£3,799.99 A gravel bike built to go downhill fast
The bike test ● Gravel bikes
Weight 9.35kg (XL) Frame Carbon Fork Twintip carbon Gears SRAM Rival AXS XPLR, 1x12 (42t, 10-44t) Brakes SRAM Rival hydraulic Wheels Rondo x Hunt Gravel X-Wide aluminium Finishing kit Rondo Icr 70mm stem, Spank Flare 25 bar, Rondo Carbon seatpost, Selle San Marco Shortfit saddle, Vittoria Terreno Mix 700x40c tyres
WITH THE MYLC, RONDO SET OUT to make a gravel bike that would redefine what’s ridable on a dropped-bar bike. That meant reshaping their existing RUUT bike with a significantly longer reach, shorter stem and slacker head angle to give the MYLC a long front-centre. It also shortened the seat-tube for dropper-post compatibility, lowered the standover height to aid manoeuvrability and gave the bike generous tyre clearances of 47mm (54mm in 650b) via its asymmetric dropped chainstays. Rondo’s designs dare to be different, with its radical tube shapes.
Practicality hasn’t been forgotten, though: there are three sets of bottle bosses, top-tube and mudguard mounts, triple mounts on the fork legs plus internal routing for a dynamo front hub. The fork’s Twintip dropouts alter the geometry from a gnarly terrain-biased ‘Low’ position to the regular-gravel ‘High’ setting with a shorter trail and steeper head angle. Those angles are both slacker than most, though: in Low, my XL test bike has a 68.6° head angle and 95mm trail; in High, a 68° head angle with 80mm trail. In both settings the trail is more than most gravel bikes.
Good-value build
The CF1 is the premium model in the MYLC carbon range (there’s also a steel and an aluminium frame) and its build offers good value for money. The drivetrain is SRAM’s excellent Rival AXS XPLR, combining SRAM’s wireless AXS technology with a gravel-specific design and wide gearing.
The wheels are a Rondo edition of Hunt’s burly X-Wide alloy gravel tubeless-ready wheels with a big-tyre-friendly 25mm internal width. At 1,698g a pair, these are light for gravel alloy wheels. Up front, Rondo’s own short (70mm) stem has angular edges, a flattened profile and a unique clamp system that adds a fifth bolt at the rear of the bar clamp for extra security/adjustability. It clamps Spank’s Vibrocore bar, which combines lightweight aluminium with a foam-filled core that claims to minimise vibrations. The bar, with its huge 46cm width, 25° flare and shallow, short drops is designed for off-road control with bags of leverage, and Rondo’s carbon seatpost has plenty of exposed shaft for ad
