All Road / Do It All Bikes / Vitus Venon EVO

[thirdsun]

For german customers there are also these SKS adapters: https://www.bike-discount.de/en/sks-ger ... -rock-shox

They are intended for suspension forks but should work just as well on the Venon's seat stays. I'll find out soon. In any case I still need the fork fender mount. However no word from Wiggle yet.

[eli76141]

I always liked the idea of a do it all bike. But I always thought there had to be a compromise somewhere. How about the Venon? Is there a compromise somewhere? Or does it really do everything very well?

[bobones]

I think the main compromises come with how you set the Venon up, as the frame itself is a great platform for several styles of bike. For example, I'm running mine with 35 mm slicks and mudguards, which makes it the perfect UK winter bike for bad roads and light gravel, but in this guise, the extra weight and drag detracts from outright speed and agility. However, strip the mudguards and fit some lightweight tyres and wheels, and it becomes a nimble and lively race bike, capable of matching the performance of many purebred machines. And as others will testify, it has equally impressive capabilities when set up with bigger tyres for pure gravel. Of course, it's never going to the best at any one thing: it's not particularly light and certainly not the slipperiest, but my experiences so far are only positive, and it really does seem to live up to the do it all tag.

[eli76141]

I think the main compromises come with how you set the Venon up, as the frame itself is a great platform for several styles of bike. For example, I'm running mine with 35 mm slicks and mudguards, which makes it the perfect UK winter bike for bad roads and light gravel, but in this guise, the extra weight and drag detracts from outright speed and agility. However, strip the mudguards and fit some lightweight tyres and wheels, and it becomes a nimble and lively race bike, capable of matching the performance of many purebred machines. And as others will testify, it has equally impressive capabilities when set up with bigger tyres for pure gravel. Of course, it's never going to the best at any one thing: it's not particularly light and certainly not the slipperiest, but my experiences so far are only positive, and it really does seem to live up to the do it all tag.

Sounds really good. And it makes sense, that you have to do some conversion to fit the ridingstyle, you want to do.

But how about position? You would probably want a more upright position for riding off-road. And for road, you want a low and aggressive position. And also regarding handlebar, you probably want narrow for road, and wide for off-road. And for stem, you'd probably want it longer for road than off-road.

Did you fint a suitable compromise?

[CampagYOLO]

I think the main compromises come with how you set the Venon up, as the frame itself is a great platform for several styles of bike. For example, I'm running mine with 35 mm slicks and mudguards, which makes it the perfect UK winter bike for bad roads and light gravel, but in this guise, the extra weight and drag detracts from outright speed and agility. However, strip the mudguards and fit some lightweight tyres and wheels, and it becomes a nimble and lively race bike, capable of matching the performance of many purebred machines. And as others will testify, it has equally impressive capabilities when set up with bigger tyres for pure gravel. Of course, it's never going to the best at any one thing: it's not particularly light and certainly not the slipperiest, but my experiences so far are only positive, and it really does seem to live up to the do it all tag.

Sounds really good. And it makes sense, that you have to do some conversion to fit the ridingstyle, you want to do.

But how about position? You would probably want a more upright position for riding off-road. And for road, you want a low and aggressive position. And also regarding handlebar, you probably want narrow for road, and wide for off-road. And for stem, you'd probably want it longer for road than off-road.

Did you fint a suitable compromise?

IMO these 'do it all' bikes are versatile in that they can be set up for several different functions, whether that's winter bike, fast summer road bike or gravel bike.
However, it's not just a case of a wheel/tyre swap and away you go on different terrain. I feel that the changes are more time consuming than that if you want to change function so probably only worth it if you're then going to then ride that way for a few months.

You raise a good point on position, I certainly prefer being more upright off road than on road. You'd probably also want easier gearing for off road and also a different pedal system. The main thing is though that these bikes have the potential to change function which isn't the case for many other bikes.

[bobones]

I've got mine set up as a roadie with 11 cm of saddle to bar drop and 36 cm bars. I haven't found it too hard to control on the admittedly unchallenging off road terrain I've tried, but you're probably right that wider, offset bars would be better if I was doing more gravel. Gearing wise, I'm currently running AXS with 48/35 and 10-33, but I have a 46/33 chainset and 10-36 cassette available for tougher terrain. I am looking forward to putting this bike through its paces as a pure roadie when the weather improves as I'd like to find out if it's a viable option for the Fred Whitton in May versus the rim brake TCR SL I used last year. This is one ride where disc brakes are definitely an advantage, but the light and stiff TCR climbs so well, it could be a tough call.

