Some reflections having put some miles in on the bike. In case helpful for those maybe thinking about one.
All told I’m very happy with it and would recommend. I guess the way that gravel bikes are going this is going to be seen more as an all-Road bike than a gravel bike, principally because you’re limited to 42-45mm tyres (I’ve got 44mm Mezcals on no prob, but would be wary about going bigger in clingy-mud). And lack of mounts mean it’s not designed for bike packing etc. But that suits what I want it for and I’ve been happily riding it fast on the road with 33mm slicks and off-road on 44mms. I haven’t found its ability to do both a compromise on either which I thought I might. If I’m on stuff where 44mm isn’t enough I’d rather take my mtb anyway.
I had seatpost slipping issues - the seat tube is +0.15mm over and 2 Carbonda seatposts supplied are both under 27.2 to about the same degree. No amount of carbon paste was solving the issue. The seat collar supplied is 13mm high - I wondered if a taller collar (18mm?) would solve the problem but most collar listings don’t specify height dimensions and the few that do all seem to be max 15mm. In the end I solved the problem with some adhesive 0.2mm vinyl sheeting designed for covering books. A single layer of that on the seat post has worked without issues.
On chainrings - I’m running the stated max 42T ring with a 6mm offset (as recommended) on a SRAM DUB road crank (with 10x44 XPLR cassette). I don’t think you could go more than 42T with this set up without putting on a ring without an offset (or maybe 3mm instead of 6) - there isn’t much room to play with, see pictures. I’ll defer to others’ experience of increasing the chainline on shifting performance and wear etc. As it happens I don’t spin out with 42x10 until over 40mph which is fine by me for the type of riding I’m doing on this.
Finally - in going 1x fully wireless without a chain guide I had to buy some rubber hole plugs/bungs to cover the unused holes. Cheap on eBay.
