• Specification

• Price: £700 (frameset + £1,000 for build kit)
• Sizes: 48, 51, 54, 55.5, 57, 60, 63cm
• Size tested: 55.5cm
• Colours: ‘Arran Blue’; ‘Seeon Yellow’
• Website: Kinesis UK

The frame is made from a Kinesis’ own Kinesium aluminium alloy, with tube profiles specific to the AT. Aesthetically, it bears little resemblance to the ATR, with angular tube shapes used throughout, particularly on the downtube – contrasting to the titanium frame’s sleek lines. It gives the alloy frame a more aggressive profile, which is evident in the ride itself.  On top of that, there’s a lot of tyre clearance, – up to 45mm with 700c wheels and 52mm with 650b wheels.

Otherwise, you’ll also find mudguard eyelets, three bottle cage mounts, 12mm thru-axles front and rear, and a threaded BSA bottom bracket shell. The addition of a third bottle cage mount was the suggestion of Mike Hall, the ultra-endurance rider who was tragically killed during the Indian Pacific Wheel Race earlier this year. Hall also worked with Kinesis on the Tripster AT’s graphic design and the finished frame includes a number of details influenced by the Transcontinental founder.

The ride

What’s immediately obvious from the Tripster AT, despite the adventure-focused geometry, is that this is a bike which still retains a performance edge. The aluminium frame provides a rigid, responsive platform and there’s no sense of effort being wasted by the frame itself. If you want to attack a short climb or a fast off-road loop, the AT is up to the task. For the record, we weighed our test bike at 9.87kg (the frame itself is a claimed 1,840g) and with wide tyres fitted you’re not going to sail along like a featherweight road bike, but the Tripster AT provides a solid chassis to nip along at speed.

While the stiff chassis has a jump to it if you press hard on the pedals, the steering remains relaxed enough to tackle the type of technical terrain that might otherwise be beyond the limits of a regular road bike. On one of my favourite test loops there’s a fast section of road which leads directly onto a rutted gravel track and the AT handles the transition comfortably, remaining planted and relatively passive, letting the rider dictate what’s happening beneath them, rather than the bike setting an agenda of its own. Equally, the Tripster has a composed air when grinding up steep climbs, or careering down the other side.

That said, the Tripster AT has a noticeably harsher ride quality than the ATR. That’s not an entirely fair comparison – one is made from titanium and the other aluminium, with a £1,150 price difference – but it’s one quickly worth noting when addressing the Tripster as part of a family of bikes. The AT’s front-end is a little prone to high-frequency chattering over particularly rutted or washboard surfaces but, all things told, it’s not an unnerving experience and the ability to run the wide tyres at low pressures works wonders.

The components

As we said at the top, the Tripster AT is primarily sold as a frameset (the aluminium frame comes with a carbon fork), so there’s potential for a wide range of builds, whether you want to piece something together yourself or through your local bike shop.

With that in mind, we won’t go into too much detail on component choices here but Kinesis do also offer a £1,000 build kit which includes a SRAM Rival 1 transmission, TRP Spyre cable disc brakes, Kinesis Crosslight Disc V5 wheels and Challenge Grifo 33mm or Gravel Grinder 38mm tyres. Our test bike showcased the build kit, with the exception of the Challenge tyres (we had VeeTee clinchers fitted).

SRAM Rival 1 suits the Tripster AT well. It’s an increasingly popular groupset on bikes with an off-road edge, whether that be a gravel bike like the AT, a cyclo-cross bike like the Ridley X-Night or a disc-equipped road machine with wide tyre clearance like the Mason Definition2 – the Ridley and Mason being two bikes to recently arrive at RCUK sporting the single-chainring groupset.

With a 40-tooth chainring and 11-36t cassette, the Tripster AT in this build offers a suitable spread of gears for road and off-road use – importantly, you have a climbing gear smaller than a compact chainset with a 30-tooth cassette sprocket, giving the Tripster a wide enough range to tackle short, sharp dirt climbs. At the other end, 40-11t has its limitations on the road but really you’ve got to be going some to regularly top out. Top-end road speed isn’t what the AT is about.