Nordest has a new affordable 4130 steel Kutxo drop bar adventure bike that mixes up the best of gravel, bikepacking, and mountain bikes to take you further off the beaten track. Monstercross is dead. Long live Monstergravel.
Nordest Kutxo monster gravel adventure
It’s not often that something described as a ‘dog’ looks like as much fun as this bike. But the Kutxo takes its name from the working dogs of the small remote Portuguese village of Carção, that later accompanied the traveling Almocreve merchants crossing wide-ranging terrain from the mountains down to the sea hauling grain down and sardines back up. Interestingly, that’s another link between this new Kutxo and Nordest’s long-running Sardinha which is a similar steel 29er adventure bike, but with more mountain bike leanings.
What’s new in Monster Gravel?
But while the Kutxo has obvious roots in mountain bikes, its style and ride lean more towards an adventurous gravel rider – designed around drop bars with a shorter frame reach, shorter wheelbase, and slightly steeper head angle. Its tire clearance isn’t quite as massive as the Sardinha, but still huge for gravel at 29 x 2.4″ making this adventure bike suited for adventure across pretty much any terrain.
Tech details
The made-in-Taiwan double-butted 4130 chromoly steel frame is built for everything from railing singletrack to multi-day bikepacking rides with short 430mm chainstays and MTB-inspired geometry including a 68° headtube – to be paired with short ~70mm stems and wide flared dropbars.
The Kutxo is designed around a 483mm axle-to-crown, 51mm offset suspension-corrected rigid steel fork with gussets at the headtube so you can build it up fully rigid or with a 100-120mm suspension fork for more aggressive dropbar riding.
The frame and fork get tons of braze-on mounts for any racks, fenders, a direct-mount toptube bag, plus two 3-pack anything cage mounts on the frame and another two on the fork legs.
Pedro Jerónimo developed the 2690g frame (size M/L) for durability and adaptability with classic & proven standards like a 73mm BSA bottom bracket, Boost MTB thru-axles, straight TR44 headtube (for straight or tapered steerers), 31.6mm stealth dropper compatible seatpost, full-length external routing, flat mount disc brakes, and 1x or 2x compatibility.
Nordest Kutxo – Pricing, options & availability
The new Nordest Kutxo comes in three stock sizes (M, M/L & L) and two matte colors – Sand or Purpura.
The Kutxo won’t officially be available until April of next year, but you can pre-order frames or framesets now for a good discount and time to source all the components to build one up for adventure next spring.
On its own, the pre-order Kutxo frame is 650€ (an 80€ savings). Or you can pre-order the Kutxo frame kit for 820€ (saving 130€) that also includes the suspension-corrected Kutxo steel unicrown fork and a Cane Creek 40 headset.
