Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

Camino are excellent bike, just personal choice on which to go for

Any forum feedback on the Ribble CGR 725 and Brother Mehteh, or are they 'cheap' steel frames not going to provide much of the soft springy ride and I should just get an alloy bike like the Camino or Tripster AT?

Brother Mehteh
'cheap'

Mehteh is £950, not exactly cheap. You can get a custom Polish steel frame for that money, with awesome tubes.

steel frames not going to provide much of the soft springy ride

is correct. It was different in the days of 28.6 OD tubes but nowadays "steel is comfy" is marketing guff. Big squishy tyres make all the difference.

Photos of Trek's aggro gravel prototype have been leaked

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I'd like the route of Polish frames, but when I last spoke to Rychtarski his prices were well north of the Mehteh price. I know neither are cheap, just being tongue in cheek.
@leggy_blonde that's what keeps stopping me from getting these steel frames

Racist

I sort of disagree. my croix de fer is way more soft and comfy on rought terrain than an alloy frame, with same sized tyres.
In my experience i had to compensate the rigidity of alloy with bigger tyres or softer pressures. Talking about an NS rag frameset here, a similar level of alloy to camino.

Curious what the prices are now.

A year ago a fillet brazed Spirit(!) frame was €1050. Obviously without a fork, so not a completely fair comparison.

This from November last year: "- Columbus tig welded frame with Columbus FUTURA SL fork price starts from 1690€"
@Glws I really regret selling my Croix, but it'll cost me too much now to swap calipers to post mount and my wheels to qr though im tempted for sentimentality sake

maybe yes, i'm not making the case for my CDF :)
Though if you wer doing numbers, wheels adapters + a set of calipers + a 2nd hand cdf frame would cost less than a new frameset ...

cheap is over

a grand for a 4130 frameset is the new normal

i would buy a trek checkpoint ALR at that price though ;)

And my steel track bike is a lot stiffer than a lot of aluminium track bikes. Aluminium as a material is actually less stiff (lower Young's modulus) than steel. However the biggest contributor to stiffness of a tube is it's shape (stiffness is proportional to the 4th power of depth innit). So if you want a comfy bike, choose something with vertically slender stays in any material.

CDFs have nice skinny stays.

People who say "steel frames ride nicer than aluminium" are often desperately justifying their custom insta-wagons. And don't get me started on the mugs who buy titanium....

True, though this might also give me an excuse to finally build the wheels I've been meaning to for ages and will still probably be less than the new frameset

a grand for a 4130 frameset is the new normal

This makes me sad

My Brother has the Ribble and loves it. He’s not exactly hammering it about at the moment, but has enjoyed it for a couple of years

Polish Frames aren’t so cheap anymore (neither are Czech)

DW, you can still get a cross check for £550 :^)

Yes i don't disagree, tube shape is a big factor, cdfs have nice skinny stays, and most alloy frames have large tubes. maybe crockett/checkpoint is one of the few alloy ones that has it all

Re that English. Why do people insist of photographing bikes without pedals.

You might as well leave the wheels off or the shifters. It's fucking stupid.

Why would you put pedals on it? It’s not like you’re going to ride it.

This makes me sadder

Oh praiseee the lord

Brother Kepler is 4130 and is £625 for frameset?

Mehteh is 725 so not really cheap steel

725 is still fairly cheap though