The Perfect Gravel Bike? 💥 Genesis Croix De Fer

Bike Mechanic Paul builds our PERFECT Gravel Bike.

Details:
Frame: We were gifted the Genesis Croix de Fer stainless steel frame. Available here: https://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/product/genesis-croix-de-fer-931-frameset-vargn11310/VARGN11310/GN11310LG

Groupset: Shimano GRX RX800 2×11. Available to buy on our website here: https://www.veloworkshop.co.uk/dt-swiss-wheels/Shimano-GRX-RX800-Gravel-Groupset-2×11-Speed-p481872506
@RideShimano

Wheels: DT Swiss GR1600 available to buy from us: https://www.veloworks.co.uk/collections/hand-built-wheels
@dtswiss

Tyres: @vittoria Terreno T50 Gravel endurance tyres. Available here: https://www.veloworks.co.uk/products/vittoria-terreno-t50-mixed-700x40c-gravel-endurance-brown-black-g2-0-tubeless-ready-tyre

Bar Tape: https://www.veloworks.co.uk/products/cinelli-3d-caleido-strip-bar-tape
@CinelliBicyclesOfficial

We are Paul and Sarah of Velo Works. A small independent bike business offering hand built wheels, an online store, local servicing and custom builds.

Hi, I’m Paul from Bellowex and we’re building the ultimate gravel bike with a specific brief. So, come join me to find out what bike we’re building and what is the specific brief that I need to meet to get this bike nicely built. So, here we have a beautiful Genesis quadifer stainless steel 931 Reynolds tubing. It’s an absolute beast. It’s got carbon forks, tapered steer tube, internal rooted cable, but cables, but sensible full length internally rooted cables, which I like. It’s a beautiful material that Genesis used to make their bike. Light, super stiff, yet have a nice punchy, smooth feel to it. So, really excited to get this built up. We’re going to pair it with GRX RX800 2 by11, which I’ve always liked. It’s been around for years. Love this group set. So 2 by1 11 and we’re also going to pair it with the mighty GR600 wheels by DT Swiss. We’re going 1134 to cog on the back. We’ve got the CL800 rotors and we’ve also got the Victoria Torino tires which are like an endurance gravel tire so they should be good on mix of surfaces and they are 700 by 45 mil which this frame has plenty of clearance for. Now I mentioned there’s a special brief with this bike. So me and Sarah have a fleet of bikes which one day we’ll do a video about our collection of bikes and they’re very much Sarah’s bikes and my bikes. This is going to be our first shared bike. So, luckily the frame fits within our height, but we’re going to have to tailor it so it works for us both, which is a little bit of thought whether we’re going to have to both have different seats with a seat post so we can just pop the seat post out and have different seats if or saddles if that’s what we want. The position is going to need to be fought about. But first of all, before we tackle that brief, which might be over the next few weeks, we’re going to have to get it built. Come join me in the workshop so we can get this epic bike built and it’s going to be the perfect gravel bike for a lovely couple. We hope you think uh yeah, come join me. So, the Genesis is finished. It’s a very, very nice build. full length cables from front to back, internally rooted, very easy to sort out. The frame is super well made. What I’m going to do is go through the specs again of the bike and then tell you about how I have met the brief of this bike being a shared bike for both of us. Also, I couldn’t help but take it for a ride on the weekend because Sarah was away. I got it finished and I got loose on it a lot. It’s got a lot of dust on it and I really really enjoy riding it. It’s a really nice position. I’m used to a dropped handlebar position on a kind of retro bike. So on a modern bike, it’s really nicely fitted for me. I’m not super stretched out. It wants to climb everything. It’s stiff yet forgiving. It’s yeah, everything I dreamed of. And the wheels, as you can imagine, DT Swiss, they are brilliant and really good choice of group set. The group set the brakes are really kind of modular. They really feel you can have them on lighter on more full-on. So, that was a really good choice of group set. So, really happy with the build and had lots of ideas of how this bike would come together and different ideas of what I would use. And I’m glad that we went uh with this. So, let’s go through the specs and see what this bike how this bike has been built. So, we have the Genesis quad stainless steel Reynolds 931 frame set in medium carbon forks, super stiff but super forgiving frame set. It has a T47 bottom bracket which we paired with a wheels manufacturing bottom bracket and that is really nice and super smooth. It’s got bottle cage bosses and frame bag bosses galore all over it. And it’s a really super dialed in frame. It came with the headset, which is really nice. Um, so it’s oversized at the bottom. That was and it’s a nice kind of older school headset. So, it’s going to be super sealed. The headset bearings aren’t going to need replacing too often. We paired it with the GRX RX800 2 by11. It’s a group set that’s been out for quite a while, but one that I’ve loved and is just a great