This one was a bit of a surprise, wandering the halls of the Taipei Cycle show hunting esoterica, I stumbled on this complete built-up Rondo Ruut Ti. Details are relatively scant as the bike hasn’t seen its official launch yet, but rumor has it that Rondo has already gotten a lot of positive feedback from the bike from internal discussions with dealers and others in the industry.
Rondo Ruut Ti adjustable geometry titanium gravel bike
Here’s what we do know…
The Ruut Ti will feature the same two-position full-carbon Ruut fork which adjusts both the bike’s headtube angle and fork trail, as originally debuted on the carbon, steel & aluminum versions of the unique gravel bike. Two positions – relaxed gravel adventure cruising or fast gravel racing.
The fork still features rack mounts, and those carry over to the titanium frame as well, in addition to eyelets for full coverage fenders. The ti bike gets a tapered headtube, with internal headset, and modular internal shift cable routing through the main triangle with locking cable stops, and external brake routing.
The Ruut Ti gets flat mount disc brakes, 12mm thru-axles, and will clear up to a 650b x 2.1″ or 700c x 40mm tire. It achieves that not with a dropped chainstay design like the other metal Ruuts, but with a nice machined ti chainstay yoke & chainstay bridge. The bike does stick with a standard threaded bottom bracket as well.
No word on the time frame for availability, or if it will be offered as a complete bike only (like with this SRAM Force 1x build) or as a frameset for you to build as you please. We’ll update as soon as we know more, hopefully it will be coming this spring or summer. The other Ruuts we have had a chance to ride were a lot of fun, and this could turn it into one of the ultimate gravel adventure bikes.
That chainstay yoke is interesting. Looks like a slightly beefier variation of Lynskey’s plate-style drive-side chainstay connection to the BB shell, with a bit of extra material. Cool bike overall. Would like to see this follow its steel brother being offered as a frameset too.
This is already for sale on chainreaction and other sites?
The colors between frame and fork/stem/rims are a bit of an eyesore.
The guys at Rondo came from NS bikes, the very loud and dirt jumper-ey paintjobs probably spring fro mthat history. I quite like them, there are plenty of subtle gravel bikes out there already.
this is already on sale…
The changes between the two positions is so incremental – only 4mm change in stack and BB height. Slackens HT angle by 1/2 a degree. To me the biggest change in handling would come from the increased trail, but they don’t give that figure.
I have Rondo Ruut CF2 and trust me, this 0,5 degree change is very easy to notice while riding this bike.
Is it just me, or is that fork massive compared to the forks we’re used to seeing?
again, i’ll say this:
– why the “relaxed” setup gets a higher bottom bracket? well, look what is going on around, you need LOWER bottom bracket for a gravel bike.
– why the “fast” setup gets a smaller trail? well, look what is going on around, you need BIGGER trail (stability) as the bike gets faster.