when wet) but were fine when dry. It's not as quick as the Solaris on them but that's as much dropping fitness as anything as well as figuring how to ride a drop bar bike on that sort of ground.

Overall: nice to ride and pretty much does what I wanted it to. I think for winter conditions I'd put as large and as chunky as possible on the front to avoid washing out. Yet to order/fit a Redshift stem.

Enjoy it and thrash it within an inch of it's life. I looked at the topstone but went with a whyte gisburn with 1k off instead. Ali rather than carbon but handles most mtb red stuff at the lower end of difficulty. Came with sram wireless gears, brilliant.