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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
You’ll have to tell us about the ride quality, and how you liked it.

What kind of terrain do you ride with it?

I am 179/83 and got the frame in size S. Personally, I find their sizing recommendations somewhat on the large side. I am pretty happy with my size, very sporty ride, while still being stable in the front (I only tried the 55mm trail setting). I live in Switzerland and have ridden 600km so far, about 60% gravel/CX-light and 40% road. The 45mm tires in combination with the 25mm inner width Elite Gravel wheels are great - very capable off-road. Frame clearance is about 8mm on the side with true to size 45mm tires. With the Conti RS tires its about 2kmh slower than my Venge - while being 20mm higher and 20mm shorter in front. On the downhill with 70kmh its rock solid (with balanced wheels).

The handlebar from SPcycles was only okay, as the rivets for the Garmin mount were glued in crooked - so i had to file them flat. The screw sits still not flush.... Otherwise, no complaints for the price of 120USD. Middle of the road with respect to flex. Bought it in 80/450 to match the progressive frame geo.

In conclusion: I can only recommend the frame, paint is great (except around the bottle cages and overspray on the brake mounts) and rides very well so far. Looked very clean on the inside. I am now thinking about selling the Venge.  ;) Its a pretty good do-it-all bike when paired with wide, fast rolling tires.

I hope that helps.

July 30, 2024, 03:22:11 AM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame Just received my 068 about 2 hours ago; this post is first impressions + some remarks about features that aren't listed on the SPCycle site. Before starting, I want to give props to David at SPCycle for being very responsive to my (many, annoying) emails and providing accurate tire clearance measurements. Thanks!

FULL ALBUM HERE: https://imgur.com/a/H2liWld



This is a size small frame in the blue chameleon color. I'm very pleased with the paintwork - it's flawless almost everywhere, just some tiny deformation around mounts and holes that will be covered up by bolts anyway. The color itself is exactly what I'd hoped for, a blue/purple shift with teal sparkles. There is some overspray around brake mounts and some of the bolt bosses, but nothing that can't be fixed with some careful use of a sharp utility knife.

The weight isn't super impressive, but it never was gonna be: 1154 grams for the frame (no hardware) and 500 grams for the fork (with thru axle inserts, uncut). Seeing as the downtube is so incredibly girthy, and the rest of the frame isn't exactly svelte, I'm ok with these figures.

Now for a list of thoughts and observations:
  • I fit 650b x 54 mm (measured tires) between the chainstays with ~2-2.5 mm of room on either side! I'm planning on running 650b x 50-52 mm as my gravel setup on new wheels, so this is very nice. I don't have fat 700c tires to test with, but I'll get more exact chainstay measurements later.
  • The headset bearing cups are molded well and the provided bearings fit snugly with zero play. I'm using a Token S-Box compression ring and top cap, as I don't like the aluminum C-shaped compression ring that comes with the stock headset - too much risk of fork damage and it's HEAVY. Unfortunately, the Token bearings are 51.8mm OD and have a small amount of play in the 52.0 mm bearing seats, so I can't use them.
  • The hose routing hole on the steerer tube is kind of rough, but won't be a concern when it's hidden away in the frame. There was one strand of loose carbon that I sliced off without issue. I pushed a brake hose up from the caliper end and it popped right out the steerer hole without any guidance needed, so the inside is perfectly fine.
  • Speaking of the inside, the interior of the frame looks to be very well molded, without much in the way of wrinkles or excess resin. The only real exception are the areas where the chainstays are bonded right behind the bottom bracket, which have some lumpy resin but nothing major. See the endoscope pics in the album.
  • There's a cable routing port on the back of the driveside seatstay, which is a far better location than the port on the underside of the chainstay. However, it looks like the seatstay port may only be large enough for electronic cables - not an issue for me since I'm building this up with Di2, but something to consider if you're going mechanical.
  • There's a fender mounting boss on the underside of the fork crown. Not super useful on the holeless fork since there's no corresponding mounting holes by the dropouts - I'd like to see those holes present, but clip-on fenders should be fine for the winter.
  • The bottom bracket threads are clean, with no point overspray or damage. I'm not sure if the paint around the cups will be damaged by BB installation - I'll be doing that tomorrow with a SRAM T47 BB and an Abbey tools socket, clamped to the frame, so hopefully there's not much room for anything to slip.
  • The front thru-axle has measurements written on it but the rear doesn't. Ideally it would, but here's the measurements: ~168mm length, ~15mm thread length, 1.0 pitch (thanks, UDH). The brass washer on the rear axle is captive - good - but the washer on the front isn't retained in any way and just pulls straight off. Also, the rear axle head sits flush with the frame but the front axle head protrudes slightly. The axles are quite heavy, I'll likely replace them in the future.
  • The flip chip on the brake side is only retained by the axle! When the axle isn't there, it just falls straight out of the fork. Not good, especially because the driveside chip is elegantly retained by a little grub screw on the tip of the fork blade - why couldn't this have been done on both sides??? This is my biggest complaint since it's so easily avoidable, and actually IS avoided on only one of the blades!
  • The brake mounts on the frame and fork look to have been faced, but then not fully masked, so there's a rim of paint around the edges that prevent mounts from sitting flat and flush. I did some experiments with carefully slicing away the paint from one of the fork brake mounts, and it looks pretty good, so I'm going to complete that on all the mounts once I'm done with this post.

