New ultraracing bike - what are the options nowadays?

Looks interesting. They do take mudguards, surprisingly given the name! They give BB height rather than drop so need to work out what tyre assumption they make to convert it. And look at other geometry.

Fairlight Strael

I should have a look at them. Their site doesn't work on my phone.
Now he has gone off road it would probably be safe to have one without outing myself as an @skinny fanboy.

santa cruz stigmata

Worth a look, thanks

Haha

I do prefer steel for road, absorbs the buzz. But also some nice handbuilt wheels do wonders too.

If you are interested then chat to Diego @ Racer Rosa.
He's their agent in the UK.

I think I'm going to go for a Winspace G2. https://www.winspace.cc/g2-gravel.html

I went through the geometry of 12 bikes in detail.

Closest of the UK manufacturers to what I was after was the Mason SLR, which looks great.

Best looking is the Daccordi Aurelia (curved forks - yum!)

I would have got a Domane if they were available but they just aren't.

Specialized Diverge was a near miss: geometry is almost as good as the Domane and I almost got one this morning (none in UK but a couple of sellers in Spain) but the colour is crap (orange / brown) so I hesitated and looked around more.

Then I looked at the Chinese. I found there are several great options which have big tyre clearance and mudguard mounts. Best fit with what I want geometry-wise is the Winspace G2. Cost about £1200, making it at the upper end of Chinese frames (and the £/$ trend has not helped) but still a good bit cheaper than everything else. There is a UK dealer so no import duty on top. And it comes in some good colours, including this rather fetching pink scheme!

I'll sleep on it, and have another look at it vs the Mason before finally deciding.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

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Did you look at Bokeh geometry at all?

Will be watching this thread for the build if you choose to keep it going.

I'm not suggesting to get an ill fitting bike !
What i found personnally is that longer geo and slacker forks get a bit frustrating on road and especially climbs. I would try to stick with the most agressive of gravel frames. Along the lines of some of the mentionned frames like santa cruz stigmata.

Did you look at Bokeh geometry at all?

I didn't this time round but I did last time I looked a couple of years ago. Just had a quick peek now at the latest version and it is actually very close to the Winspace (and to their SLR, which is a good bit more expensive!)

I like the color and the looks are probably not a priority for you but.... that's a really terrible looking frame

On their website they even put a Lauf on it☠️

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What I was looking for in geometry was:

• clearance for bigish tyres, close to current bike which can take 40mm
  
• mounts for mudguards
  
• relaxed / stable frame, so low BB (as close to 80 as possible, but not less than 75mm BB drop, slack-ish seat angle (none are very slack, there's nothing less than 73 and most are 73.5-74.5) and long-ish wheel base (arbitrarily I wanted > 1m).
  
• high stack / long head tube. Current bike has a good few spacers under the stem - would like not to need so many, so stack > 550-580. Stack to reach ratio >1.45.
  
  

I don't know if my criteria will actually give me a bike that I'll enjoy riding, but I can't blame anyone else if it doesn't - and I'll know to get something different next time!

I wasn't looking for something racy that I'd use on a crit or even a summer sportive, more a bike that won't be too much effort when I'm plodding along at 15km/h in the dark when it's pissing rain after I've been riding for a week.

The Stigmata wasn't bad, just a little racier than I was after. I'd need the smallest size (52 - I had a preference for bikes where I don't need their smallest size - probably a bit irrational but I think things get a bit distorted at the extremes!) so that the reach wasn't too long. The BB drop is good (74mm), HT long for a small bike (130) but the seat tube is a bit steep at 74.5. That was probably what ruled it out for me.

I had another near miss when I started to look at the Chinese frames. The Yoeleo G21, which looks really good on some aspects, eg has lowest BB apart from Domane and Diverge, but is just a few mm too long for me. When I drop down a size to fix that, the seat angle gets steep (75) and the head tube short (90), so no good.

Other than tyre clearance I didn't find there was much difference between bikes positioned as road vs gravel - which won't be surprising to anyone sceptical about gravel being a marketing concept, etc.

Sure it's no oil painting, but it seems to be function over form, at least. The dropped chain stays are pretty common now, the kinked down tube to accomodate bigger front tyre, kinked seat tube for the back tyre, the kinked seat stay to fit bags better, flattened tubes inside main triangle to fix bags to better, etc.

There is one issue with it in that the seat stay length / angles mean that you can't get a 50T chain ring on it. I'd plan on keeping my current gearing which is a 30/46T GRX, but not ideal. I couldn't put big gearing on for a random crit, for example. Not that I'd want to.

It's got rack mounts which they rate for 25kg so what it will do is allow me to get rid of my Super Galaxy and use it for loaded touring with family.

If I wanted the best looking then no question I'd go for steel and most likely the Daccordi https://www.daccordicycles.com/it/galleria-foto-daccordi-aurelia/

EDIT - they actually say this on their site - so they know it is fugly as well!
"Utilitarian Design
When drawing up the G2, we put function before form"

You may have seen this already but the frames does come in less 'utilitarian' colours: https://www.klcycles.co.uk/product-page/winspace-g2-gravel

Hadn't spotted that, thanks. A bit cheaper than elsewhere, but no pink ones!

I'm riding a bike with about 3 cm longer top tube/reach and shorter stem and I like how it rides, doesn't feel twitchy or anything. It does have a slightly wider bar too though and it is the recommended size for me for that particular bike, but the geometry isn't really that different otherwise, just a bigger size than usual really. So by using a shorter stem, you would have more choice in frames with high stack and long wheelbase.

It does say they can order colours in although it might be a 4 - 6 week wait. The red looks better than the pink imo though... :)

Yes, there's a good bit of flex in frame sizes, and I wouldn't be afraid of a shorter stem.

I've got a reason for not wanting to change my reach too much which is not necessarily a great one. It is that I've got a Redshift suspension stem, which I quite like, and would like to keep using. I've got a 90mm. I see they do make an 80mm so I could go a bit longer in the frame. Or I could bin it and use a different stem and, as you say, increase choice a good bit.

When you have such specific requirements from a frame I'm still surprised you ruled out custom ti so easily. Seems to offer a cost effective way of getting exactly what you want.

Not really my thing at all.
I don't like Ti (or the idea of it - never having actually ridden it) and I don't like the idea of custom from having seen people get custom frames and end up with something they didn't like. And surely custom Ti can't be cheaper than an off-the shelf Chinese frame, ie sub-£1k? Got to be 3-4 times more, at least, surely?

I don't think it's a great material too but it's not 3-4 times more. It's just welding a few tubes and labour is cheap(ish).

Light Bicycle are selling the same frame as their 'Journey'

https://www.lightbicycle.com/Journey-Carbon-Gravel-Bike-Frame-Disc-Brake-700C-BSA-Internal-Routing.html

I thought Ti welding was meant to be really skilled work

Granted prices have gone up in the last few years and the current exchange rate isn't helping but a custom Ti frame from Waltly is still sub £1k.

You seem to have a clear idea of what you want in terms of geo, clearances, angles etc. I think people run into problems going custom if they don't know what they want or try and get a bike to do too much. Anyhow I'm interested to see what you end up with and how it turns out.

custom Ti frame from Waltly is still sub £1k

Definitely a lot less than I thought!