OBED, the carbon gravel brand from the makers of Litespeed, just introduced the GVR, an aero gravel steed which ticks a lot of boxes: clearance for wide tires, T47 bottom bracket, attachment points, aero cable routing. It'll be interesting to see hot it sells once it's in production. Hopefully they provide one for Ted to review!
Volsung wrote:Not a fan of the BB drop but otherwise it would be a strong contender for a new race bike for me.
Just curious, is the BB higher or lower for your preference?
The BB height of my Stigmata is several more mm than my Raleigh Roker. The Roker, in comparison to other gravel bikes has a rather low BB. My plans are to run a 2nd set of wheels with 32 mm Conti road tires on the Stigmata so this will drop the BB into the range of a typical road bike. Conversely running 45's on the Stigmata (it came with 40's) will give it lots and lots of BB clearance.
68 is high for my kinda riding. I have a 70 right now and it's fine with 40mm tires, but bigger and the turning gets weird. My 75 handles the bigger tires noticeably better and feels much more planted.
I get some people ride single track on gravel bikes, but they're not very good or fun there compared to a real mountain bike.
Edit- double checked the geo chart and I'm an XL unless the handlebars are super long reach. That makes the bb drop 67.
Also, isn't this a Carbonda 707? That has a drop of 70 I thought.
Many have said the original Obed Boundary is a Carbonda. Obed's GVR is new and has a number of spec's which differ from the 707 (BB is T47 versus BSA, BB drop, more). That said, like most carbon frames I would expect it's coming from China or Taiwan.
NoCoGreg wrote:Many have said the original Obed Boundary is a Carbonda. Obed's GVR is new and has a number of spec's which differ from the 707 (BB is T47 versus BSA, BB drop, more). That said, like most carbon frames I would expect it's coming from China or Taiwan.
This is my thinking. It's possible they open sourced it, just from someone else. A hefty markup on that for in-house paint. I would take a good, long look at this if I could find it for $700 ish
Glad to see this released, lots to like. For my money however, aero cable routing is a negative point not a positive. How do others feel? I did notice they offer optional 'standard' routing through the frame, according to website. Kudos to them for that customization, not sure I've seen any other brands offer that choice.
31.6 seatpost was the only other thing that stood out to me as a potential negative.
I think it looks nice to have them hidden if there's an integrated bar/stem, but it's not really worth the customizibility of choosing all your parts. You only save around 2w of drag per cable.
Volsung wrote:You only save around 2w of drag per cable.
You don't care about drag???? I personally spray the decals on my frame with clear sanding primer and then wet sand the transitions to soften those square edges. It's gotta be worth a few thousandths of a watt. I swear I can feel the difference on the descents. 😆
Volsung wrote:I think it looks nice to have them hidden if there's an integrated bar/stem, but it's not really worth the customizibility of choosing all your parts. You only save around 2w of drag per cable.
Yeah my dislike of aero routing comes down to preserving the ability to easily make adjustments like moving the stem higher or lower in the stack, swapping out for a new stem, trying out different bars... things like that.
With wireless shifting there are only 2 hoses to route so less gain but also easier to do. On long rides/races it would help but IDK that it really matters to me
