Holdsworth Mystique?

secretsam

Anyone tried one?

https://www.planetx.co.uk/c/q/bikes/gravel-adventure-bikes/holdsworth-mystique

luv2ride

Nope, but I keep looking at their Space Chicken. Recently available for @ 1,300 quid with Force 1x and 650b wheels, but missed the deal.

Currently looking at Pinnacle Arkose X, though not carbon. Personally, I can't get past the orange of the Holdsworth.

ugo.santalucia

You realise it's fast fashion?

You'll use it three times and then it will gather dust in a shed.... eventually you will sell it but nobody will want to buy it, because it's a no longer fashionable orange gravel bike with superseeded specs. You are wasting your money

cougie

Steady Ugo. If we all thought like that we'd buy nothing.
The bike will still work even if the tech is superceded.

My cantilever brakes and cable shifting still work.

luv2ride

Yep, steady on. For me a few too many close calls with cars on the road, plus tbe detriorating road surfaces round here meant i "dipped my toe" in the gravel bike thing a few years ago with an Arkose singlespeed. 40mm tyres and disc brakes appealed, along with a fair few canal/bridleway/old Roman road routes locally. Now i tend to do a road ride and a gravel ride most weekends, just to mix it up a bit. I was in serious danger of losing my mojo with cycling, but for me using some lovely quiet gravel roads retained my interest.

I've since upgraded the Arkose to 1X with a bar end shifter, and the gears have opened up more off road riding for me. So, I'm going to upgrade again in due course, and get a frame or full bike that will take 650b wheels (mine won't quite) cos I know it'll get used loads...i accept you don't need a "Gravel" bike to do this, but I think being able to take big old tyres is the key (for me) and cross bikes are a bit too racy for me these days.

Unfortunately I still don't like that orange though, but that's just me

arlowood

Yep - for the same money you could get an On One Space Chicken and avoid the day-glo orange if that offends



https://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOOSPCFOR ... 00c-wheels

Identical spec more or less on both bikes - although since they are essentially Plant X bikes by another name that's not surprising.

mrfpb

I look at these and think they look really versatile, but then I realise I only ever use the full 35mm on my CdF in really muddy conditions, after that I'm better off on my sons hard tail MTB.
Most of the year I can manage with 25mm even on the canal paths and army land that makes up most of my commute, then 28mm for the wet late autumn /early spring.
The idea of a bike where I can swap between 650B with 50mm tyres and 700 with 25 or 28 is appealing, but even with big chunks of my annual miles off road, I sure I don't "need" it.
I bought my CdF as a "one bike to do it all" and it seems to work. trying to expand a bike's range further is just adding weight and impairing it at the "fast road" end of the spectrum of its uses.

ugo.santalucia

If I lived in Wales, I would consider a gravel bike... there are enough forestry tracks to make it a viable investment.

Most of South/Mid England is simply unsuitable... you'll use it to connect two perfectly rideable lanes via a half a mile long bridleway that is muddy in winter and dusty in summer and realise it's a waste of time.

I went that route... at the time they were called cyclocross bikes, but in essence the same thing. I was able to avoid some stretch of roads by using bridleways and it provided a bit of fun for a while, at the price of having to spend an hour washing the bike afterwards... the novelty wore out pretty quickly and the 28 mm road tyres went on instead, making it a duplicate of a road bike... and I believe Surrey was a lot more suitable to off roading than where I seem to recall you live

monkimark

I live in Surrey and within 500m of my front door I can get onto plenty of trails to keep me busy on my cx bike for a couple of hours with barely any tarmac.

I use it less now that I have a decent mtb again but for a couple of years the cx bike did commuting duty during the week and off road at evenings and weekends

ugo.santalucia

monkimark wrote:

I live in Surrey and within 500m of my front door I can get onto plenty of trails to keep me busy on my cx bike for a couple of hours with barely any tarmac.

I use it less now that I have a decent mtb again but for a couple of years the cx bike did commuting duty during the week and off road at evenings and weekends

Which is what I said... Surrey is not too bad... I think the OP lives in a flatter area. Even in Surrey, ultimately it was always the same loop and I remember a lot of mud and a lot of washing

Moonbiker

Thats the trouble with gravel bikes UK doesn't have much of a network of gravel roads unlike USA were the have gravel bike races covering 100 miles of gravel etc

KYRGYZSTAN = good place for gravel biking though....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_79NHmkXBI

cougie

Give it a year or two and most of our country roads will be gravel.

Moonbiker

& in 10yrs.... :roll:

ugo.santalucia

Some areas of the UK have enough gravel to justify such bike, I am thinking of Scotland, Wales and some parts of the North of England.

More to the point, lots of people buy these bikes, don't use them and sell them in "as new" conditions, so I don't really see the point in buying a new one... especially if orange and from Planet X, which will be inevitably very hard to shift at the end of its very limited use

Matthewfalle

serious question: whats the difference between something like this planet x bike and something like a Ridgeback Storm (mtb frame, road geometry) once you have fitted drop bars and brifters to the latter?

mrfpb

Matthewfalle wrote:

serious question: whats the difference between something like this planet x bike and something like a Ridgeback Storm (mtb frame, road geometry) once you have fitted drop bars and brifters to the latter?

Just a couple of hundred quid on the price tag, I think.

Matthewfalle

coolio - i have one in the loft and was considering powder coating it a funky colour, slapping some drops and brifters on and going gravelling and being all trendy.

many thanks