£1,799 Commuter-cum-gravel machine for big days out – whatever the surface
Weight 10.74kg (M) Frame Aluminium Fork Carbon blades/aluminium steerer Gears Shimano GRX 400/600 10-speed (11-36t, 46/30t) Brakes Shimano GRX Wheels Shimano RS171 DB Finishing kit Forza Stratos 100mm stem, Forza Stratos Gravel handlebar, Forza Stratos 15mm offset 350mm 27.2mm seatpost, Selle Italia Model X saddle, Vittoria Terreno Dry 700x38c tyres
This is a bike designed for all sorts of riding, from commuting to gravel, and it certainly looks the part. While the more road-flavoured Cube Attain SLX and Cannondale Synapse 1 will fit fenders, the Kanzo has bags of clearance for big, comfortable tyres plus mudguards. It boasts Shimano’s gravel-specific GRX groupset too, though the Kanzo is 10-speed rather than its rivals’ 11. However, the subcompact chainset and wide-range cassette gives a good spread of gears, including a bottom gear that’s much lower than its rivals, for control on off-road forays.
You can also buy this bike as a frameset, or with a choice of SRAM Apex or other Shimano GRX groupsets, and choose the colour; ‘Inspired’ colours are standard, while ‘Spectrum’ colours incur a cost.
As for the frame, it’s triple butted. It’s aluminium. It’s hydroformed. Slightly surprisingly for a bike at this price, the carbon-bladed fork is paired with an aluminium steerer, which adds a little extra weight. It does have triple bosses on each blade for carrying luggage or extra bottles, though, and there are the usual down-tube and seat-tube bosses plus a pair beneath the down-tube. There are no bento box top-tube bosses, though.
Strong and stable
The frame has some distinctive features. There’s an arch-shaped plate where the seatstays join the seat-tube and top-tube, and the front of the chainstays have chunky plates that help to achieve clearance for 42mm tyres for 700c rims (55mm for 650b wheels). Along with a burly-looking frame and non-dropped seatstays, these things suggest toughness and potential for firmness.
Ridley makes its own Kanzo A-specific mudguard set (393g) but you need four hex keys and a 10mm wrench to fit them! Or you could try options such as the SKS Speedrocker or Veloflexx mudguards.
The geometry is a bit more laid-back than that of the Cube and Cannondale. The head-tube angle is shallower, but at 71° it’s not that slack, and the 73° seat angle is a road bike classic. The wheelbase, at 1,034mm, is longer, mainly thanks to longer chainstays, for greater stability for off-road and di
