Cannondale Synapse Hi Mod carbon as a gravel bike?

daniel_b

Evening all,

as I was reasonably close to ordering a Viner from PX, and have been reading and watching reviews as to the benefits of such a bike, and I have been thinking and pondering.

I also might well sell my SS which I am not making much use of.

I can lay my hands on a Hi Mod Carbon Synapse disc frameset for £890 instead of it's RRP of £2600, and it just occurred to me, especially as I enjoy building bikes up, and speccing them exactly as I want, that it would provide me with a unique bike, and each part will have been chosen by me, and whilst it would be probably 30% more than an off the shelf Planet X offering, I would have far more love for it.

I already have a 25.4 seatpost, saddle, stem, handlebars and tape I could use, so twould be groupset (Probably 105 5800, so a little more flexible than a SRAM X1) perhap a pair of those £160 pro lite wheels, and that would be that in the main - tyres and peripherals accepted.

So is that a completely daft idea?

I'm guessing the main issue would be tyre clearance, what's the max it could run, 30's?

Oh and here's a key point for me, I also think it's a rather fine looking frame:

ianlash

That looks like the 2015 version of the frame. I recently bought the same bike from Evans, with SRAM Red etc - still reduced by £1500 if anyone is interested. It comes with 28C tyres. Here are some photos of the clearance, which might help you decide if 30's will fit. I could probably do some more tomorrow, if it would help.





As an aside, is 30 enough for a gravel bike? I'm no expert on them but I thought most started with a minimum of 32.

daniel_b

Awesome Ian, thanks very much for those pics.

It certainly appears that there is enough room for 30's.

Yes I'm not really sure about what size tyre is 'required' but would imagine a decent 30 would be up to a fair amount.

I'm not talking about major off roading, maybe up on the ridgeway, that kinda thing.

Reviews in general for the carbon synapse seem glowing - what do you make of it yourself out of interest?

ianlash

I've only had it for a week and only done one short ride so far. It was a nice ride though! It's a more relaxed fit than I'm used to, but it looks lovely (although its front isn't its best angle) and is very light - 7.5kg for the XL. I went for Berserker Green too.

bendertherobot

You could ride on gravel on 30c. It's really not a gravel bike though. Very limiting.

daniel_b

bendertherobot wrote:

You could ride on gravel on 30c. It's really not a gravel bike though. Very limiting.

But, but, but it's soooo pretty

This is from their website:

Speciality: Crushing the cobbles and chomping the gravel.

There look, it says GRAVEL!

I dunno, maybe a bad idea, but I do like the idea, and the look of it.

Would also make a nice century machine with 25's on., I would imagine.

kajjal

My diverge has 25/28 tyres which are fine off road until it gets very muddy or rough. Also they are fine on road as well.

AK_jnr

I really like the look of the Synapse and the internal routing. Sorry to hijack the thread but as you have a supersix as well - would you go down a size if you wanted the same aggressive front end as the SS? Obviously with a longer stem.
Im a 54 in the SS.

daniel_b

Having put a bit more thought into this, I am thinking if I do end up going for it, Ultegra groupset from crc for 395, R685's are available for about 295.
Selling the shifters and brakes from the full groupset should recoup £160?

Which would bring it in at 530, 100 less than the off the shelf package at merlin.

I also asked my 2 year old this morning if I should get another bike and she said yes.....

kajjal

Daniel B wrote:

Having put a bit more thought into this, I am thinking if I do end up going for it, Ultegra groupset from crc for 395, R685's are available for about 295.
Selling the shifters and brakes from the full groupset should recoup £160?

Which would bring it in at 530, 100 less than the off the shelf package at merlin.

I also asked my 2 year old this morning if I should get another bike and she said yes.....

Try asking the leader of your household, yes won't be the first word she says

daniel_b

True true Kajjal, but one out, one in would still stand.

Anyway looks like the decision has been made for me as the green 54 is now out of stock.

ugo.santalucia

Gravel bikes are very fashionable, but there is no gravel to speak of... maybe in some parts of Scotland, in summer, you might find a few miles of what could be called gravel... the Ridgeway in the dry season has some gravel sections
We have mud, plenty of... get a mud-bike

daniel_b

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Gravel bikes are very fashionable, but there is no gravel to speak of... maybe in some parts of Scotland, in summer, you might find a few miles of what could be called gravel... the Ridgeway in the dry season has some gravel sections
We have mud, plenty of... get a mud-bike

I am convinced you are correct Ugo, however I do really like the idea of being able to do some light offroading, without having to put the mountain bike in the car, so the idea of being able to potentially run a higher pressure, ride 15 miles somewhere to do some offroad, reduce the pressures, ride a loop/route, pump the tyres back up, and then ride home, really appeals.

I'll keep an eye out, and see if any deals pop up in the next year, not in any hurry, probably in hindsight I would have been more than happy to have snapped up one of those Viners for £900 when the codes were working, assuming they would have honoured it, but there we go, you snooze you lose.
Hoping the market will widen and there will be some better value, more attractive colour scheme options out there as well.
Or perhaps even a frameset and then take the Ultegra\R685 route.

Delighted the dale is out of stock, in reality, as mentioned in the first reply, 28/30 isn't big enough to make a decisive difference.

bendertherobot

Thing is, I put in a massively fast ride home yesterday on my 1x XLS with 35c Schwalbe One. I'd be very confident of taking it most places including fire and gravel roads. It's very at home on tarmac as well. I'd be much less confident taking it anywhere with 28c. Same goes for when I had the Ritchey. 28c was great for roads. Felt a bit thin for anything else. You can use it, of course, but, personally, wider tyres work equally well on roads whereas the narrower ones, for the rough stuff, aren't as good.

Wait for something you can stuff some 40c's in.

ugo.santalucia

I'm all for big clearance.. .whether we need a "gravel bike", seeing there is already an off-road drop bar bike called cyclo cross is very questionable.
My advice to the OP is to get a CX bike

bendertherobot

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I'm all for big clearance.. .whether we need a "gravel bike", seeing there is already an off-road drop bar bike called cyclo cross is very questionable.
My advice to the OP is to get a CX bike

It's just marketing though. I don't see the PX Strada Bianca as anything other than a CX bike. One with more tyre clearance than the XLS.

ugo.santalucia

bendertherobot wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I'm all for big clearance.. .whether we need a "gravel bike", seeing there is already an off-road drop bar bike called cyclo cross is very questionable.
My advice to the OP is to get a CX bike

It's just marketing though. I don't see the PX Strada Bianca as anything other than a CX bike. One with more tyre clearance than the XLS.

They increase the clearance, but not enough... unless you can fit 650b rims with MTB tyres, a couple of mm extra clearance is not an improvement... there isn't a market for 35-40 mm tyres at the moment... just the odd semi-touring that, as above, will work in July, not in February