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TECH NEWS
Triban GRVL900 Ti Bike 2Decathlon releases Triban GRVL900 Titanium Gravel Bike
Decathlon has announced a new gravel bike that it says is the most comfortable bike it has ever made. With the GRVL900 featuring a Dedacciai titanium frame, a full carbon fork, Shimano GRX 600 groupset and Fulcrum RR900 wheels for £2,499.99, it certainly seems like a decent amount of bike for the money.
> Decathlon's 2020 road and gravel bike range
We’re seeing a growing number of bike brands trying their hand at making titanium bikes; and the biggest surge in Ti use is in gravel, where the claimed smoothness, robust nature and dashing looks are said to be very much at home.
Decathlon's in-house bike brand Triban is the latest to join the party, and its GRVL900 Ti looks set to offer a lot of bike for your cash. It's certainly one of the more affordable titanium gravel bikes out there.
The key feature on any titanium bike is the frame, and Triban has gone to Dedacciai for the GRVL900 Ti. The tubes here are Grade 9 3AL 2.5V titanium, and they’re all hand-welded at the Dedacciai factory in Italy. It claims a medium frame weighs in at 1.6kg.
Triban adds: “The frame's geometry is designed to be comfortable and dynamic, creating a simple, long-lasting bike. Triban GRVL geometry has a better balance between comfort, steering and performance.”
> The best Titanium Gravel and Adventure bikes
Triban has opted for a full UD carbon fork at the front end, which comes with internal routing for the brake hose and a claimed weight of 434g. The dropout runs on the now-standard 12x100mm thru-axle and is set up for a flat-mount brake.
Versatility of the GRVL900 is improved with the addition of two inserts on the fork blades, which allows the rider to mount either a bag or a bottle cage. The maximum load that the fork can cope with is 8kg.
> Review: Triban RC120 Disc Road Bike
Crucially, tyre clearance at the front and rear ends is quite generous at 45mm for a 700c wheel or 50mm for a 650b wheel.
Triban says that it has kept the geometry close to what is expected of their bikes, basing things around comfort. Triban’s executive engineer Louis Motte says: “For this gravel version, we did extend the top tube to save space between the foot and the tyre. We also set a steering angle of 71.5º on all sizes which for us is the best combo between stability and manoeuvrability for gravel."
> Should you choose a steel, aluminium, titanium or carbon road bike?
Triban has left the frame raw as we see quite a lot on titanium bikes, allowing the natural finish to be displayed.
A Shimano GRX groupset has been used in a 1X setup featuring a 40T chainset with an 11-42T 11-speed cassette. Shimano also provides the hydraulic disc brakes with 160mm rotors front and rear.
Fulcrum’s Rapid Red 900 DB wheels provide a tubeless-ready platform for Hutchinson’s Touareg tubeless-ready tyres that come supplied in a 40mm width. Triban uses its comfort+ aluminium gravel bar that features a 16º flare.
Sizes range from XS to XL and the bike is available to buy now.
Latest Comments
- ktache 3 hours 28 min ago
The small frame, the aggressive posture, lots of standover height.
- mctrials23 4 hours 24 min ago
As i've said before, the police should be sued for a lot of money when someone they have knowingly ignored has gone on to commit a serious crime....
- David9694 4 hours 31 min ago
'Bad parking' blocks firefighters multiple times on same emergency call-out...
- David9694 4 hours 35 min ago
Cambridgeshire boy, 13, crashes Audi into garden wall after taking it from home...
- Adam Sutton 5 hours 21 min ago
Good stuff. Now do it on cycleway C9 through Hammersmith to Chiswick.
- mark1a 5 hours 30 min ago
It's technically allowed but it's not known as "London's Orbital Car Park" for nothing.
- Dogless 6 hours 38 min ago
You're defending bombing hospitals and refugee camps and starving children.
- mattw 9 hours 18 min ago
Used car salesman is a complete attention-seeking plank....
- tubasti 9 hours 35 min ago
I don't know if they're any better, but they's certainly become more boring.
- FionaJJ 10 hours 1 min ago
At risk of being cynical, and stereotyping the police, it's so they don't have to leave the comfort of their panda cars and pursue on foot when...
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34 comments
It's nice but in my experience of the Milton Keynes branch anything other than the base models don't make it to the store. Perhaps these products are designed to get customers in to buy sportsware and don't actually exist.
