Originally Posted by
shoota
I'm guessing you'll notice a signifcant uptick in performance of any gravel DROPBAR bike. The flatbar setup of the Dew is holding you back, no doubt. Wild thought here, but maybe take some of that $800 and upgrade to a nice dropbar gearing setup?
And on that note, if you simply flip your current stem upside down to lower your current bar height, you might notice a more aggresive stance immediately with no $$$ needed. Also, moving any spacers in the stack from below the stem to on top of the stem will help lower the bar height. In this $ category, it's not like a "gravel" bike is going to have one part - say a wheelset- that is going to be so phenominal, that it makes the world perfect. Setup (on the other hand) can make a big difference in this ballpark ( or any ballpark...) .