Overall, it looks like this frame will do exactly what I wanted - to serve as a road and gravel bike with 2 wheelsets, without compromising too much on either front. I'll make at least one more post, probably 2, detailing any build notes and ride impressions I have.

Check out the album - it's got all the pictures thus far!

August 23, 2024, 05:16:59 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
Where did you end up sourcing the Token headset from? I've had a look online and they don't seem to be particularly easy to find. Is it the TK1556SP model?

Yup, got it from the Token US website: https://tokenproducts.us/collections/all-headsets/products/s-box-semi-integrated-cable-router-for-road-bikes-tk-1556sp

I've finally completed the build and taken the bike out for its first trip up a familiar local climb, and it performed great. The paint in direct sunlight is amazing. There's a few minor fit tweaks to do, and I need to put on a longer chain (this one is left over from my road bike with shorter chainstays), but overall, very nice and I'm happy to have gotten the fit right on the first try. There's absolutely no flex between the headtube and bottom bracket, which is noticeable out of the saddle and when sprinting, but it's not uncomfortable. It does feel a bit more squat than my road bike, but that's likely because of the 14 mm shorter reach and slightly lower BB height. The handling characteristics are much closer to my road bike than my gravel bike, which makes sense given that I sized this frame to be closer to the former. It's definitely not sluggish, if not as extremely precise as my road bike (one day I'll rebuild it into something... maybe make it as light as I can for fun).

I don't have any more major build notes; the only thing I forgot to mention is that the rear brake mount is 160 mm native, so there's no way to run a 140 mm rotor. I'm not interested in doing so, but something to think about if you like that size in the back. Also, with a +20 mm adapter in the rear and the fork in the 50 mm offset position, you could run a 180 mm rotor in the rear and a 140 in the front... wacky and dumb, but possible!

Unless something goes really wrong, this is my last update until I get my 650b rims in 3-4 weeks and get those wheels built up. Stuck with just road wheels for now, I'm gonna be doing all the longer road rides I haven't done in a while, so I won't be able to judge this frame as a proper gravel bike until then.



August 26, 2024, 07:09:35 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
Hi all,
I am new here but been reading for a while trying to orientate myself. I would like to build a Gravel bike that tries to replicate something close to the Canyon Grizl. From my research it looks like the SPCycles G068 might be close to that from what I see but open to feedback. I have some generic questions and specific... I haven't built a bike for many years so lots of things have changed.
Here goes...

- How do I know if I need cassette or crank spacers?
- Anything I am missing here or putting together that is stupid?
- Any suggestions over and above the G068 in terms of "Grizl like" nature? I looked at plenty but with so many choices its hard to know if I missed something.

Apologies if I should have started a new thread specific to this set of questions. Thanks in advance and below is the pick list I came up with so far (and thanks to those who published their build lists to give me a starting point to narrow things down).

ComponentSelectionLink
FrameSPCycles G068https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007032577233.html
ForkG068 frameset
Seat postG068 frameset
Seat post clampG068 frameset
SaddleElita One Carbon Saddle (3155)https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005257755453.html
HandlebarsG068 framesethttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003118296860.html
Grips
StemG068 frameset
HeadsetG068 frameset
Top capG068 frameset
SpacersG068 frameset
GroupsetLTWOO GRT12-Disc 1x12shttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256804861982533.html
Front brake leverGRT12 Groupset
Rear brake leverGRT12 Groupset
Rear shifterGRT12 Groupset
Front calliperGRT12 Groupset
Rear calliperGRT12 Groupset
Front padsGRT12 Groupset
Rear padsGRT12 Groupset
Front rotorGalfer wave 160https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08D3Z1BJD
Rear rotorGalfer wave 160https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08D3Z1BJD
Front brake cableGRT12 Groupset
Rear brake cableGRT12 Groupset
Front brake housingGRT12 Groupset
Rear brake housingGRT12 Groupset
Rear derailleurGRT12 Groupset
Rear derailleur cableGRT12 Groupset
CranksetSENICX PR2 Gravel Crankset 42T 170mmhttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005817385849.html
Bottom bracketT47 Bicycle Bottom Bracket 86.5 - CW Bikehttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005402928942.html
Cassette and freewheelZTTO ULT Pro 12 speed - 9-50Thttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006380414988.html
ChainShimano XT 12-Speedhttps://www.amazon.de/Shimano-Kette-Fahrrad-Unisex-Erwachsene/dp/B07SVMGP4C
Front wheelElite Wheels 700c, 38d 25whttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004574763198.html
Rear wheelElite Wheels 700c, 38d 25w
Front tyreSchwalbe G-One Overland
Rear tyreSchwalbe G-One Overland
Front axelG068 frameset
Rear axelG068 frameset
PedalsShimano PD-EH500
Front tube
Rear tube
Tubeless (front)
Tubeless (rear)
Cassette spacers?
Cable housingShift cable housinghttps://www.amazon.de/-/en/CTRICALVER-Universal-Bicycle-Replacement-Mountain/dp/B08HGLHHTH
   