I'd be interested in comparisions with
https://www.planetx.co.uk/c/q/bikes/titanium-bikes
https://spacycles.co.uk/m1b0s23p4038/SPA-CYCLES-Ti-Elan-Apex-1-2019
I spoke to a dealer about the Spa - trouble is they havent updated it for about 3 years since they aquired it by buying Triton (I think) - as in still has QR. Not a show stopper but something to consider.
The PX Tempest seems a good choice - given the Mark Reilly design - its identical geo to the Gradient, but some "noise" about frame alignment on Singletrack world. Alledgedly most of the "budget" UK ones are coming out of the same far east factory including the PX, the Dolan, the Sonder, the Ribble CGR etc.
The branded tubing on this Decathlon may be a cut above that factory - but who knows?
If you want to see my deliberations have a look here :
https://road.cc/content/forum/reilly-gradient-alternatives-275519
I'm waiting for my Gradient frame to be delivered
I've got the previous version of the Ribble CGR Ti and am interested to know who manufactured the frame. I see a lot of similarities between the Ribble and the new Kinesisi GTD, the rear dropout and mech hanger look to be identical. Even the seat clamp faces forward which I've not seen on any other model apart from these two.
Probably putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 5 here though!
Someone really wants me to get into gravel.
No rear mudguard mount and a press fit BB? It's a no from me.
Nor mounting points on the seat stays for a carrier.
I think they screwed up in R&D.
That's an awful lot of bike for the money. And a titanium gravel bike with 1x and tan walls? You can hardly accuse Decathlon of failing to follow trends.
Typical road.cc journalism though. "£2099 gravel bike click the link below"
clicks link
"£2500 gravel bike"
oh.....
I checked when the article first went live and it was indeed £2099. Several hours later and the price has gone up - think the bean counters made a mistake on that one.
Also the 16 hour wait till pre order magically disappeared and everything was just out of stock.
I was about to pre order at that price too! For a little extra you can get Ribble's better specced CGR titanium version.
Hi Paul, price was correct at the time of publishing. Just changing it now. Not such good value now
Hopefully some of you got in there at the lower price?
Hi Liam,
I tried ordering but when I went on the site it told me there was a 16 hour wait before pre ordere started. Came back less than 16 hours later to find out the price had changed and all bikes had sold out. What a farce.
Have you spoken with your press contact at Decathlon to see what's happened?
thanks.
Bait & switch.
Well it didn't work...
https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/ribble-cgr-ti-grx/
Comes with GRX 810 and better finishing kit for only £400 more, plus you can fit mudguards!
Or you can use the custom build to get the Ribble CGR TI with GRX600 for only £2,299: https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/ribble-cgr-ti/build/#build_options=8b359e01754b7ce218a67a2e18001679
There's also the Alpkit Sonder Camino Ti GRX, which is even less at £2,149: https://alpkit.com/collections/sonder-camino/products/sonder-camino-ti-grx1
Good point! That is a sweet deal.
I must admit the idea of the made in Italy frame did have me very interested, my other bike being a Condor with an Italian built frame (pretty sure it's Dedacciai too).
Sondor is out of stock, like all decent bikes at the moment it seems.
I've just emailed them with your query. I'll post here if/when they get back to me
Here's what they've told me:
"I can confirm that the correct price is £2499.99. There was an IT glitch which took a few hours to resolve. It was sorted as soon as the error was picked up. The back office price was correct but the front office price was not.
Regarding stock, we are trying to figure out why this is not showing up as being orderable. The international IT is working on it since this morning. I can only apologise for the confusion."
"IT glitch", aka the person writing up the product spec had sausage fingers...
brexit pricing - https://www.decathlon.at/grvl-900-ti-id_8587730.html
Gravel bike without carrier and mudguard fittings?
Bizarre. Front mount carrier fittings on the fork, but diddly-squat on the rear. And no mudguards! Quelle horreur.
and the maintenance horror of gear/brake lines that enter the downtube only to exit at the BB. why not just leave them external?
and the maintenance horror of gear/brake lines that enter the downtube only to exit at the BB. why not just leave them external?
Agreed. I deliberately bought a bike where the fully external outer cable is continuous from the brake/ shifter lever to the mechs. It's great- just pull up the rubber cover on the Sora lever, pull out the inner cable, oil it and thread it straight back through. Hey Presto! shifting is back to 'light and smooth'.
As long as the outer is continuous it's easy to push the inner through it, doesn't really matter if it's internal or external then.
Less worried about brake lines as I don't think I have ever replaced a hydraulic hose.
External cabling is wonderful at catching mud.
i expect the cable guide mounted on the BB shell will be just as capable of catching mud and transferring it to the gear cable ferrule.
but still external at the BB, perfect to catch lots of mud
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