Mason has a new premium steel Exposure adventure gravel bike that is so limited edition that the first run already sold out in 3 days, before we even knew about it. But don’t let that scare you away. The handbuilt-in-Italy Exposure was always going to be a small batch bikepacking bike worth waiting for – a more capable steel reinterpretation of their already popular alloy Bokeh adventure bike.
Plus, we have it on good authority that the gravel adventure bike will get an SLR road touring adventure sibling, coming soon with its own ultra-limited Launch Edition.
Mason Exposure steel gravel Adventure Sport bike
The new steel Exposure off-road adventure bike gives Mason’s original Bokeh gravel bikepacking bike a burly sibling with room for up to 2.35″ or 50mm tires and literally all the cage mounts that are possible. Built to carry more, venture further off-road & leverage the classic ride of top-tier steel, the new Exposure should be just as capable as a backcountry expedition bike as it suited for weekend bikepacking tours.
Note: All photos show an unpainted pre-production bike, but all Mason Exposures will be wet painted in Italy.
AdventureSport Geometry
Like their Bokeh, Mason tries not to label the Exposure as a gravel bike or bikepacking bike, instead calling it AdventureSport. What that means is essentially stable, predictable handling that works well loaded down across a wide range of trail surfaces, but doesn’t feel too slow on hard surface roads or tarmac.
The Exposure’s new geometry is about 1° slacker and 10mm taller Reach than the Bokeh for “a slightly more upright riding position to maximize rider comfort over long distances” and over the more challenging terrain that bigger tires allow. Bottom bracket drop is also a bit lower to compensate for those big tires, keeping weight a bit lower for a feeling of riding “within the bike“.
Mason tweaks their geometry a bit across a broad range of eight stock sizes (XXS 48cm – XXXL 62cm) and recommends different tire sizes for each to optimize a consistent feel for all sizes of adventure riders.
Tech details
The Mason Exposure gravel adventure bike is TIG-welded & silver-brazed in northern Italy by Cicli Barco from a set of exclusively custom shaped & formed Dedacciai Zero/Zero Uno tubes with phosphate anti-corrosion treatment, custom CNC-machined dropouts, and a UK-made internally-butted/externally-reinforced Reynolds 631 headtube.
The large 54cm frame has a claimed weight of 2.4kg, plus 515g for the carbon fork.
The bike features a semi-integrated tapered 1.5″ headset, a threaded T47 bottom bracket that allows for cables to stay internal, a 27.2mm seatpost, flat mount disc brakes, 12mm thru-axles, semi-hidden full-coverage fender mounts, and modular internal cable routing (mechanical or electronic). There’s also “discreet” dynamo taillight routing in the underside of the toptube, and a chain hanger peg on the seatstay.
Tire clearance will fit a 27.5 x 2.35” mountain bike tire (650x55mm, with 62mm wide fenders) or a 700c x 50mm gravel tire (with 62mm wide fenders). And there is space for a compact double 50/34T set of chainrings or a max 42T single 1x ring.
The frameset gets tons of cage/accessory mounts for maximum carrying capacity, but also to allow more cage flexibility when combined with bikepacking bags. The main triangle gets 3-pack anything cage mounts on the seattube, a 4-pack of mount on the downtube, another 3-pack under the downtube, and a standard pair of bosses on the toptube. The rear triangle also adds angled cage mounts low on each seatstay, plus conventional rear rack mounts.
The bike’s new off-road adventure-tuned full-carbon RangeFinder AS fork adds 3-pack Anything cage mounts & low-rider rack mounts, in addition to guided internal brake & dynamo routing, and Mason’s replaceable dropout inserts. Even with the massive clearance to match the frame, the 50mm offset RangeFinder AS has just a 398mm axle-crown height.
It’s similar, but not quite the same as the slightly longer new Seido MGV fork we wrote about yesterday.
Exposure gravel – Pricing, options & availability
The LE (Launch Edition) of the Exposure may already be sold out, but you can still pre-order the steel gravel adventure bike now to get one once the next batch comes online – expected in July 2022. Exposure framesets will sell for £1995 including the steel frame, carbon Rangefinder AS fork, Deda headset, seat clamp, axles, full set of stainless bolts & modular routing inserts.
The Exposure is offered in a wide 8 size range, and three colors – a greyish sage-like OpticGreen, a mustardy ochre FilterYellow, and by popular demand the same DiffuserBlack Metallic as the LE bikes but without limited edition badging.
No word yet on production bike builds, but the Launch Edition sold for £4250 complete with a Campagnolo Ekar groupset, Deda finishing kit & Hunt alloy wheels.
Mason SLR all-road adventure touring bike
Details on the upcoming Mason SuperLongRange are not yet official, but we’ve been told the SLR will be coming very soon with its own ultra-limited Launch Edition. Like the Exposure, the SLR LE will offer just 10 framesets in its initial run – each individually numbered, with polished stainless steel badging, Launch Edition graphics, and an LE gift pack.
All we really know about the SLR is that it features its own RangeFinder fork, in an AR all-road variant that shares the same outer shape (and tire clearances) of the gravel version, but with a road touring tuned carbon layup and simplified rack/low-rider mounting. We assume that the steel SLR frame itself will have a similarly lighter all-road touring / randonneur focus.
If an SLR sounds exciting to you, I suggest following Mason on all of their social media channels, and maybe subscribing to their mailing list, in hopes of snapping up one of the first LE bikes. And we’ll try to keep our eyes & ears open, too.
