Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

First ride on a Redhift yesterday, used their recommended setting. Could hardly feel it working unless I stood to climb, then like a slightly squishy tyre. So a waste of time?...until I got home after 100km on bad roads ....no sore hands. Which is just what I was hoping for. So on the basis of one ride - seems useful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh9I5-OvqyY

JI using one touring Morocco. Sounds like it could be a useful addition anyway, especially for the longer, rougher stuff.

Was cold. Ended up turning around after only 5km of climbing because visibility got so bad and there was horizontal snow........... Which was not forecast........

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I have an 80mm blacked out redshift stem. It takes a lot of the jarring out of bumps and unexpected potholes, good for my poor wrists. It’a light enough and if you cover up the branding it’s barely noticeable. Strong recommend

coming back to this "mr wooden", it gives me the exact energy of like.....velo orange

just something uncanny about it, functionally fine, but it's like it's an alien in a humans body - dunno - simulacrum of the bike you want, just feels... off

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The sloping top tube immediately ruins it. Has no place on a bike like that.

“We have Crust at home”

It's the fork bend and the 1 1/8 unthreaded ht for me. Still kinda want one though.

Thankfully the Crust Floria Man has dropped stays so I won’t burn my credit card down buying one.

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coming back to this "mr wooden", it gives me the exact energy of like.....velo orange

Both of them need to be shod in slicks and ridden daily to a tabac for cheap cigarettes. @Maj

Why do modern Brooks Wankers have their saddles pointing up their arses? LOOK AT ME I RIDE A LEATHER SADDLE.

The OGs in my cycling club with 30 year old Brooks saddles never had them at stupid angles. I blame Instagram.

I've oft wondered that. I have a C15 and it's not pointing up. Surely you'd just slide down the back?

Stop kink shaming.

Jan does it.

The advice from Brooks used to be to have the nose and rear level due to the hammock design I think. Otherwise, it does seem a bit pointless/uncomfortable.

Brooks definitely (used to?) recommend that the back section of the saddle is flat, which leaves the front at an upward angle.

I blame Instagram.

I blame Grant Peterson and The iBob mailing list in the 90s.

Brooks saddles can all get in the sea, so whichever angle gets them there faster...

the woody could take a fancier color. nothing against nato olive/ military green, but...

That whole bike is clearly a Jan Heine fever dream. The build is contrived

A middle finger to the throwaway culture we live in today.

It's the opposite of that, you're just mass-producing junk that is outdated before it even leaves the factory. There's millions of old 4130 MTB frames out there, you don't need to waste a bunch of new tubes and energy on a brand new £700 frameset when you can find the same thing in any shed in the country. If you care about throw-away culture then how can you possibly justify spending £700 on this thing, when you could spend £20 in a bike coop for the same thing and donate the remaining £680 for them to spend on recycling other stuff?

What's next? Maybe I could go and spend £1500 on a brand new CRT TV to combat throw-away culture? Or we could start building new diesel cars to combat throwaway culture?

I can understand bikes like this being made in small quantities for specific customers but this is definitely not combating throw-away culture, it's just consumerism in a different hat

Nailed it

i think you could count the number of people outside of rural france with a 650b rim brake wheelset kicking about waiting for a new frame on one hand

But Jan would've built in Kasei, because lateral planing or other mystik qualitys of certain steele

Yep.

If they were enticing people away from their cars then sure, great, but it's going to be bike nerds buying n+1 for this kind of thing.

A lot of fair points but I wouldn't say it's outdated. I built a bike with specs similar to that Mr Wodden on purpose because I wanted something that is really simple but functional. I used an old frame from somebodies shed for it but even with a lot of used parts on there I can't honestly say that I did it to go against the throw-away culture but rather because I wanted something crust-like.
The bottom line is if this frame set came out 2 years ago I most probably would have bought one because it ticks a lot of the boxes of what I was after.
I own a few really cool bikes (in my humble opinion) and even though a big chunk of parts and frames of them are used I mainly own them because I wanted them not necessarily needed them. So I always try to not fool myself. What I am doing is consumerism. Doesn't matter that my poor man's Raleigh Crust frame is 30 years old.

Shoulda gone 26"