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2020-06-17
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I built myself a gravel bike last winter.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with the result. The ride is relaxed and the handling is smooth. There's no toe-overlap with the smaller wheels _(pretty much guaranteed on a 700c bike if you're a short-arse like me)_.
The hunt wheels are solidly built and good quality I've only done some very minor truing on the rear after the first few hundred k. They also came with a nice little spare parts kit including: spokes, a proper spoke key and centerlock to 6-bolt disc rotor adaptors.
Shifting multiple gears at once is smooth up and down the cassette _(which I've come to expect from ratchet shifters, they just work)_. And the rest of the 105 / slx franken-drivetrain doesn't seem to mind the abuse.
The hydraulic brakes were simple to fit and the light levers save your hands on longer rides. They came set up and pre filled and I was able to shorten the hoses with just a Stanley knife and an adjustable spanner, without needing to bleed the system afterwards.
I don't find the 11x1 to be particularly gappy. The cassette has bigger jumps at the bottom of the range, which you notice less when you are winding the bike uphill. The total range of gearing is reduced by about 20% compared to the 2x10 setup on my road bike and biased low. So I tend to live in the top half of the cassette when cruising and spin out regularly on-road. But have the low gears (1:1) available when I need them.
On the downside it eats chains. I got ~1200km out of the original KMC chain I built the bike up with. Around half the distance I get out of the 2x10 setup on my road bike with better chainlines.
_I wrote a previous post about the initial setup of these wheels back in November [1]._
Tubeless tyres are absolutely worth the additional time and expense for off-roading. Punctures on my road bike are a rare occurrence, and usually pinch flats, but I seem to pick up at least one every couple of rides if off-roading is involved.
_(This probably comes down to lack of skill on my part as much as anything, picking poor lines and smashing over / through things I should be trying to avoid)_.
But the tubeless setup I have seems to be incredibly forgiving. I've hit stones, they've gone _pop_ and sealed up. I've pulled hawthorns out of the carcass mid-ride (often after dragging short sections of branch for several hundred meters), they've gone _psssss_ and sealed up after one or two rotations of the wheel.
For just the time and aggro saved in changing and patching tubes at the roadside they've been well wort it _(I still carry tubes in case of larger cuts that won't seal)_.
-- CC BY-SA 4.0 - dave@dnhome.uk