I am building the same bike but using the CWinds frame. They will be releasing an updated G30 U with integrated bars in the next month. I was speaking with them. That’s a decent list of parts. Pretty much exactly what I’m building.

August 28, 2024, 08:05:54 AM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame



My 650b rims came in about 10 days earlier than I was expecting, so I built them up over the weekend and took them on their first ride today. 34 miles with 3300 feet of climbing; pretty short in absolute terms, but it was a good split of surfaces, about 45% pavement, 35% smooth/slightly washboarded dirt, and 20% jeep doubletrack with lots of rocks. Not a ton of distance or vert, and it is only one ride, but my impressions of a bike rarely change after the first ride so I think I can provide some useful info.

Main thoughts:
  • With tires measuring almost exactly 50 mm, I have 4 mm clearance at the chainstays on each side. I expect the tires to stretch a little bit over time, so it's good to know that if they plump out another 2 mm I'll still have adequate clearance. I didn't bother measuring the front, there's easily >6 mm of room on either side, the fork could probably take a 2.1" tire if it's not too knobby.
  • The total diameter (including tires) of my 650b wheels is about 1 cm less than my 700c wheels; the ~5 mm difference in radius didn't really change handling but did lower the cranks by that much, which is important because I got two or three pedal strikes, even with a decent choice of line so as to avoid the larger rocks. I'll be getting crank boots since my crankarms are carbon. Not really an issue on terrain where you're not trying to navigate through a rock field, but that does make up some of the more fun routes around here so it applies to my use case.
  • Probably due to the far fatter and squarer tire profile, the handling at the front was more sedate than with the 700c wheels; it did take a bit of persuasion to rapidly change direction when I was crawling uphill. No real change with how the rear wheel tracked, though, which was nice. Overall the handling is quite stable but I wouldn't classify it as slack, certainly not on the level of a Stigmata or similarly headtube-angled frames. No problems staying upright the few times that the rear wheel broke traction, which fortunately never happened up front.

Side thoughts:
  • The downtube bottle cage mounts are a bit too far up to fit a 750 ml bottle. I used a bottle cage extender (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805494776538.html but the design is generic) to drop the cage about 2 cm down, which works well. I did drink all of that extra water so it's worth it.
  • I didn't get any chainslap on the way up even as I was bouncing around, but did get a fair amount on the rutted dirt descent, even in the big ring and lower gears in the back. I'll be putting on another layer or two of clear tape on top of the single layer that's already on the chainstay, just for a bit more cushioning.
  • Being able to run a dropper post may be the single biggest advantage this frame has over an actual Canyon Grail. The dropper is pretty much mandatory for the dirt descents I do and I also use it quite a bit to get aero on parts of descents faster than I can spin my 48/11 top gear (i.e. most of any descent). I have the clamping wedge torqued to 7 Nm and the seatpost hasn't slipped at all - I put a ring of silver Sharpie around the base to make sure - which is impressive, considering how fat I am.
  • The rear rim already got a few small nicks from rocks flipping up from under the tire, but I've found with my road rims that a tiny bit of clear nail polish hides such marks on glossy carbon very well.
  • The wheelbuilding process on these rims was quite nice. LightBicycle AM728 rims, i9 Torch rear hub + i9 Solix front hub (Torch hubs are effectively impossible to find now and purple ones simply no longer exist  :'( ), Sapim CX Ray/Sprint front/rear respectively. Was my first time building with alloy nipples, Sapim Double Square, and they performed no different than the brass ones I've used before. The internal square part is easy to fit an internal tool (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802115683590.html) and rotate, which is nice because it allows a spoke holder to keep the bladed spoke aligned without a spoke key in the way.

