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Cinelli King Zydeco gravel bike rocks 1,000g frame, 2.1″ tire clearance & adjustable rake!

Written by Greg Kopecky
26 Comments
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Cinelli announced the King Zydeco, a new carbon gravel bike. It complements the existing Zydeco and Zydeco Lala alloy bikes, to round out the range with multiple price points. The King Zydeco is compatible with both 1x and 2x drivetrains, and has stock options for Shimano Ultegra (2x) and SRAM Rival (1x). Frame weight comes in at a feathery 1,000 grams.

It has been about a year-and-a-half since Cinelli first teased us with a carbon version of the Zydeco, but now it’s officially a real product. The original Zydeco was launched back in 2010, and was positioned as a cyclocross bike (since gravel racing wasn’t much of a thing back then).

The King Zydeco sports a funky dropped seat stay and BB386EVO bottom bracket shell.

Chainring clearance varies based on the drivetrain and type of chainring, with minimum/maximum values listed in the chart above.

A portion of the downtube features a Kevlar shield, to help protect against potential trail damage.

The fork comes courtesy of Cinelli’s sister company, Columbus. The Future Cross is a monocoque carbon design weighing in at 550 grams. Tire clearance is limited to 700 x 47mm or 650b x 2.1″.

The fork features a 12mm thru axle with unique Dual Rake System. This allows the rake to swap between 47mm and 52mm, adjusting handling to the user’s preference.

The complete Ultegra bike is listed at 8.8kg, while the Rival 1x version comes in at 9.0kg. Full pricing has yet to be released, but Cinelli’s USA distributor has the King Zydeco frameset listed at $2,400 USD. For more information and full geometry charts, check out the link below.

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Greg Kopecky
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26 Comments
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KP
KP
5 years ago

Cervelo and GT both offer that exact same unique flip chip on their gravel bikes

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Erik
Erik
5 years ago
Reply to  KP

Came here to say the same. I have that on my Cervélo Aspero

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gibboon
gibboon
5 years ago

Minimum 36t ring……..hard fail.

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Cleo
Cleo
5 years ago
Reply to  gibboon

Second that. Bummer.

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Mecanico do paladar
Mecanico do paladar
5 years ago
Reply to  gibboon

36t at the front and wide range cassete rear (11 or 12spd), and you can handle everything. If you can’t not the transmission fault.

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Kona
Kona
5 years ago
Reply to  Mecanico do paladar

Neither Shimano nor Campagnolo make a 11 or 12 speed 36t cassette.
50/34 cranksets have been standard for many years now. Even FSA and Shimano GRX cranks have even smaller inner rings than a 34t. Cinelli is stuck in the distant past with a 36t minimum ring.

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Erik
Erik
5 years ago
Reply to  Mecanico do paladar

If you want to run 2x in a gravel bike, most people are using 30 or 32 small ring and a tightly spaced rear cassette (11-32 or 11-34). And many people like having a 1:1 or slightly easier minimum gear, so yes it is a fail for people like me.

If you like to run 1x with a wide range cassette, then not so much of an issue.

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Greg Fisher
Greg Fisher
5 years ago
Reply to  Erik

You can buy a complete bike with GRX 1 x with 40t chainring and 11/42 cassette. It definitely seems they have concentrated on a frame mainly for 1 x groupsets

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Dinger
Dinger
5 years ago
Reply to  Erik

Pretty curious that it doesn’t accept even a 34T small chain ring. I wonder how they came to that?

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Astro Kraken
Astro Kraken
5 years ago
Reply to  Dinger

Probably because of the chainstay drop. The chainring needs to be big enough for the chain to go under it

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Dinger
Dinger
5 years ago
Reply to  Astro Kraken

I get that, just don’t know what’s accomplished by such a dramatic drop. Others employ this feature without sacrificing gearing. If they’ve achieved significantly more tire clearance than the others, they’re handicapping the bike with the gearing limitation so the riders will struggle to take advantage of the bigger tires in steeper terrain. I don’t get this…

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Ariel Zima
Ariel Zima
2 years ago
Reply to  Dinger

If you use a Sram chainring smaller than 42t chain touches in chain drops

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Sanchez C
Sanchez C
5 years ago
Reply to  gibboon

Very hard fail. What are they thinking??

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Antoine Martin
Antoine Martin
5 years ago
Reply to  Sanchez C

Really with 50tooths 1é speed cassetteavailable ?

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Brad Comis (@BradComis)
Brad Comis (@BradComis)
5 years ago
Reply to  gibboon

My question is why is there even a minimum at all?? Is the protrusion for the drive side BB so large that the spider of a sub-compact crank interferes with the frame? Weird. Massive oversight on the part of the frame designer IF that is the case. It is possible too that their is just a typo in their press materials too.

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Guy
Guy
5 years ago
Reply to  Brad Comis (@BradComis)

I’ve seen other frames with dropped chainstays with clearance issues on the chain line past the low point of the chain stay from small chain rings to mid-block.

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OriginalMV
OriginalMV
5 years ago

If you believe the frame designers even considered rational clearances for gravel riding before moulds were actually cut, then the chainring restrictions make NO sense. This is doubly true when Shimano starts making MicroSpline road cassettes similar to SRAM’s AXS road cassettes (IE, cassettes with 10T first cogs). Maybe it would be okay if you only rode on pavement or rails-to-trails gravel, but do a 100mile dirt fondo with 12,000′ of climbing and you’ll stop sneering at 30T inner chainrings or 40T 1x rings.

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Greg Fisher
Greg Fisher
5 years ago
Reply to  OriginalMV

The frame will accept a 40t 1 x ring as Cinelli sell a complete bike with GRX 1 x groupset with 40t ring and 11-42 cassette. Maybe it accepts the GRX version as it has a 2.5mm offset?

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PL
PL
5 years ago

Cable routing fail. I wouldn’t even accept routing like that on a road bike. Even with a cover (which I don’t see, it’s horrendous. On that angle above the BB it’s screaming out to ingest water and dirt.

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Jim E
Jim E
5 years ago
Reply to  PL

Saw that same thing. They bother with kevlar above and below it? Time to pull out the packing tape for a cover I guess.

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alloycowboy
alloycowboy
5 years ago

If you slap a pair of Answer Manitou Elastomer forks on this bike you would essentially reinvented John Tomac’s 1990 Yeti C-26.

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Rich
Rich
5 years ago

How about a 11-42 cassette 11-speed cassette to go with that 42 tooth chainring? Low enough?

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gibboon
gibboon
5 years ago
Reply to  Rich

Nope

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Greg
Greg
5 years ago
Reply to  Rich

That’s no lower than a wide range cassette on an off the shelf road bike (34/34). Gravel needs a little lower.

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Paul
Paul
3 years ago

I run 40 with 11/32 and that’s fine for all off road stuff what are you all doing to require smaller than 36t chainring? Riding up brick walls? Haha

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Jeff Hathaway
Jeff Hathaway
3 years ago

Flipped the fork chip to adjust the rake but now the disc is hitting the caliper wtf!

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