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Nordest Albarda Ti, an affordable titanium gravel bike ready for adventure touring

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike
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Back in November, Nordest teased us of this new gravel project. In development for a while, the new Albarda Ti mixes Nordest’s off-road riding & bikepacking experience into an affordable titanium gravel bike with good tire clearance and enough braze-ons to make it ready for any adventure.

Nordest Albarda Ti titanium adventure gravel bike

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike
courtesy Nordest

Nordest says the name itself for their new adventure gravel bike derives from the packsaddles that travelers have been loading on pack animals for as long as history can remember. Now in a modern geometry gravel bike, it means you can probably strap anything to the Albarda. And with a stout double butted Ti-3Al-2.5V tubeset, this should be a frame that combines reasonably lightweight with comfort and lifetime durability.

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike geometry

Nordest developed the Albarda with short 420mm chainstays, a lot of bottom bracket drop (85mm), and a slack 70° headtube to deliver a fast, but stable ride. Available in four stock frame sizes (or even custom geometry), it’s meant to be built into a quick mixed-surface drop bar bike for any occasion.

Albarda Ti Tech Details

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

The heart of the Albarda’s mixed-surface versatility is built around clearance for big 650B x 2.1″ or 700C x 50mm tires with a machined yoke in the chainstay to fit up to a 46T single ring or a road compact 50/34T double.

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

The frame includes a standard set of bottle bosses on the seattube, three-pack anything cage mounts both on top of and under the downtube, and separate rack & fender mounts out back.

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

The flat mount disc frame has a 12mm thru-axle rear end, and includes a bolt-on 12×1.75mm pitch axle. The frame features a 27.2mm seatpost, includes a removable seatclamp, and a standard threaded bottom bracket. Cable routing is all external, with full-length derailleur housing. And the

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

The Albarda uses a straight 44mm headtube, designed to pair with a 410mm 400mm long/52mm offset fork with a 1.5″ tapered steerer.

Update: Nordest has corrected the info the provided earlier. The included tapered carbon steerer fork has a 400mm axle-to-crown length, combined with the external lower headset cup. If you buy the frame-only and want to use a 1.125″ straight steerer fork, it should be 410mm long to accommodate the recessed lower cup.

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

Claimed frame weight for the M/L size frame is 1750g.

Albarda Ti Pricing & Availability

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

The Albarda Ti is offered as a frame-only for 1300€, letting you pick what type of fork you want to pair with it, and every aspect of your own build. Or for 1595€, Nordest will add on a full carbon fork with 12mm thru-axle, flat mount brakes & fender mounts (but no rack or cage mounts) and a Chris King headset.

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

A complete bike is also available. From 2800€ you get the Kind headset, carbon fork, plus a SRAM Rival 1x grouspet, an Easton alloy cockpit & alloy 700c wheels with 42mm WTB Resolute tires.

Update: Be aware that the 2800€ complete bike price is a sale for a limited time only, until the steel bike is ready in a month or two or three. Once those steel Albarda frames start showing up, the Albarda Ti Rival complete bike price will increase to 3000€. Act fast!

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

Delivery time for the stock frames is eight weeks, plus about an additional two weeks for either complete bike builds or the custom geometry option. Opting for custom geometry only adds an extra 150€ to the price.

Nordest Albarda Ti affordable titanium all-road adventure gravel bike

As we saw with the original tease of the bike, a 4130 chromoly steel version of the Albarda will also be offered in two months or so sharing this same geometry & detailing.

NordestCycles.com

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Dolan Halbrook
Dolan Halbrook
5 years ago

Looks nice, and the price is right. 85mm of BB drop seems a bit extreme for something that’s mean to be taken off road. Do pedal strikes not happen anymore?

Morten reippuert
5 years ago
Reply to  Dolan Halbrook

85 is IMHO spot on for something like 700x+40, i prefer 72mm with 25-28mm tires.

GravelGuy_2019
GravelGuy_2019
5 years ago
Reply to  Dolan Halbrook

Dolan, 85mm is seems to be on the high end of BB drop for these gravel bike but not too wild. Since they’re using larger tires (up to 51c) than a road bike, they’ll need a larger BB drop to maintain the same BB height.

Gargamel
Gargamel
5 years ago
Reply to  GravelGuy_2019

It makes sense to count on larger tires being used on this bike, but 85mm drop probably rules out flat pedals altogether. I’d start to worry about clipless strikes with a common wheel size like 650bx47c if I had 175mm cranks. Rest of the frame seems great.

Dinger
Dinger
5 years ago
Reply to  GravelGuy_2019

I think BB drop, as a component of handling quality, is more or less independent of BB height, having more to do with how far below the plane of the axles the BB is. A bigger BB drop will result in slower, more stable handling regardless of how high the BB is from the ground, though adequate height is important for ensuring pedal to ground clearance.

I can see how more BB drop and the stability it adds is desirable to riders doing ultra long gravel rides, but I would find it problematic for running smaller road tires. Personally, I’ve never had a need for more stability on gravel and smooth trail than a middle of the road CX geometry provides.

SB
SB
5 years ago
Reply to  Dolan Halbrook

Do the math. The tires are a minimum of 20 mm taller than a normal road tire. And any road bike with less than 70 mm drop rides like crap (other obvious factors excepted). Pedal strikes have always been much more a user-error issue than a bike-design issue. Whacking your pedals on everything? Quit riding like a hack.

Dolan Halbrook
Dolan Halbrook
5 years ago
Reply to  Dolan Halbrook

Point taken.. fine for off road as long as you’re running 40+, which is what it was designed for. Also, less of an issue with road-length cranks than MTB-length.

gef
gef
5 years ago
Reply to  Dolan Halbrook

I like the normal bb drop of 70ish for this type of bike that way I can still run 700×25 and it’ll act normal on the road, then if I put taller tires on, it gives it a higher stance, which is appreciated off road.

Tony
Tony
5 years ago

Should have a 30.9 seat tube for better dropper compatibility.

MaraudingWalrus
MaraudingWalrus
5 years ago

Would be interested to see where these are coming from – some of the little details like the seatpost clamp, dropouts, derailleur hanger & skewer interface look very very similar (perhaps identical) to my Waltlycomment image.

Not a bad thing at all, merely an observation – my waltly has been phenomenal.

MaraudingWalrus
MaraudingWalrus
5 years ago

Their website obviously indicates that these are Asian made ti frames – I feel I should clarify thatI as I did not want to indicate I thought theye were being dishonest in origin of the frame, which my above post could be construed as.

Daniel
Daniel
5 years ago

Why AC 410mm fork? Standard is 395-400mm. BB drob is huge so shorter fork do near 90mm bb drob. Too much for adventure rides.

Pedro Jerónimo
Pedro Jerónimo
5 years ago
Reply to  Daniel

It’s a mistake, the fork have 400mm in carbon taper version, but in 1″1/8 steel version have 410mm because use differents lower headset cup (EC44 to ZS44)

Neil
5 years ago

I just got a custom Asian titanium frame made for $850 USD, tapered headtube, boost etc. if I got 10 orders it would be less making these pretty expensive?

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