[jesper2913]

I've got mine set up as a roadie with 11 cm of saddle to bar drop and 36 cm bars. I haven't found it too hard to control on the admittedly unchallenging off road terrain I've tried, but you're probably right that wider, offset bars would be better if I was doing more gravel. Gearing wise, I'm currently running AXS with 48/35 and 10-33, but I have a 46/33 chainset and 10-36 cassette available for tougher terrain. I am looking forward to putting this bike through its paces as a pure roadie when the weather improves as I'd like to find out if it's a viable option for the Fred Whitton in May versus the rim brake TCR SL I used last year. This is one ride where disc brakes are definitely an advantage, but the light and stiff TCR climbs so well, it could be a tough call.

Looking forward hearing all about how it rides on fast roadrides

Are you posting pics of the summerversion as well? Your fenderversion looks badass

[bobones]

Looking forward hearing all about how it rides on fast roadrides

Are you posting pics of the summerversion as well? Your fenderversion looks badass

Cheers! I had a couple of outings without fenders when I first built it up, and I was impressed with the ride quality then. I'm going to try it first with its current 3T Discus 45/40 wheels (40 external, 29 internal, ~1650g) and 32 mm GP5000 S TR, but may splurge on some really lightweight wheels and run it with 28s or even 25s to drop 500g or so. I might also swap the Force for Red to save a few more grammes. I posted this pic before I put the fenders and big tyres on, so it won't look too different from this.

[jesper2913]

Cheers! I had a couple of outings without fenders when I first built it up, and I was impressed with the ride quality then. I'm going to try it first with its current 3T Discus 45/40 wheels (40 external, 29 internal, ~1650g) and 32 mm GP5000 S TR, but may splurge on some really lightweight wheels and run it with 28s or even 25s to drop 500g or so. I might also swap the Force for Red to save a few more grammes. I posted this pic before I put the fenders and big tyres on, so it won't look too different from this.


IMG_5415-1.jpg

That bike looks so good. Did you ride it without fenders with the 40 mm rims? Wider is supposed to be faster, is that the case with 40 mm as well?

[bobones]

That bike looks so good. Did you ride it without fenders with the 40 mm rims? Wider is supposed to be faster, is that the case with 40 mm as well?

No, I haven't but that's what I'm excited to try out, especially since Josh Poertner said that these wheels with 32 mm tyres were amongst the most aero and stable combinations they've tested in the wind tunnel.

[jesper2913]

That bike looks so good. Did you ride it without fenders with the 40 mm rims? Wider is supposed to be faster, is that the case with 40 mm as well?

No, I haven't but that's what I'm excited to try out, especially since Josh Poertner said that these wheels with 32 mm tyres were amongst the most aero and stable combinations they've tested in the wind tunnel.

That sounds very promissing

[kofsw4]

First proper ride on the 650Bs today. I haven't ridden the bike enough to make a proper comparison to my 700c wheels but it did feel very nimble, easy to manoeuvre and a huge amount of fun being able to roll over/through pretty much anything.

Rode through quite a lot of mud but there's plenty of room and no issues with rubbing. Might be able to fit slightly wider still in the dry, maybe 27.5x2.0".

I calculated trail with these 650x47 tyres at 62mm Vs 66mm for 700x40.

[thirdsun]

After weeks of searching for the missing fender mounts and an extensive back and forth with Wiggle they tell me that they can't ship those items to me (in Germany) due to their new international shipping restrictions. However in the very same mail they suggest that they could collect my Venon Evo instead. Ridiculous.

I already ordered the rear fender mounts from Condor as suggested in this thread and will try find some alternative for the fork bridge/mount too. Or drill through the mudguards.

[kofsw4]

After weeks of searching for the missing fender mounts and an extensive back and forth with Wiggle they tell me that they can't ship those items to me (in Germany) due to their new international shipping restrictions. However in the very same mail they suggest that they could collect my Venon Evo instead. Ridiculous.

I already ordered the rear fender mounts from Condor as suggested in this thread and will try find some alternative for the fork bridge/mount too. Or drill through the mudguards.

If you want to get Wiggle to send them to me in the UK, I'd be happy to forward them to you to Germany, just drop me a DM.

[thirdsun]

After weeks of searching for the missing fender mounts and an extensive back and forth with Wiggle they tell me that they can't ship those items to me (in Germany) due to their new international shipping restrictions. However in the very same mail they suggest that they could collect my Venon Evo instead. Ridiculous.

I already ordered the rear fender mounts from Condor as suggested in this thread and will try find some alternative for the fork bridge/mount too. Or drill through the mudguards.

If you want to get Wiggle to send them to me in the UK, I'd be happy to forward them to you to Germany, just drop me a DM.

Thank you. Very kind offer. I tried to reason with them once more and will wait for their reaction.

Maybe I'll take you up on it. I basically just need this part: https://www.wiggle.com/p/venon-evo-fork ... 23-onwards