🚲 Just read a review of the Lauf Úthald road bike on Bikerumor. The editor talked at length about the novel approach to slacker head angles that Lauf is using to make their road bike fast and less twitchy. Tyler Benedict praised the bike for not just feeling fast because of it but being confident and stable at speed thanks to this geometry.

Reading this is all made sense and I believe we‘re going to see more of it but when I arrived at the geometry table, the values seemed familiar. I opened the Van Nicholas home page, found the Yukon Disc and wouldn’t you know it: my bike has highly comparable values. So this audax bike, this long-distance endurance bike that’s been around for years and where the geometry hasn’t changed much over time is actually cutting edge. 😏

And hey, I can confirm Tyler‘s findings: a slightly slacker head angle and more fork rake makes for a very stable ride even at speed without letting the bike feel sluggish or unresponsive.

Russ Roca posted a video on his channel: “The DARK SIDE of Electronic Shifting No One Talks About”

He makes a couple of good points about compatibility, ease of performing modifications, and cost of upgrades and repairs but I still have problems agreeing with the doom and gloom situation he presents.

I’m really of a split opinion here. I have four bikes: a titanium road bike with Shimano Di2 and Shimano hydraulic brakes, a titanium MTB with mechanical SRAM Eagle shifting and Hope hydros, an e-bike with mechanical SRAM Eagle and Magura hydros, and a Trek retro-mod with mechanical SRAM Eagle and … Magura hydro rim brakes.

Both Magura and Shimano hydros are so ridiculously easy for me to service and even on tours I’m not worried because essentially every bike shop can do it. The advantages and lack of maintenance of those over most cable-actuated brakes simply outweigh the negatives for me.

A bit further into the video Russ talks about electronic shifting being the “death of freedom” but he also says,

Here’s the thing: humans are complex, there are certain aspects of my life where, you know, I’ll go for that simplicity. For example: video editing, I’m an Apple fanboy all day long. I just want things to work and in that instance I’m willing to give up, you know, certain levels of customization and control.

And that is the thing: with shifting I perceive Di2 similarly to my Apple gear: they’re both golden cages but very big and comfortable ones. When these products work and fit your needs, they are utterly perfect and effortless. When they don’t, they can be incredibly annoying.
Di2 shifting has been nothing but great for me. Setup and maintenance are simple and easy, the components long-lived (bought mine used). I have the gearing I want for this bike (48/32 + 11-32) and there’s even room to go 11-40 on that system with a Wolftooth Goat Link (as Jom from Gravel Cyclist confirmed).

That said: the frame I’m running Di2 on is a Van Nicholas Yukon disc with internal routing that is also fully compatible with wired shifting (even wired braking) if I ever want to go that route. It was important to me when I bought it because I did not want to get locked into electronic shifting systems.

All in all, I had expected something more profound from the video. Russ and Laura make good content but this felt more like a rant about something he doesn’t like because it doesn’t fit his needs.

I purchased the frame set in mid-April, after realising that I had an itch to try something closer to a road bike. Something stiffer, faster, and built for skinnier tyres than my Veloheld Icon.X titanium gravel bike that I had purchased only in October 2022.

It was a bit of a search to find a titanium bike that had moderate clearance, proper rack and fender mounts, wasn’t built with some oddly shaped, brand specific fork, and something that I found pleasing to the eye but the Yukon Disc audax bike fit the bill, at least on paper.

The frame set arrived quickly enough but I had to have the fork swapped because the dropouts were badly finished to the point where I wouldn’t have trusted them on anything but smooth road surfaces.
Moving almost all of the components from the Veloheld to the Van Nicholas was simple but time-consuming and I do now get why bike mechanics dislike internal cable routing.

At this point I’ve done 750+ km on the bike and I’m very happy with it. The frame set is stiff enough to lend itself to fast road rides, it accelerates quickly, and the steering is towards the more direct side between the Veloheld Icon.X and the full-on 2004 Litespeed Tuscany road bike that I’ve sold a couple of years back. The geometry is bit more upright and comfortable for longer rides (especially combined with some carbon Ritchey handlebars).

Right now I have a pair of WTB Exposure 30 tyres on it, which plump up to 32 mm on the DT Swiss GRC1600 wheels (hookless with 24.5 mm inner width) and these tyres are really versatile. Great for fast, dry road rides and with a little less pressure they work well enough on mild gravel, too.

So far going for an „all road“ bike seems to have been exactly what I was looking for. I don’t plan on tackling the kinds of rides with it that I have my XC mountain bike for but I’m also not limited to planning routes in Komoot locked in to the „road bike“ category; „bike“ works perfectly fine and I know it won’t throw anything at me that I can’t handle on this bike with slick tyres.

The frame and fork can take up to a 35 mm wide rubber and I’ve already done a couple of proper gravel rides using DT Swiss CR1600 wheels shod with Schwalbe X-One 33 mm tubeless tyres. Now that was a bunch of fun and it’s the setup I plan on using for this year’s Gravel Rallye Rhine Valley.

For many cyclists n+1 is a reality and I don’t want to claim to be an exception – my stupid brain is already thinking of what fun thing to do with the Veloheld frame set … maybe a flat bar gravel bike? I can honestly say that I’m enjoying this bike more than I would’ve thought possible and something really groundbreaking would have to come along to get me to even think of replacing it.