Shimano GRX Mechanical Bike

Our best value in a Shimano-equipped ABLE is our GRX 820 build. You save significant cost by foregoing electronic shifting and going with traditional mechanical shifting instead. Shimano is the industry leader for drivetrain reliability and in the tried-and-true mechanical shifting configuration, Shimano is unmatched for “set it and forget it” precision. The GRX 820 drivetrain has been upgraded to accommodate the massive range of their 12 speed mountain cassettes with a 10 tooth small cog and 51 tooth large cog.  This positions GRX 820 with the same gear range as the infamous SRAM AXS 'Mullet' build but at a more affordable price, and the advantage Shimano's unparalleled shifting performance.  

The ABLE is a high-performance off-road machine that tilts more towards the “mountain skinny” side of the gravel segment. It prefers a big tire but keeps a short rear end - in fact, it’s shorter than the ECHO at 420mm. This is achieved by the most striking feature on the bike - the elevated drive-side chainstay.

Getting a chainstay this short with high tire volume is a packaging exercise because the chainring, chainstay, and tire all compete for space behind the bottom bracket. On mountain bikes this problem is addressed by widening the bottom bracket -- but that affects Q factor in a negative way. When we made the decision to make the ABLE 1X-specific it opened the design envelope and ultimately led to the decision to elevate the chainstay. By moving it up and out of the way we could make it extremely wide resulting in an incredibly responsive ride.

While our award-winning ECHO is a Swiss Army knife for a majority of mixed surface riding, when the path gets rambunctious its road-racing genes might seem lacking. We found ourselves on occasion wanting a bike that was equally engineered, but felt more at home on steeper, rockier and more rugged terrain. It was from this desire that the ABLE was born. It’s lightweight, tight, durable and agile. You can point it in any direction and go.

The ABLE begs to be ripped around on singletrack, fire roads, hardpack dirt, and chunky gravel. Proven on the brutal roads of the 2019 Dirty Kanza where ALLIED athletes piloted their ABLEs to overall victory.