One bike to rule all terrains?

[tgarne]

Hi all.

Probably gonna stop racing too much on the road in the nearest future.

Therefore i am looking for a frame to do it all. I need it to be aeroish and be able to do both gravel and road with two different wheelsets.

Do we have something out there like the Ridley ASTR, BMC Kaius or similar?

Requirements:
- Min. 45mm tire clearence
- Aero features.
- Adult size (190 vm tall)
- Space for 1x 50t
- UDH
- Raceish geo

[rwtbne]

Carbonda CFR-505 SL seems to fit that box!

https://www.carbonda.com/road/cfr-505-sl.html

[tgarne]

Might not fit perfect, as it has max chainring is 42T and tire clearence 42mm

[jfcb]

Might not fit perfect, as it has max chainring is 42T and tire clearence 42mm

Hi, a happy 505SL owner here: I use it up to a 50T chainring (SRAM crank, Sigey PM as spider and Stone oval chainring). Also effective tire clearance: up to 45mm without any issues in the mud.

That said, you might also want to have a look at the Velobuild: https://www.velobuild.com/products/2025-velobuild-carbon-fiber-racing-gravel-bike-frame

[muflon11]

45mm is gravel territory, so i wouldn't want to ride that as a road bike (i tried, didn't work for me). Afaik, a "do it all" bike a la Vitus (recently featured on GCN) has clearance for up to 38C, not 45C.
In my experience, it's also annoying to change wheelsets, because rotors tend to rub, and it's just irritating to swap wheels.
My conclusion, having tried the one bike to rule them all, is that it doesn't work, and you end up with a shitty road bike and a shitty gravel bike. For most friends my size, i'd put them on something that clears 35 or 38C with slick tyres, aero, that being some really versatile, really fast road bike. Peter from Xiamen carbon speed is about to release such frame (you may be too tall).

How about the CS-GR01?

[BikeLab]

45mm is gravel territory, so i wouldn't want to ride that as a road bike (i tried, didn't work for me). Afaik, a "do it all" bike a la Vitus (recently featured on GCN) has clearance for up to 38C, not 45C.
In my experience, it's also annoying to change wheelsets, because rotors tend to rub, and it's just irritating to swap wheels.
My conclusion, having tried the one bike to rule them all, is that it doesn't work, and you end up with a shitty road bike and a shitty gravel bike. For most friends my size, i'd put them on something that clears 35 or 38C with slick tyres, aero, that being some really versatile, really fast road bike. Peter from Xiamen carbon speed is about to release such frame (you may be too tall).
And then for / if gravel, a real gravel bike with 50+C clearance and MTB tyres, a la dylan johnson, because gravel on skinny tyres is just bad news.
I think a lot of people drank the kool aid of the "1 bike", and end up with shitty everything. That's 100% my experience at least, and i see it around me too. Caveat: my group rides on the flat are increasingly done at 38+kmh, so we spend a lot of time over 40kmh, which means that yes, aero matters, so it's pretty much impossible to stay with the group if you're riding a school bus that identifies a road bike. We dropped a triathlon world champion this w-e because he's on a non aero bike with bad tyres, and we wore him down Yes, I will flex about that for years to come

Last: my ideal gravel bike would be mechanical and semi external routing, to save on money / maintenance / livability, because road for me will always be 90+% of my riding. So it's not necessarily that expensive to run 2 bikes instead of 1, if you know what you're doing.

What frame would and groupset would You recommend for gravel a la Dylan Johnson as a second bike for trips with wife and kids (because im also 90% road)

[Serge_K]

I'm really not the best person to ask about gravel. I have built 3 VB gravel frames, and the gravel from Peter. That one, I would recommend. I wouldn't recommend the VB ones. Not that they're bad either.
But beyond that, there are people on this forum who are all about gravel and will be much more relevant than me for sure on that topic.