I'm using the SRAM T47 BB and even though it's nominally for 85.5 shells, I can confirm it works perfectly fine in the 86.5 mm hubshell of this frame. With RED cranks, the fit is absolutely perfect with a 2.5mm driveside spacer and the preload adjuster turned all the way out. My subcompact chainrings sit a little closer to the frame than stock chainrings would, so with a 2 mm driveside spacer you could get some preload adjustment.

Slight amendment; this did work fine but when the chain was on the inner chainring it was like 0.3 mm from the frame, close enough that wax got onto the downtube. I ended up sanding about 0.7 mm off the inner face of the preload adjuster ring and swapped to a 3 mm spacer on the drive side. This bought me ~0.5 mm more clearance, which is good enough. This problem is likely unique to my setup - the Bikingreen chainrings sit further inboard than stock chainrings due to the weirdness needed to fit subcompact rings to a 110 BCD spider.

-----------------------------------------------

Final thoughts, having put ~175 miles of road riding in on this frame with 700c wheels plus this one ride on 650b: this frame is really good at being a road bike, pretty good at being a rough-terrain gravel bike, but it's not a master at either discipline. Where it felt the best was the smoother dirt, and I think it would be absolutely outstanding when ridden on such roads with a set of 700 x ~45 mm tires. Still, it's plenty good enough at fulfilling the dual role I ask of it - a keeper for sure! 

September 16, 2024, 10:02:17 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
@frnchy How do you like riding quality of the frame? Is the power transfer ok? In other word is it stiff enough to build a fast bike?

I'd say it's definitely stiff enough for whatever fast build you'd want to do. No BB or other frame deflection that I could feel or see evidence of when I did some sprints on my first few rides to test it out. My handlebars are pretty flexible though so muscling around the front end gets a little squishy, but that's build dependent, if you put on a super stiff handlebar I think the front end would keep up. Stiffness aside, the frame rides fine, there's nothing remarkable about it either positively or negatively in that regard. Ride quality is so much more dependent on contact points, wheels, and above all tires, and it's definitely more comfy with the 50 mm tire 650b setup than with my 30 mm 700c wheels. If you want more detailed and better-written analysis, seek out reviews of the newest Canyon Grail, the geometry is the same and that has a lot more impact on ride feel and handling than frame stiffness.

October 22, 2024, 05:58:34 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame Finally got this built and out for a shakedown ride - haven't had it on the gravel yet but first impressions are excellent. Geometry feels dialed. Paint looks fantastic. SRAM mullet is fantastic for a gravel build. Size S and a 70mm stem (same as Canyon supply on stock builds) is ideal for my 174cm height. XMCarbonSpeed wheels were easy to set up and seal, and even the own brand tubeless valves seemed nicely made.

Downsides in building:
- BB and brake mounts needed facing
- Grommets on the frame are a poor fit once you run a hose through them (if I had my time again I probably would've ordered the fully internally routed one).
- Headset/UDH/axles are pretty chunky - suspect that a fair bit of weight could be shaved off these.





Code: [Select]
Part      Item                                           Weight (g)   Notes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frame     SP Cycle G068 size S (Grail 2023 clone)        2000         Weight includes frame, uncut fork, headset, all bolts, 1x blanking plate, seatpost clamp, thru-axles, UDH
Fork      SP Cycle G068 size S (Grail 2023 clone)       
Headset   SP Cycle G068                                 

Seatpost  Elita One 27.2mm 0 offset                      141
Bars      Kalloy FL12 40cm                               299
Stem      Kalloy non-uno 70mm                            127
Saddle    China carbon                                   160

Groupset  SRAM Red mullet
Shifters  SRAM Red AXS                                   467
Brakes    SRAM Red AXS + IIIPro 160mm rotors             520         
Crank     Sram Force D2 DUB wide + Magene P505 + SRAM 40t700
BB        DUB Road wide T47                              100
FD        1x                                             0
RD        Sram GX Eagle AXS                              430
Chain     Sram GX 12 speed                               250
Cassette  SRAM XG-1295 10-50                             354

Wheels    XM Carbon Speed 50mm deep / 28/36mm wide       1430         Front = 670g, Rear = 760g
Tubes     Tubeless sealant + valves                      120          Valves = 12g
Tyres     Tufo Thundera HD 48mm                          1090
Skewers   Thru axle                                                   Weight in frame

Pedals    Shimano XT M8100                               330
Bar Tape  AliX Supacaz                                   100
Cages     Carbon                                         50
Cables    Battery                                        25
Other     AliX integrated Garmin mount                   40

Total                                                   8733          8.7 weighed

December 06, 2024, 11:51:57 PM
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