Cyclocross, Gravel & Touring

Marin Headlands gravel bike

Marin Headlands 2

Gravel!

Or asphalt or grass or dirt…

Ride a new Marin Headlands carbon fiber gravel bike anywhere you want. They’re light and fast, so keeping up with friends on a road ride wont be a problem. They’re stable and come with pretty wide tires so tame mountain-bike trails wont cause you or the Headlands much stress.
They come with plenty of rack and pack attachment points so a gear-intensive tour, on or off-road, will come together easily.

Also available as a customizable frame

There are two complete versions, both equipped with Shimano’s excellent GRX gear, the Headlands 1 coming with a GRX600 brakes and derailleur while the headlands 2 upgrades to the GRX810 parts with an FSA Gossamer Pro crankset and a Tranzx dropper seatpost.

Two great complete versions available as well as frames that you can purchase and customize as you see fit.

Bianchi E-Allroad

The Bianchi Impulso E-Allroad

Gravel bikes are your go-everything bike. Cruise bike paths, roadways and dirt trails. With road bike efficiency and mountain-bike durability you can just enjoy the ride.

Add an assist motor to the mix and you don’t even have to sweat…

If you’d like a gravel bike as well as a bit of help up the hills, we have the Impulso E-Allroad. Built with a Mahle Ebikemotion X35 motor installed you get hhree standard assist levels plus one triggered by your heart rate (if you wear a heart rate monitor). Power and range suitable to a lap of the island on full blast or 100-mile round trip to Port Townsend with lighter assistance.

Flat-bar version with lights & fenders

Available in the standard curved-bar gravel-bike configuration or the townie version with upright bars, fenders, integrated lights and a rack for your panniers. Bianchi E-Allroad weigh under 30 pounds so they’re fast even with the motor turned off!

The whole “gravel bike” thing might seem like the bike fad of the month, but it’s not. Gravel bikes really are what we’ve always wanted: One bike that does everything really well. It’ll go fast when you feel like going fast (particularly these motorized versions). You can ride these bikes safely and comfortably no matter the surface, terrain or traffic. You can carry a lot of stuff with you or leave it all behind.

Marin DSX

The Marin DSX family of ~~hybrid~~ gravel bikes are loads of fun. With wide (45mm) knobby tires these bikes roll really nicely on dirt paths and gravel roads but still cruise fairly effortlessly on paved roads.

Evolving mountain bike designs have opened up a gap that bikes like a DSX can fill. Thirty years ago people would buy a new mountain bike and ride it wherever they wanted to go. Nowadays, a mountain bike typically comes with 4-6 pounds of aggressive off-road treaded tires, 5 inches of suspension travel and 3 inches of dropper seatpost. Those numbers add up to a lot of inefficiency for anything but the most rugged of dirt trails.

Marin DSX 1

This explains how gravel bikes can fill a need that mountain bikes don’t serve anymore, but how are these DSX models different from a typical hybrid bike?

Well, they come with simple single-ring drivetrains (only one shifter to deal with!) , tires that handle loose gravel and dirt better than the typical hybrid, and spirited handling that’s less sleepy than what you get with a hybrid or touring bike.

There are four DSX versions to choose from between $900 and $1700, and none of them will put you to sleep.

Ritchey Outback

These are the Swiss Army Knives of bicycles. Versatile, comfortable and fast, these bikes can be used for nearly every cycling scenario you can dream up.

The Outback and breakaway Outback models usually get built up as “Gravel” bikes with knobby tires, low gear ranges and upright positioning, making them ideal for off-road touring and foreign adventures. That said, they handle really well on the road too, so a set of slick tires will turn these models into great choices for touring or commuting. Wanna race? The framesets are super light, they sprint and climb well (even if you don’t) so try one of the Seattle Cyclocross events or the Whistler Gran Fondo on your Ritchey. Flat bars, drop bars, 42mm wide knobbies or 28mm slicks, the configurations are almost limitless.

