Wow, good insight. I shaved 550 grams off my rotating weight and noticed a difference. If you can take 2.5lbs off - that is huge!
I road a Crux with some light Roval wheels, and a stock Sequoia. Where it took me 5 strong cranks to get the Sequoia up to speed, 3 strong cranks got the light weight crux and its Rovals up to speed.
Stock wheelsets seem like they keep getting more and more terrible. When I got my most recent road bike I didn't even bother with them and sold them as new take offs for like 150 bucks, which went towards the price of a good front hub.
One other critique that Granfondo had of the Sequoia Elite was that it's made of low-end, inferior steel compared to the higher end Sequoia Expert, and that as a result, the frame feels soft and sloppy. Having no prior frame of reference with a steel bike I can't tell if that's true or if that's just them complaining about a steel bike in a narrow contest with high end carbon frame race bikes.
The Granfondo article sounds more like it's reviewing all steel bikes vs. carbon, instead of reviewing this bike in a genre that's full a steel bikes. Take that with a massive grain of salt.
Beware of overthinking this. Just a few years ago there was no gravel genre and people were doing this on steel mountain bikes. I promise you at Kanza next weekend people will be on $10k carbon rigs and 10 year-old steel Surly "tanks" who can outride all of us.
My $.02? Focus on the geometry that works for you, then the price range, then figure out what material you can afford.
Oh... to reiterate what others said. On the frame, focus on ride quality. For me, soaking up road buzz is better than being stiff and rattling you to death. Paying to drop weight in the wheels is better than paying to drop it off the frame.
Thanks for this insight. My LBS has a set of Roval SLX 24s with DT Swiss 350 hubs for a good price that I may use. Hopefully that will lighten the load a bit. I really like the sawtooth tires in terms of traction but do you think they're worth the extra weight? If not, how do you like the performance of the Gravel Kings by contrast?
I'm running the SLX 24's on my Diverge. They are super light (sub 1,600g), so if you can get a deal on them - go for it. OR lemmeknow what they want for them and I might buy them. 😃
The Gravel King SK's are what I ran for the DK200. Set them up tubeless with Orange Seal and zero flats over the 207 miles. THAT kinda sold me on them for good. Plus they are lighter than the Sawtooths. I struggle with the Sawtooth as I really want to like that tire. It's just a bit heavy based on similar offerings from others.
One other critique that Granfondo had of the Sequoia Elite was that it's made of low-end, inferior steel compared to the higher end Sequoia Expert, and that as a result, the frame feels soft and sloppy. Having no prior frame of reference with a steel bike I can't tell if that's true or if that's just them complaining about a steel bike in a narrow contest with high end carbon frame race bikes.
The Granfondo article sounds more like it's reviewing all steel bikes vs. carbon, instead of reviewing this bike in a genre that's full a steel bikes.
My $.02? Focus on the geometry that works for you, then the price range, then figure out what material you can afford.
The Granfondo article is incorrect. Both the Sequoia Elite and Expert are made from Specialized's "Premium Cr-Mo, size-specific tubing."
I'm running the SLX 24's on my Diverge. They are super light (sub 1,600g), so if you can get a deal on them - go for it. OR lemmeknow what they want for them and I might buy them. 😃
The Gravel King SK's are what I ran for the DK200. Set them up tubeless with Orange Seal and zero flats over the 207 miles. THAT kinda sold me on them for good. Plus they are lighter than the Sawtooths. I struggle with the Sawtooth as I really want to like that tire. It's just a bit heavy based on similar offerings from others.
Thanks for the advice. Since you own both the Sequoia Expert and the new Diverge Expert, if you could only have one for all of your riding purposes which one would you pick? I ask because I can only store one bike in my space and it needs to be as versatile as possible.
bwepps wrote:The Granfondo article is incorrect. Both the Sequoia Elite and Expert are made from Specialized's "Premium Cr-Mo, size-specific tubing."
I just figured this out from Specialized myself. I called to look into that further since the descriptions of each frame are the same on the website and they confirmed that they use the exact same steel frame for both the Elite and the Expert. It's frustrating to see publications like Granfondo putting out misinformation
I'm running the SLX 24's on my Diverge. They are super light (sub 1,600g), so if you can get a deal on them - go for it. OR lemmeknow what they want for them and I might buy them. 😃
The Gravel King SK's are what I ran for the DK200. Set them up tubeless with Orange Seal and zero flats over the 207 miles. THAT kinda sold me on them for good. Plus they are lighter than the Sawtooths. I struggle with the Sawtooth as I really want to like that tire. It's just a bit heavy based on similar offerings from others.
+1 for the Gravel King comment. I rode Gravel King SKs at Kanza last year. I rode them the rest of the year. I'm riding them again this year. Tubeless, no flats yet. Note if you're looking at reviews from a year or more ago and see the 700x40, that's the 700x43 you can buy today. Those things measured really wide, so they relabeled them.
Thanks for the advice. Since you own both the Sequoia Expert and the new Diverge Expert, if you could only have one for all of your riding purposes which one would you pick? I ask because I can only store one bike in my space and it needs to be as versatile as possible.
That depends on the type of riding you do. The Sequoia having a steel frame is outfitted with more mounting points for racks and is a great bike-packing rig. It will also run wider tires than the Diverge. This comes at a cost of weight. As mentioned before, with the stock wheelset (which is made to be bullet-proof) the Sequoia is a bit of a lumbering beast. Swap in something lighter and it comes alive.
The Diverge is your gravel race rocket. The original versions (2015's, 2016's) really only fit a 700x33 or maybe squeezed in a 700x35. The new 2018 has a new frame design, some higher-end models have the Future Shock, and the ability to run 700x40 tires. It's a vast improvement and IMHO what the original should have been.
I own a Sequoia Elite and have which was purchased last June, I have put just under 2,000 miles on it. I am 6’1” and ride a size 58 frame which fits great.
This bike has become the most ridden of my quiver of bikes......It’s heavy at just under 26lbs. but it is smooth, fast enough and the 105 components are a much nicer to use than I expected. The hydro brakes are especially awesome.
Here is a rundown of what I have modified from stock configuration:
* I picked up a 50/24 105 crankset to replace the stock FSA 48/22 soon after I started putting mileage on it because I was running out of gears at higher speeds. I live in a hilly area of Northern Ca. and with the 11/36 rear cassette I had plenty of low end gearing so climbing was not affected much with the new crankset. The Sequoia is my “bad weather” road bike as well, which replaces my normal road bike which is a 2015 Giant Defy Advanced.
* Both front and rear hubs had bearing race failure at around 1,500 miles, According to the LBS bearing races are not replaceable so they rebuilt the stock wheelset with SRAM 900 hubs under warranty. While we were waiting for parts to replace the faulty hubs, I had a set of Stan’s Arch ZTR wheels in the parts bin with rear hubs already set up at 12/142 . I ordered a set of 12mm front wheel endcaps to fit the front axle diameter and mounted the Sawtooth tires up tubeless. This swap made a huge difference. The Arch wheelset is only 2mm narrower but a lot lighter. I now use the stock wheelset with the new hubs as a spare set up with 700/40 WTB Nano’s.
Would I purchase the Sequoia again? Absolutely....It is purely a joy to ride and Specialized warranted the hubs with no hassle. This is a bike that can be ridden all day comfortably over pretty much any terrain you can throw at it. The Sawtooth tires, although a bit heavy are very grippy on dirt, roll very well and corner nice on pavement.
Future modifications planned? Since I don’t bikepack and don’t plan on it in the near future, I’m thinking about lacing up some lighter weight carbon wheels on the new SRAM 900 hubs and taking this bike to the next level.
