Originally Posted by
cyclezen
Sweet ! Looks great !
Have a few rides now on mine, and very enjoyable. I do need to mitgate the some jarring from the front... A lot of what we can ride offroad, in our SB Valley are also used by the nurmerous 'horse' riders. Horses make deep holes in the trails, 6-8 inches deep with sharp edges. Just enough for the even a 700c wheel to 'fall into' and slam the edge, these are often every foot or 2 on frequently used paths... The extremely short topTube design also means I need a longer than the current stock Stem (110mm). Thinking 'RedShift Stem', but it seems the 120mm length is sold out
WHat size cranks are you using (crank Length) ?
Yesterday I found another consequence of this short TT design is a Front-center which is on the short end. Short enough to cause toe/wheel overlap.
I did a trackstand at a stop light, particularly broken pavement at the corner. Normally I don;t need to angle the wheel much or at all, but in this case a correction was necessary. I had the shoe toe trapped for just a split second (very round toe shoe, not sharp toe racing shoe). I was clipped in SPD. Thankfully I reacted and quickly backed out. Prolly not an issue if riding 'Flat' pedal, but if 'clipped in' it could be a real issue when doing tight switchbacks... Later I checked the contact range, and its about a +-10 Deg arch off horizontal.
Prolly due to short front-center and the 175 stock crank length.
Are you (and any other X owners/riders) experiencing toe overlap?
I'll stay alert now to not keep the cranks at horizontal on tight turn sections...
... more thoughts after a few more rides)
Yeah I find the geometry of the X has some pros and cons. I'm running SPD pedals and even shorter 165mm cranks and I still get occasional toe strike. On the previous frame I had (from which I swapped my GRX parts from), it had more of a touring geometry and with 165mm cranks I had no toe strike issues. It was one of the first things I noticed after doing the swap. I also had to shorten my chain because of the chain stay length.
I find the frame geometry does has some benefits for shorter riders allowing top tube spacing for a small frame bag w/water bottles. Also I feel I've been able to climb better with this frame (maybe due to the chain stay length?). I'm also able to sprint quite well on this bike, keeping up with full road bikes for short durations. In my opinion, the X has more of that CX geometry (taking cues from their Triton road bike), while the Redwood is definitely their true gravel bike (almost going into MTB territory).