All packed up and ready to roll

It’s a bit of a puzzle, but it all fits.

Frame clamp and cable connectors

The Breakaway versions come with a suitcase, and the big feature with the bikes is that they disassemble and fit into this case so you can take them with you wherever you go. The frame coupling system is secure and really simple, and we can show you how to pack your bike up and travel with them. The travel case flies under the radar (so to speak) so you won’t get hit up for oversize baggage fees like you would when flying with a standard bike.

Outback Breakaway

The coupling system is slick. The frame, which comes apart into two pieces, is joined at the top by the seatpost (and you can use a carbon fiber seatpost if you want, it’s plenty strong) and a small clamp on the downtube. It’s a simple design, and probably more secure than the bulky S & S coupling system used by most custom frame builders. The break-away feature adds less than 100 grams.

The Outback and the Breakaway Outback are semi-custom since they come to us as framesets.

Have donor parts from an old bike or a dusty corner of your garage? Bring in what you have and we’ll sketch out a build list.

Marin Nicasio

Steel is real.

That’s what everybody says, steel is real. Really comfortable, really affordable, really smooth riding and classic looking.

The Marin Nicasio, Nicasio 2 and Nicasio + have steel frames and forks. They’re smooth and tough and may soon be your next favorite bike. The base Nicasio is outfitted with Shimano Claris drivetrain parts, Promax mechanical disc brakes, durable 32-spoke wheels and 30mm puncture resistant (but still nice riding) tires. The Nicasio 2 upgrades to Shimano Tiagra parts, hydraulic disc brakes and thru-axle hubs for secure and fiddle-free removal and replacement of the wheels.

Nicasio +

The Nicasio + is your affordable gravel bike option. It comes with fat 650b wheels, ideal for soft trails and hard tours where you carry a lot of stuff in your bags. The Nicasio + has a 1X microshift drivetrain, an ideal system for rough use and simplified maintainence.

The Nicasio family of bikes all have a familiar smooth ride that reminds us of road bikes from the 1980’s. And actually, the prices remind us of the ’80’s too. They all come in under $1800.

Marin Lombard

Marin Lombard 1

You can call it a gravel bike if you want. I’d say that with 700 x 40c tires the surface upon which you travel is almost irrelevant. Gravel, cobblestones, asphalt, wood chips, whatever you happen to find, just ride on it.

So there’s the 40mm-wide tires. You also get a lightweight aluminum frame and fork, Shimano Sora drivetrain components (that are very precise and reliable) and Tektro mechanical disc brakes (powerful, as well as precise and reliable). The drop bars are wide, so your steering control is really good on sketchy terrain. The saddle was pretty comfortable while test riding in jeans, so I’d have to imagine it’s fantastic when paired with cycling shorts.

So this is an all-condition road/gravel/commuter bike with good parts and a pretty reasonable price around $1200.

Marin Gestalt

In case you’re not familiar with the term, Gestalt is a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

Marin named these bikes quite well. These are great bikes that give you more than the component list (or the prices) would suggest.

The Gestalt series aluminum frame is smooth and light (actually a bit lighter and springier than the steel Marin Nicasio or Surly’s Straggler frame). All Gestalts come with a fender and front-rack ready carbon fork. The Gestalt versions that have mechanical (as opposed to hydraulic) brakes rely on the powerful Tekro Spyre models.

Gestalt 1

All of these bikes feature internal cable runs and the gravel-ready 32mm WTB Exposure tires. In order to keep the prices reasonable, the Gestalt 1 comes with Shimano Sora and Microshift components. The Gestalt 2 is equipped with a Shimano Tiagra drivetrain and the Gestalt 3 upgrades to hydraulic disc brakes.

Marin Four Corners

“Four Corners” as in the middle of the American west where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada come together. Buy this bike and plan a tour there yourself. It’s a versatile touring bike, and I’d bet a tour of that length would be enjoyable whether you rode along the paved shoulders of secondary highways, along the Great Divide trail or rumbling down gravel roads.

