Gravel biking seems to be having a bit of a renaissance right now, and living in Iowa, we have a ton of gravel roads, upwards of 67,000 miles worth, most of which I can’t ride using my road bikes. After hearing how much everyone, including my brother, seems to like gravel biking, I decided to start looking for one. After having a decent experience building my last Chinese road bike, I decided to do it again.
Frame
I once again went with a Carbonda frame, this time the CFR 707. Carbonda frames are fairly well-known in the Chinese carbon gravel frame communities and have a very good reputation, particularly the 505 and 696 frames. The 707 is essentially a new generation of the 696 frame with a couple tweaks to the geometry.
I ordered the 707 with fully integrated cable routing and had Carbonda paint it matte RAL 6005 (Moss green).
Like my previous frame from Carbonda, it took about a month to arrive. The frame itself looks nearly perfect, both externally and internally, with no noticeable paint imperfections or issues with the carbon layup. The frame also included some aero/flat handlebars and axles.
Groupset
I was tempted to go with a Chinese groupset again, like I did with my road bike, however, despite its rather good performance, I still felt it was the weakest part of the build. So this time, I decided to go with a Shimano GRX 610 12-speed groupset. The GRX 610 is roughly Shimano’s gravel equivalent of the road 105 groupset. I was able to source a full new groupset from eBay for a pretty reasonable price. Shifting on it so far has been totally flawless, incredibly smooth, and nearly silent.
The included hydraulic brakes are decent, but I had issues with rotor rub that I was unable to fix after hours of working on it. It seems like the pistons don’t retract far enough when releasing the lever, even after “exercising” and lubricating the pistons.
Wheels
I went with the 9VELO GV45 wheels as they were one of the few wheels reviewed by Hambini that he said were decently built. I chose these wheels because they have a solid inner rim, meaning I don’t need to use rim tape, and they have a fairly wide (26mm) inner width which works better with the wider tires I was planning on using. So far, I have no complaints with these wheels, the hubs are well-built, they have no wobble/runout, and seem very well built.
For tires, I went with Schwalbe G-ONE RS in 45mm width. These are semi-slick race-oriented tires, they have decently low rolling resistance but maintain fairly good grip on gravel. I’m running this in a tubeless setup with regular Stan’s tire sealant. So far, these tires have performed well, and I’m able to easily maintain good speeds on paved roads without much trouble.
Build
This build went quite a bit smoother than my previous bike build, largely because I bought a cheap magnetic cable guide tool. That cheap tool made routing the cables through the frame, and more importantly, the handlebars so much easier. I also bought a bike stand which made it a bit nicer to work on than just holding the frame in my lap while sitting on a paint can in my basement.
I was a bit concerned with the shift performance of the rear derailleur since this frame only supports fully integrated cable routing, and the bends in the handlebar and headset are rather tight. There is a decent amount of friction on the cable, but it’s actually not terrible. Shift performance on both the front and rear derailleurs is excellent, to my surprise.
After I built up the frame, I decided it might have been a good idea to add some sort of paint protection to the underside of the down tube. It would’ve been easier to apply before I built it up, but it was still fairly simple to put on. I ordered a 4" strip of paint protection film from Amazon and installed it on the down tube and drive-side chainstay, you can make it out in some of the pictures.
| Component | Part | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Frame | Carbonda 707 | $967 (includes shipping and painting) |
| Handlebars | Carbonda CGB02 | $0 (included with frame) |
| Axles | Carbonda aluminum axles | $26 |
| Groupset | Shimano GRX 610 | $985 |
| Wheels | 9VELO GV45 | $829 |
| Tires | Schwalbe G-ONE RS | $146 |
| Saddle | SQLabs 612 | $170 |
| Cables | Jagwire shift kit | $32 |
| Total | $3155 |
The price came in right around where I was shooting for comparable bikes while having better components (in my opinion):
- Canyon Grail CF SL 7: Limited tire clearance
- Scott Addict Gravel 30: 11-speed groupset
- Giant Revolt Advanced 2: Checked all the boxes but was sold out without an estimated restock date. Seems to be somewhat available at the time of writing though.
First Rides
The weather has been hit or miss here so far, but I’ve managed to take it out a few times. We have a very nice partially paved, but largely crushed limestone trail (the Heart of Iowa trail) a few hundred yards from my house. The bike performed extremely well on that trail. I’ve also taken it out on regular gravel farm roads, and the experience there has been hit or miss. The farm roads occasionally have very deep chunky gravel which pulls the bike around and makes for slow riding. I think I’ll just need to scout out some more suitable roads. I’ve heard claims that the farm roads closer to major towns are generally more regularly maintained (and thus have deep gravel rather than dirt), and I just need to get out to more rural parts. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how this bike rides and glad to have access to more rideable roads.
