Home > Bike Types > Gravel Bikes

Bianchi Arcadex shapes up carbon gravel bike for more off-road adventure, teases e-bike?

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, forest riding
12 Comments
Support us! Bikerumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More

Bianchi’s all-new Arcadex carbon gravel bike lets the Italian bike maker fully embrace unlimited, quick gravel riding & off-road adventures once again. While Bianchi has long made gravel bikes, including steel gravel touring bikes I remember selling in a bike shop even twenty years ago, a fast-moving modern carbon gravel & adventure bike had been missing from the celeste lineup.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex carbon gravel bike (& e-bike?)

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike
c. Bianchi

Now stepping out beyond all-road, the new Arcadex looks to be a fully capable, high-performance carbon gravel bike. The new carbon bike features oversized and dramatically shaped tube profiles that Bianchi says pulls aerodynamic optimization techniques from their aero road family. That includes little fork flap extensions and dropped seatstays, plus a hidden seatpost binder and mixed internal routing.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, charging port

Interestingly, the Arcadex is NOT an e-bike, but you’d be excused for thinking it might be. Usually we see e-bikes that look almost like a regular bike. But this might actually be a regular bike, built up from a new e-bike frame -without the battery or motor… It has the characteristic oversized downtube we’ve seen of many recent rear hub-powered e-bikes, and even the oversized BB junction with a rubber plug that I can only assume could fit a charging port.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, non-driveside in th eair

My guess is that we will see an eArcadex any day, powered an FSA System or Mahle eBikemotion rear hub.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, frame detail

Gravel Tech Details

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, angled frameset

One of the big aero additions is fully internal cable routing compatibility with an FSA ACR headset that allows all cables to be hidden. But not everyone wants to mess with complicated routing setups, so the new bike also includes more conventional modular cable routing ports on the downtube.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, mud clearance

Large tire clearance was a priority for the new gravel bike, but Bianchi opted for fast gravel standards rather than pushing into MTB territory, sticking with up to 700x42mm or 650x47mm tires.

Many off-road dropbar bikes have gone 1x in recent years, but gravel doubles aren’t going away anytime soon, so the Arcadex gets a removable front derailleur mount too.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, details

Just as important though was versatility, so the full carbon frame & fork get full coverage fender compatibility, plus mounts for a rear rack. There are also your standard suite of adventure mounts on the frame – two standard bottle cage mounts inside the main triangle, plus a set of bosses under the downtube and on top of the toptube.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, frameset

The carbon Arcadex frame has a claimed weight of 1100g (size L, 55cm), plus 480g for the full carbon fork. The gravel frameset uses a PressFit BB86 bottom bracket, straight 1.5″ headset with a tapered 1.5-1.25″ steerer tube, and 31.6mm seatpost. It gets 12mm thru-axles & flat mount disc brakes, plus adaptable internal cable routing for mechanical or electronic and 1x or 2x groupsets.

Gravel bike geometry

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, gravel geometry

The Arcadex is available in five sizes (XS-XL). Quick handling geometry is a bit inspired by Bianchi’s cross bike geo with a 71° head angle, 73.5° seat angle & short 425mm chainstays. But the gravel bike gets deeper 75mm bottom bracket drop for stability, and much more relaxed upright geometry – about 1cm shorter Reach across all sizes and almost 5cm higher Stack with the long 416mm a-c fork.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike – Options & pricing

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, celeste

The new Arcadex is available in two color schemes – Celeste blue or Gold Storm tan, both sharing the same shiny navy blue front end. Two standard complete bikes are now offered, both with Shimano GRX 1×11.

The $3400 Bianchi Arcadex GRX 600 gets mechanical 11 speed GRX with the lower spec RX600 levers & crank paired with the top RX812 rear derailleur, and a wide 11-42 SLX cassette. Plus, it gets an alloy cockpit, tubeless-ready alloy wheels, and 700x37mm WTB Riddler Race tires.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, tan

The $3800 Bianchi Arcadex GRX 810 upgrades to the higher 800 series 11 speed GRX mechanical shifter, crankset & brakes, again with a 40T ring and 11-42 cassette, and the same alloy finishing kit & rolling stock. Both complete bikes come with compact 16° flared gravel bars.

2021 Bianchi Arcadex gravel bike, e-bike-ready, aero integrated carbon adventure gravel road bike, group ride

Bianchi.com

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

12 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
James Roberts
James Roberts
3 years ago

Oh dear, it’s not blessed in the looks department…

b
b
3 years ago

OMG! Its like the Pontiac Aztec had a baby.

luddite
luddite
3 years ago

I actually quite like the “muscular” looks, but BB86? C’mon.
Ticks all my other boxes though: 2x, fender mounds, round seatpost, normal stem cabling.

Marek
Marek
3 years ago

Bianchi have had ugly paint jobs (including the font) in their Allroad and CX bikes for a while now. This makes it clear that they’ve extended that to the frame design :/

Astro Kraken
Astro Kraken
3 years ago

Any bike that has that many weird frame reinforcements probably wasn’t designed right to begin with.

Joenomad
Joenomad
3 years ago

Maybe Bianchi is going with the Tesla model, it’s really an e-bike, but you have to pay to have it enabled.

Bianchi-ist
Bianchi-ist
3 years ago

Skye Yaeger left Bianchi years ago. They haven’t been the same since!

luggednut
3 years ago
Reply to  Bianchi-ist

+1

Chris N
Chris N
3 years ago

It looks like they took an aero frame and put a fork with 2 inches too much height on it.

Raoul
3 years ago

Wow the new disk road bike is beautiful, as is the Zolder so why does this look horrid I suspect that the article is right they just made an bike shell and took out the motor for this…

David
David
3 years ago
Reply to  Raoul

The interns prob made this bike

Richard Brown
Richard Brown
3 years ago

lol @ Pontiac Aztec

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.