Caren’s 26” All Road Adventure Touring/Mini Gravel Bike.

This bike is designed to be a fun and adventurous lightweight touring machine.  A durable bit of kit to keep you company whilst soaking up the sights as you ride by. With all the fittings to mount serious bike packing equipment and a front dynamo providing power from front to rear, internally routed to keep it clean, there’s no reason to stop at dusk, making it easy to carry on to the perfect camping spot or all through the night.

For the frame the front triangle is built from Columbus Spirit to keep it light and the rear is XCR for an extra bit of shine.   The fork uses a Hartley Cycles bespoke Contour Crown made from hand manipulated stainless steel sheet, adding another visual delight to the bike.  The fork blades are the brand new prototype disc blades from Columbus specifically designed to take the extra torsion from using disc brakes whilst keeping the build lightweight.

The frame is built to accommodate 26” tyres up to 50mm wide for really rough and muddy trails.  Built up here with a fast rolling mixed terrain road tyre, but equally at home with a pair of knobblies for exploring the trails in the muddy winter months. 

We chose the durable SRAM NX groupset for its simple set up and wide ranging cassette, so hills are not a dread when riding off road and loaded and disc brakes to give confident braking though all weathers and whilst loaded.   For added comfort the build is finished with a Brooks Finesses titanium saddle, Jones’ Loop H bars and Compass McClure Pass 48mm tubeless tyres.

Frame: - 26" mini gravel bike/adventure touring bike.  With Hartley Cycles stainless steel Contour Crown and disc brakes.

Tubing: - Columbus Spirit main triangle with XCR stainless steel rear.  Columbus prototype steel disc fork blades

Wheelset: - 26" disc wheelset with Velocity Blunt rims and SP Dynamo hub

Groupset: - Sram NX

Finishing Kit: Jones Loop Bars, Brooks Finesse Titanium saddle, Compass McClure Pass road plus tyres.

Paint: - Hand Spray paint by Hartley Cycles, midnight blue with pearl lemon yellow.

Details: - Hand cut solid silver detailing. Internal cable routing for dynamo lights.  Hartley Cycles stainless steel Contour Crown

Image Credit: Sebastien Klein

All Hartley Cycles custom frame builds and bespoke bicycles are handmade in London with great care and attention by Frame builder Caren Hartley.