A month and a half ago Nordest debuted their new mountain bike-inspired Super Albarda “super gravel” bike in shiny but expensive titanium. Now for close to 1/3 of the price of ti, the Super Albarda CrMo delivers the same slack geometry and adventure-ready ride in steel, leaving you plenty more cash in your pocket to splurge on the rest of your bikepacking trip or even a custom bike build…
Nordest Super Albarda CrMo 4130 steel adventure gravel bike
Much like there is an argument to be made for a ti gravel bike, there’s probably even more to be said for a good steel gravel bike that won’t break the bank before the adventure even starts. Pretty much everything great about the Super Albarda Ti is back here again in the Nordest Super Albarda CrMo, just a little bit heavier.
New Super Albarda super gravel geometry
Just like with the Super Albarda Ti’s debut, Nordest sees the steel version as a capable & durable adventure bike mixing gravel & rigid mountain bike characteristics – with a familiar off-road feel for mountain bikers looking to crossover to gravel riding & bikepacking adventures.
The steel Super Albarda CrMo shares the identical super gravel geometry of the titanium bike, longer & more slack than the original Albarda, for more confident off-road handling and a shorter reach cockpit. Think… a slack 68° headtube, a steep 74° seattube, and less BB drop.
Super gravel – Tech details
Tire clearance is still big for 27.5 x 2.1″ XC mountain bike tires or wide 700c x 50mm gravel tires with 420mm long chainstays. The new steel frame is no-nonsense, welded from double-butted 4130 chromoly steel, with a standard BSA threaded BB has made a change to a PressFit BB86 bottom bracket, 44mm headtube, and 12x142mm bolt-on rear thru-axle in modular drop-outs.
It keeps a 27.2mm seatpost but does not add internal dropper routing like the ti bike. Routing stays fully external, it gets flat mount brakes, and can be built up either 1x (max 46T chainring) or 2x (max 50/34T). It also gets plenty of bosses: two 3-pack sets on the downtube, a seattube bottle mount, toptube bag mounts, and rear rack & fender mounts.
Two forks are offered – a straight steerer unicrown steel fork with 3-pack, lowrider rack & fender mounts with a 12mm thru axle & flat mount brake. Or there’s a full carbon, tapered steerer fork with 3-pack & fender mounts, 12mm axle & flat mount.
What’s the weight difference between a Super Albarda Ti & CrMo?
Nordest’s frame weight claim for the Super Albarda Ti is 1845g (M) and for the CrMo frame is 2590g (M). That’s a difference of just 745g, or about the same weight as one large bottle filled with water – not counting a bottle cage. Three-quarters of a kilogram sounds like a lot when comparing lightweight road bikes (it would be 100g more than carrying an extra Canyon Ultimate CFR or even Factor O2 VAM road frame as a spare). But when talking adventure gravel & bikepacking bikes that are going to get loaded with gear and bombed downhill over any terrain, it’s probably in consequential. And when you save up to 900€ buying just the frame, it’s probably an easy decision to make.
Nordest Super Albarda CrMo – Steel bike pricing & availability
Much like the ti bike, Nordest offers the steel Super Albarda in several options – in gloss blue or matte black/gray, although you’ll have to build up a complete bike on your own. You can get the 4130 Super Albarda as a frame-only, a frame kit with a steel or carbon fork. The trick is, if you act quickly (most-likely through the end of the month) you can pre-order the new bike for cheaper than the original steel Albarda. The steel Super Albarda frame only is on sale now for 499€ (before going up to 574€ next month), fifty bucks less than when the original Albarda went on sale last summer.
The steel Super Albarda kit with a steel fork, Cane Creek 40 headset & Nordest’s own 50mm alloy stem pre-sells now for 699€ (down from ultimate price of 799€).
And the steel Super Albarda kit with the carbon fork, headset & stem is pre-selling now for 849€ (down from its final price of 949€).
No complete bike builds are expected with the new steel Super Albarda, but frames and frame kits are expected to be shipped out by the end of October 2020, with free delivery in the EU.
