Sorry BIKERUMOR!, now matter how many times you say “gravel bike” when talking about the new Crux, it’s not a gravel bike. That’s not to say that it’s not a cool CX bike, in a time when gravel is the new black. Just that we need to be honest about what it is. Why pretend otherwise?
As long as we’re being honest, maybe prioritizing the lightest “gravel” bike isn’t the smarted choice. A gravel bike gets beat up, you do crazy things on it, and it’s likely to get take more than a few unplanned horizontal trips than would be expected from a road bike. Never having done a CX, I would guess the same is true there too. Oh, and what’s 200g on the frame when you’re carrying 2.5kg of water on your back?
Like so many brands these days, the new Specialized Crux has made the shift from cyclocross to gravel. But it’s the execution here that sets it apart, using their ultralight layup and design concept from the Aethos to create a bare bones, spare no expense gravel race bike that weighs next to nothing.
With frame weights as low as 725g, they say it’s the lightest gravel bike frame in the world, and with the S-Works build, it’s gunning for the Lightest Gravel Bike in the World title, too.