Bianchi All Road
Bianchi All Road
Now for the first part of something completely different: the all-new Bianchi All Road. Bianchi may be a brand with more than 125 years of history but they’re not afraid to embrace the latest trends, whether that be disc-equipped road bikes – and there’s plenty more of them in the 2016 range – or gravel bikes.
The All Road is Bianchi’s gravel bike (with disc brakes, naturally) and it has a couple of really interesting features. The frame, which has a tapered headtube and external cable routing, is made from aluminium but it’s paired with a carbon fibre fork. Plus there’s clearance for 32mm tyres – or 32mm rubber with mudguards – as the All Road has mounts to mark it out as a machine not just for gravel roads but as a bit of an all-rounder.
Most interesting is Bianchi’s decision to spec a dropper seatpost. Dropper posts have been around in the mountain bike scene for a few years now to provide quick-fire saddle height adjustment for technical trails – if you’re coming up to an, erm, gnarly bit of track, then you drop the post using the lever to put you in a riding position which offers more control, before firing the post back up when it’s time to get back on the gas. The second interesting bit of speccing is the choice of handlebar, which has a 16 degree flare, similar to the Genesis Datum we saw a little while back.
Tempted? The All Road will come in two builds, one based around a Shimano 105 groupset with hydraulic disc brakes for £1,800 and one with Shimano Tiagra and mechanical discs for £1,425.