Beast’s new carbon Gravel Bar & Wheelset bridge the gap between their road & mountain bike lineup. Handmade in Dresden, German carbon maker Beast Components has been churning out lightweight, durable, and at times colorful carbon cockpits & wheels for a few years on and off-road. But now their move into gravel seems an ideal way to take advantage their ability to ride tune carbon layup for more grip & less fatigue over rough terrain.
Beast Gravel, handmade German carbon gravel bar & wheels
We’ve been keeping an eye on Beast Components and their handmade carbon constructions for a few years now, having spotted their colorful cockpits in Dresden, not far from our Prague EU HQ. At the time devoted to either XC/Trail mountain bikes or purely road, we were just waiting for them to blur the lines in between. This week, the Beast Gravel family opens up, marrying the precision-crafted light weight of their road line, with the durability of the MTB family to tackle any dirt or gravel roads & tracks in between, especially on a capable bike like this Pivot Vault.
Beast Gravel Bar, lightweight flared carbon dropbar
Their new Gravel Bar was developed for aggressive off-road dropbar riding in any terrain, with the express purpose of damping gravel & trail impacts to “minimize upper body fatigue”.
Beast wanted a comfortable gravel handlebar without sacrificing control stiffness or adding on extra weight. In fact, the claimed 218g (+/-5%, 42cm) gravel bar only adds less than 50g over their same size road bar, which is much narrower at the drops.
Their gravel solution uses a wide flattened & 4° gently backswept top to just rest your hands without gripping tightly, and a dramatically fattened curve to the hoods for more comfy real estate to lean on. Then, add in 24° flared compact drops that flare out an extra 5° at their ends for a wide, ergonomic grip for off-road control.
The Gravel Bar is available in 40, 42, 44 & 46cm widths, with max width at the drops adding up to 51, 53, 55 & 57cm, respectively. The bars feature a wide 100mm x 31.8 clamping are to fit in your accessories, and get 80mm reach + 110mm drop in their bend.
The Beast bar is made by hand in Germany, so no surprise that it comes with a high 400€ pricetag in matte black UD. But it comes with no rider weight limit! and is available for an extra 100€ in transparent red or blue, and maybe also with an optional square checkerboard top layer, too.
Beast GR40 & GR25 hookless carbon tubeless gravel wheels
The gravel wheels actually came first, sparking the need for the matching bar. Developed to be wider & more versatile, the GR40 gravel wheelset is a direct evolution of Beast’s hookless carbon tubeless road disc wheels. While even Beast could see the reluctance to adopt hookless tubeless aero road wheels when compatible tires & acceptable pressure were limited, all the same tech could move directly to gravel with some simple design updates.
So 40mm deep aero RR40 road wheels got reshaped into this 25mm internal, 30.4mm external x 40mm deep aero 700c carbon gravel rim. At 405g, the German-made carbon rim is still lightweight but also carries no rider weight limit. Beast sells the GR40 as a complete wheelset for 2000€ laced with 24 bladed aero Sapim CX-Ray spokes to DT Swiss 240s hubs, internal alloy nipples & tubeless tape installed.
Along the same basic idea, the GR25 is a carbon gravel rim adapted from the mountain bike, with a 25mm overall rim height. It also gets a 25mm internal, 30.4mm external, and is available in both 650b & 700c diameters (334g & 364g, respectively). Complete wheelsets get the same build and pricetag.
All are of the Beast Gravel wheels & bars are available to order now from a large number of global dealer bike shops, as well as a few big online retailers like Bike24.de and Bike-components.de.