This is a great bike for century rides on the pavement, gran Fondos and gravel rides, long commutes, and just regular road or off-road rides with your friends.

This is a bike designed perfectly for the vast majority of Pacific Northwest riders.

If you can get over your whole “I might need a bike for a triathlon someday” delusion, this is the bike for you. Fenders, bags and cromoly tubing may not be very aerodynamic, but they sure make your bike ride a pleasant experience.

This bike has loaded-touring frame geometry with a slightly longer wheelbase and slack front end geometry, meaning that it’s a gravel bike with touring geometry that has been tweaked just a bit. The bike is comfortable for really long rides, and it will carry all of your gear without being too squirrely. The tires are 700c x 42mm wide and 650b x 57mm (2.1” mountain bike tires) will fit if you’re planning on even more rugged use. The frame is made out of cromoly steel, which delivers a springy, compliant ride quality.

Marin Four Corners 1

The Four Corners has everything you want. It comes with mounts for 5 water bottles as well as racks & fenders, it has a triple crankset (pretty awesome in an era with so many single front chainring bikes), a WTB Volt saddle, Shimano Sora components (with a triple crankset for really low low gears) and TRP cable-actuated disc brakes. All for around $1000.

Bianchi Impulso Allroad

Bianchi Impulso GRX 400

You can call it a gravel bike, but this one is for roadways and trails made of asphalt, gravel, cobblestones, dirt, wooden boards, bricks or cement.

The 40mm wide tires will feel stable and squishy (yet still pretty fast) regardless of the road surface. The wide but shallow drop bars should make you feel comfortable and in control wherever you roll, and the Shimano GRX components should work well enough that you forget about the parts on your bike and just enjoy the ride.

The whole “gravel bike” thing might seem like the bike fad of the month, but it’s not. Gravel bikes really are what we’ve always wanted: One bike that does everything really well. It’ll go fast when you feel like going fast. You can ride these bikes safely and comfortably no matter the surface, terrain or traffic. You can carry a lot of stuff with you or leave it all behind.

Bianchi Allroad GRX 600

Speaking of stuff, If you want this bike for commuting or long-distance touring, it’ll be easy to set this one up the way you want it. Bottle cages, fenders and racks fit just fine (in fact there are hidden holes where the fender struts slide in and secure).

Bianchi Arcadex

Bianchi Arcadex w/GRX Di2

When you look at all of the options out there in high-performance gravel bikes, sometimes it’s hard not to get a little sleepy.

Every brand seems to have a Shimano GRX equipped carbon gravel bike. They all have swept-out drop bars, 47mm wide WTB tires, dropped seatstays that meet the seat tube just above the spot where a front derailleur used to go, water bottle cage bolts in seven or eight different spots on the bike, color options limited to matte black and “sand”. The worst part has to be the names. The names have to be all about getting back to some rural fantasy that seems completely at odds with the high-tech-hi-fidelity nature of the bike in question. The Wheat Thresher. Birch Rambler. Corn Husk. Gravel Roam. Dirt Wanderer.

This Bianchi will keep you awake. It’s blocky like a (super aerodynamic) robot. The signature celeste color has been an attention grabber for at least 80 years. The electronic shifting makes cool servo-motor sounds. They named it Arcadex! I don’t even know what that means! Exciting!

Velo Orange Polyvalent

V.O. Polyvalent

Gravel! Disc Brakes! Steel! Retro! 650b!

Oh my god, there are so many bicycle buzzwords today. If you’d like a bike that has them all (except “electric”), consider this Velo Orange Polyvalent.

It rides beautifully loaded down with stuff as well as bare bones like you see it in our photo. The bike is actually cool (sorry Rivendell, no matter how hard you try nobody will ever consider your bikes or tan corduroy pants cool), and the attention to detail is fantastic.

Velo Orange has all of the attachment points and frame angles figured out to make touring a breeze. The tubing is nice quality, so the bike ends up a bit lighter than a Surly (and the finish is better looking and more durable as well).

