Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

Soma Wolverine? Someone on here had a banger, maybe @sensom ?

Or, as so often advised in this thread, get a Checkpoint.

Ritchey Outback?

All very good options. Soma and ritchey are nice not so common options....

Though I have been increasingly looking at Fairlight Farans too which are a bit beige imo.

Latest one does not have sliding drop out as they’re originally designed for clearance/stability.

If I didn't have a wolverine I'd get an outback I reckon. Well. I'm running the same fork on the Wolverine, so there's that.

yeah both outback and wolverine's are roughly the same price and sliding dropouts are not a deal breaker.

Crust dreamer would be a "dream"

You can get a Fairlight Faran looking quite similar aesthetically, and probably functionally too.

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Ive looked at this many times. They do seem like the "right" option and could make for a cool build.

Kona Sutra ltd.

Pelago Stavanger. Not quite the same look with the curved fork and doesn't have sliders, but does have all the mounts and takes bigger tyres than advertised. I had 29x2.25" on the back of mine for winter, though that might have been on the edge of good taste and it was on a relatively narrow 19mm rim, but at least 50x622 or something like 27.5x2.4" has plenty of room to be in there.

To be honest, I had a unicrown fork on the Wolverine before switching for the Ritchey carbon one and it was a less enjoyable ride for sure. So harsh, not to mention heavy.

Doesn’t have a steel fork but my Erdgeschoss has sliding dropouts,

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Ritchey Outback pls

Was going to say exactly this, thought it was a Faran at first!

I’m not sure what makes the crust so much nicer than the Faran

The sklar at least has some fancy bits to it

I really like the stance and love the TT on the Sklar.

The faran and black crust are very similar however I think the clean tube profiles and the flatter top tube on the crust make it more aesthetically pleasing.

I think the form of the downtube of the Faran is one of the things which makes it a little bit not so good looking.

@GoatandTricycle the Standert is really nice!

get a big enough 90s mtb that is suitable for a 650b conversion and add disc tabs and modern dropouts if you want. With a straggler fork. Boom, done

Flying out to the US with the Transition and spending a week riding around California (or the other dry, photogenic areas you find on bikepacking dot com and the like).

UK versatility is a rigid 29er. Sorry.

a rigid 29er

They call these gravel bikes these days

Fellas, is this bike dirty? Got asked to pay extra cleaning fee before the bike fit.
I don't think it's clean as new but at the same time I don't think it's a no-go for a bike fit.
Decided to fuck it and refused the service at all.

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Is it dirty? Yes.
Would I care if mine were in this state? No.
Would I care if I were a bike-fitter, and this turned up looking like it's about to drop mud all over my workshop? Yes.

30 second rinse with a hose. No need to rinse the customer.

See what I did there?

Customers get shafted for everything these days. You’re made to feel like a cunt for bothering anyone by giving them money for something.

That particular faran is a 56 Tall, so longer HT and therefore sloping TT geo vs the standard 56 which is nearer a horizontal TT

R vs T geo is definitely more pleasing on the eye...for whatever that's worth...