Originally Posted by
Jburrow
Hello all!
just quickly put: I have a budget of up to $4k. I am looking for a bike to do 60-70% road and 30-40% gravel/trail. I will be doing centuries, charity rides, some gravel events, and club rides on the road mostly.
I am looking for something comfy, light, and able to tackle the road and gravel.
I have looked heavily into CF, and my LbS is a giant dealer. The revolt/defy is an option. However, I have lately been introduced into the world of modern steel bikes. For the price bracket, I can get a steel bike at same weight, or even lighter, than the Giant with the wonderful qualities of steel. This would be my one bike to rule them all so to speak.
so far, I have come across speedvagen, ritte, all-city, salsa, Rodriguez, breadwinner. I want something strong, comfy, light, and able to be ridden with gusto.
where else should I look? I am new to the world of steel bikes, and it is a huge world.
Cicli Barco is a small family business and one of the best steel bike builders in Europe. They have won numerous awards, including Best of Italy at Bespoke, the English handmade bike show. They also make bikes for a lot of other companies that just put their name on it such as the Cinelli XCr (which costs almost $1,500 more for an equivalent frame and only has 5 sizes). The Barco XCr is a stainless steel TIG welded frame that is available with either a carbon fork or a stainless fork. It is totally custom in size, design, paint, etc. Barco also makes custom non-stainless bikes that would allow you to get a total bike for your $4,000 cap. Their work is incredible and prices are very reasonable especially compared with noted US steel builders. And, very important, they made my frame and delivered it in less than 6 months even during the pandemic. Check out their Facebook or Instagram pages for photos of how diverse their work is, you can get a lot of ideas for a truly unique bike, the only one like it in the world. Gianluca Barco is very fluent in English and very detail oriented. In designing and fitting my bike, we had almost 150 emails. This frame cost me about $3,700 with shipping but that was a year ago. It has a lot of costly extras such as a stainless steel fork with a carbon fiber steering tube, direct mount brakes, name plate, Italian shield, dark nickel head badge and Chris King headset. This bike weighs 18,7 lbs for a 58.5 cm seattube. For other Columbus steel tubing with lugs, they will use polished stainless steel lugs that are lighter than chrome plate and don't rust.
Carbon fiber steering tube, direct mount brakes, stainless steel fork. Very high tech.
steel name plate