choice. It’s Tegra level, so we’ve gone for the HG800 111 to 34 to rear cassette. We’ve got a clutch mechanism on the rear derailia, so that’s the clutch off kind of for road use. And then if you’re going off-road, you have the clutch on so there’s less chain slaps. That’s a great option. I was taking it kind of on lots of mixed surfaces, so I’ve just left the clutch on. We’ve gone rotor-wise, we’ve gone for Shimano CL800 rotors, 160 mil at the front, 140 mil at the back. They’ve bedded in nicely and loads of stopping power. Finishing kit, we’ve got Pro Stem, Pro handlebars. So, basically ProLT, which is Shimano’s finishing kit. Really nice options. Love their stuff. We’ve gone for a shallow drop set of drops, so easier to reach and just a bit more comfortable. and they are really really comfortable. We finished it off with Chinelli bar tape where real good bar tape that we love and I’ve got on most of my bikes now. So yeah, really durable spongy bar tape and most importantly we finished it off with some DTSwiss wheels, GR1600s. Now I’m going to make this claim and I reckon I’m in a position to make this claim that these have got to be one of the best alongside our Hambit wheels as well. one of the best alloy gravel wheels that you can buy. They are just the dream. They’ve got bladed spokes, 350 hubs, ratchet drive. They’re nice. They’ve got a nice sound to them. So, if you like that type of thing, then people will know that you’ve got a nice wheel set, but they’re not super obnoxious. Really easy to service and just a great great option. Funny enough, we sell them and we have some available if you want to buy them. They do Shimano, Hyperglide free hub, XDR free hub, and Microsine free hub. There’s also 6 650B version. So, a great great choice, and I can feel how nice they are when I’ve been taking them out over the weekend. We’ve also paired them with a really good choice of tire. I was thinking how what tires to use. We’ve gone for the T Victoria Torino T50 gravel endurance. really nice on the road, really nice on gravel surfaces, super puncture resilient, and a great option for these rims. They fit nicely together. So, the specs of the bike are really kind of higher end, and I’m really happy with the way it’s all come together. So, there we go. So, now let’s have a chat about how the main brief, as well as building the bike to a really good standard, the main brief brief was to get this bike so it’s shared between me and Sarah. Let’s look how we’ve done it because the solution was quite simple actually and really happy with it. So let’s have a look at that. So the main brief was to get a kind of his and hers bike that we could both use. Me and Sarah are almost similar heights but our bodies are quite different shapes. But thankfully thankfully we’ve been able to we think figure this out. We both need to take it on more longer rides. Definitely the riding I did at the weekend position was good for me. And what we’ve done is we keep the handlebars and the stem the same. This is set up for Sarah at the moment. So, it’s got her flat pedals on and it’s got an inline seat post with her choice of saddle on. I need a 20 mil layback. So, basically, when Sarah wants to use the bike, we chuck her pedals on, put the saddle and seat post on. When I want to use it, I chuck my SPD pedals on, and I just put the seat post in. So, a really clean way of making sure the bike’s set up in an optimal position for both of us, just by changing the seat post and the pedals. Sarah might convert to clipins eventually. So that would eliminate that. But yeah, so in line for Sarah 20 mil layback for me seems to be the perfect position for us both. So it’s going to be a really good functional bike that we can both use and it’s a great option. The quad fur frames, it’s well worth looking them up if you they were really Genesis were the original gravel bike. They were the people that made the quadur before anyone else jumped on the vibe of gravel bikes. So look them up. This is uh their higherend offering and we’re very lucky to have this in our lives and it’s a real keeper of a bike. They do really good options across the range of the quader and it’s very much if you’ve got a quadifair you know about them. You know that they’re a bike for life and they’re a great way forward. They do one buys, two buys, all kinds of different setups. So, if you’re looking for a bike that you want a bike for life, you want a great choice of bike that’s going to give you a really good service and a really enjoyable ride, have a look at Gen Genesis. They do quadifair, they’ve got the Vagabond, they’ve got loads of options and they’re really, really good. And we’re going to have some really good fun on this and I’m sure it’s going to be a bike that’s going to be featured lots in the video. So, let us know what you think about the bike. What do you think about the build? Is there anything you would have done differently? Would you have it set up like this or would you do some things a bit different? Let us know. And if you like what we do, please subscribe. And thank you very much for watching. We’re going to go and enjoy this beautiful bike.