Available as a frameset or a complete bike.

Surly Long Haul Trucker

Planning a tour that will take you off of the beaten path?
The Long Haul Trucker from Surly might be the bike for you.
Surly makes their loaded touring bikes out of tough steel tubing and finishes them with thick paint that will handle weird adventures and lots of abuse.
The Trucker has mounts for front and rear racks, fenders, and 3 bottle cages. Available as bare frames, Surly’s are easy to customize (they come with road-bike style drop bars, our pictured bikes are customized with upright bars for a long adventure across Russia).

Custom Long Haul Trucker

Are you really tall or really small? The Trucker comes in a frame size that will fit (and in 26″ or 700c wheel-size options).
Sure these bikes can be a little strange-looking (especially the tall versions with the small wheels), but sometimes you want something a little different, something a little less “corporate”, or something a bit more personal.

Available with disc or rim brakes.

All-City Space Horse

You might be a rider who likes the idea of a steel touring bike.
You read Bicycle Quarterly and understand the appeal of wide road tires, generator lights and Brooks saddles. 400 kilometer long brevets with the Seattle Randonneuring club may be in your future, or you may just want a nice bike for commuting.
There are a few bike companies out there who understand what you want. Kona makes the Rove and Surly has the Long Haul Trucker, but you may want something a little more unique. It looks to you like a new Rivendell might be the way to go, if not for a few quirks about their design philosophy (old-fashioned cantilever brakes, quill-style handlebar stems).

All-City has it all figured out. This bike takes disc brakes and uses modern handlebar stems and headsets. The Space Horse frameset gives you the all-day comfort of the Kona Rove and comes in the versatile frame-only option like a Surly, without the goofy Rivendell quirks. The Space Horse is made from springy double-butted cromoly tubing. The fork has a fair amount of rake (so it will steer well with bags and other gear on the front end) and has a beautiful flat-plate crown.
Buy the Space Horse as a frameset or have us build it up with your favorite parts (the pictured bike came out for less than $1600).
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Surly Straggler

Call the Straggler a “gravel bike”.

Call the Straggler a “cyclocross bike”.

Call the Straggler a “commuter bike”.

Maybe you should call the Straggler “My bike”.

Surly has made a versatile and fun bike here with the Straggler. The handling and performance characteristics are squarely in the cyclocross world. The bike has a little bit shorter wheelbase than the Long Haul Trucker, so it climbs and sprints better than a dedicated touring bike. There is ample room for fenders and fat tires, and there are accessory mounts all over the bike. The cromoly steel frameset is durable and rides great. The Straggler is the most “modern” road bike that Surly offers, as it comes equipped with both STI shift levers and disc brakes right out of the box!
Available as a frameset or a complete bike in over a dozen sizes.

Retrotec and Inglis Cross

Retrotec Triple model

Twin model cross

Interested in a cross bike or a commuter that will turn heads?

Want something just a little different, maybe with disc brakes or a single speed? Do you want fender mounts, rack mounts, a custom light bracket, or more room for wide tires?

Maybe you’re just too damn tall, and your current bike was made for a shrimp. You want to go custom this time.

Retrotec triple style

Disc brake or cantilever

Get precisely what you want. Have Curtis make an Inglis or Retrotec cross bike specifically for you.

If you can imagine it, chances are that Curtis can build it. He utilizes many different techniques (lugs, tig welds, fillet brazing) and many different tubing styles to make your dream bike.

About our website…

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You may have noticed that many of the bikes on our website are lacking prices.
We also seem to be missing an “add to shopping cart” button.
These omissions are purposeful.
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If you want a new bike, come in to Classic Cycle. Talk to us. Touch the bicycles. You can ride around Winslow, and see what the different models have to offer.
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Sit at our bar and watch bike racing on the television or experience a bit of our little museum.
Spend some time here so Jaime can show you clothing and accessories that will resolve the little issues that nag at you while you ride.
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Leave the UPS guy alone. He can’t help you put that mail-order bike together…