Cyclocross

Straggler is a bikepacking-inspired road/gravel bike mostly at home on pavement but ready for trail duty when called. Born on Gravel. Raised on Pavement Straggler is tuned for cross-over exploration on a wide variety of terrain conditions. It's a day-tripper and a weekender. It's a "rough road" road bike, a cyclocross bike with no pretense about racing, a utilitarian townie, a light-duty touring bike and an all-weather commuter. It's a steel gravel bicycle that thrives on the road. Think of it as a "mountain biker's road bike." If you only have room for one bike in your life, Straggler can (and should) be your one and only. Straggler's capabilities go well beyond asphalt. It also lends itself well to light touring setups. We're talking frame bags, seat bags, and "credit card touring" rather than full-blown touring. Straggler also handles our 8- and 24-Pack Racks well, so you have some heavier-duty loading options. - Accommodations for racks and fenders - Forward-exiting horizontal dropouts for singlespeed compatibility and wheelbase adjustability - Clearance for 650B x 41mm tires with fenders!

We think by now, most of you get what Straggler is. It’s a madly versatile bike that can be used for most types of riding and riding surfaces. Better still is that you now have the option of 650b wheel size. 650b wheels were popular for a long time many years ago on ‘Constructeur’ style bicycles and we all know how real stuff was back in the day…650b wheels strike a nice balance between the benefits of both 26” and 700c sizes. The smaller wheel allows smaller riders to fit well on smaller frames, produces a stronger wheel, makes fitting big-ass tires easier and are more agile than their larger counterparts. Straggler has disc caliper mounts instead of rim brake studs. It’ll accept rotors up to 160mm. The rear dropouts are unique, too. They’re a partially closed horizontal design that accommodates singlespeed or geared drivetrains. They feature stop screws that thread in from the rear to further secure the wheel and to position the rear wheel for optimal shifting, plus a forward-mounted stop screw on the drive side to keep the wheel from slipping forward under the force of your gargantuan legs. The rear dropouts are spaced 135mm instead of 132.5mm like the Cross-Check simply because there are far more options for disc hubs in this spacing. Straggler 650b has braze-ons for fenders, racks and bottle cages. The geometry is slightly different, with angles and tube lengths very close but not identical to the Cross-Check, but like the Cross-Check it’s ready to take you just about anywhere. It’s a day tripper and a weekender. It’s a ‘rough road’ road bike. It’s a cyclocross bike with no pretense about racing. It’s a utilitarian townie. It’s a light-duty touring bike. It’s an all-weather commuter. And when you get tired of one set up, you can swap parts around and turn it into something else. We think that’s pretty neat.

So what is this Straggler anyway? The easy answer is to say that we added disc brakes to a Cross-Check and this is close to accurate. People have asked us to make a disc version of our highly versatile Cross-Check for a long time now and almost everything about the two are very similar. Straggler is slightly different, though. The most obvious difference of course is that the Straggler has disc caliper mounts instead of rim brake studs. It’ll accept rotors up to 160mm. The rear dropouts are unique, too. They’re a partially closed horizontal design that accommodates singlespeed or geared drivetrains. They feature stop screws that thread in from the rear to further secure the wheel and to position the rear wheel for optimal shifting, plus a forward-mounted stop screw on the drive side to keep the wheel from slipping forward under the force of your gargantuan legs. The rear dropouts are spaced 135mm instead of 132.5mm like the Cross-Check simply because there are far more options for disc hubs in this spacing. Straggler shares all of the Cross-Check’s braze-ons for fenders, racks and bottle cages. The Straggler’s geometry is slightly different, with angles and tube lengths very close but not identical to the Cross-Check, but like the Cross-Check it’s ready to take you just about anywhere. It’s a day tripper and a weekender. It’s a ‘rough road’ road bike. It’s a cyclocross bike with no pretense about racing. It’s a utilitarian townie. It’s a light-duty touring bike. It’s an all-weather commuter. And when you get tired of one set up, you can swap parts around and turn it into something else. We think that’s pretty neat.