Spencer got the opportunity to return to the Enve Composites factory in Ogden for their Grodeo group ride and Builder Round-Up. Don’t miss the final half of our coverage showcasing all the amazing bikes from an international cast of framebuilders, as well as some world-class gravel riding from beautiful Utah. 

The second part of the Enve Grodeo event features a 92-mile gravel ride that is a great way for builders and riders to get out and actually ride their bikes on some beautiful high country doubletrack in and around scenic Ogden, Utah. The long course, with 92 miles and over 8,000 ft of climbing, was more than I felt like riding, so I decided to just focus on the 42-mile loop at the north end of the route, which still adequately toasted me.

The “Pushing Up Daisies” section was properly named, to say the least. The wildflowers were putting on their usual show in the high country. After triple-digit heat in the valley the days before, a cold front came through and was downright chilly for the start of the ride.

The route undulated between champagne gravel to chunky double track. I saw more than a few patches of fresh sealant and people fixing flats on my ride. I’d say this is more of an XC mtb route masquerading as a gravel route. I’ll die on the hill that a rigid 29er is still the best gravel bike, so that’s what I brought this year. I had a blast.

Enve’s aid stations were top notch, with the kids delivering fuel, hot dogs, and even axe throwing! Let’s get back to the Builder Round-Up and finish our coverage of all the amazing builds.

Sage Titanium Droptimator

The Sage Titanium Droptimator is the first fully modern, purpose-built drop bar mountain bike, giving riders the ultimate ride on rough, technical gravel courses and marathon MTB races. Custom geometry lets Sage deliver aggressive mountain bike tires and gearing, but optimize rider position for speed and aerodynamics.

The hybrid build starts with a 100mm Rockshox SID SL Ultimate Flight Attendant fork, XX SL drivetrain, 29 x 2.4” tires on ENVE Pro XC wheels, and 4-piston Level brakes, then adds SRAM Red levers on ENVE’s SES AR handlebars and -17º Aero stem. This mashup is a genre-bending rethink on what a “monster gravel” bike could be.

Litespeed Coll dels Reis

With the Coll dels Reis, Litespeed had one simple mission: build the world’s lightest titanium climbing bike. This medium frame weighs in at 1,049 grams, making it the lightest production titanium disc-brake frame ever made, while also being thoroughly modern with a 44 mm headtube, a T47 bottom bracket, a UDH rear dropout, internal cable routing, and clearance for 35 mm tires. If riders want to shed even more weight, choosing a BSA Superlight bottom bracket and machined titanium dropouts will bring the frame weight down to 948 grams!

The Coll dels Reis is built using Litespeed’s lightest Superform FW tubeset, which is fully custom, hand-formed, and size-specific. Every tube features variable wall thickness and cold-worked 3D-shaping along its full length. The result is not only stunningly light, but it exemplifies all of the ride characteristics that make titanium bikes feel magical.

This build features an ENVE Road IN-Route fork, SES AR One-Piece handlebar, SES 2.3 wheels, SRAM RED AXS groupset, a Litespeed titanium seatpost, and a Balearic blue anodized finish.

Chumba Cenote Suspension Gravel Bike

For the ENVE Framebuilder Showcase, Chumba wanted to focus on the beauty of the handmade titanium Cenote frame with the clean aesthetic of the ENVE components. So they stripped the bike down to singlespeed mode, revealing neat and tidy welds with eye-catching anodizing. A quick change of the dropout insert and you can run UDH, T-Type, or traditional mount derailleurs. Chumba collaborated with Paragon Machine Works on the UDH insert, which makes even Chumba’s oldest models Transmission compatible!  The frameset will clear a 700 x 50 mm tire, with 44T big chainring clearance on normal chainlines.

Following the “groad” of the ENVE Grodeo, more gravel events are combining gravel, road, jeep road chonk, and singletrack. The need for a fast and capable gravel bike that both inspires confidence and is a blast to race/ride was the inspiration for adding the Cenote to the Chumba lineup. The geometry blends concepts from the Terlingua, SL, and Yaupon models. The Cenote is built around a longer front center with a longer TT, slacker HTº, and a touch steeper STº than the Terlingua Gravel Bike. The Cenote is best paired with shorter stems, wider bars, and 42-50 mm tires. The result is the ultimate underbike!

Cenote name: Is it C-Note? Is it Say-now-te? The Cenote name was inspired by the seemingly bottomless sinkhole pools around them and just the beauty of the word itself. Chumba always enjoy words that bring up questions like this for model names, and it’s fun to make the bikes mysterious and open-ended with the naming.

Jaegher Ascender Phoenix

Jaegher, the award-winning Belgian custom bike brand, launches Ascender Phoenix, a stainless steel all-road model with 3D-printed parts and state-of-the-art craftsmanship.

Due to the properties of the latest generation of stainless steel, this material is the ideal choice for building a bike. Stainless steel frame construction is labor-intensive and demands a high level of craftsmanship, which is why mass-market brands often opt for quickly producible and cheaper materials. Every Jaegher bike is crafted in Flanders, Belgium.

Landyachtz Drop Bar MTB

Landyachtz Bikes, based in Vancouver, Canada, is better known for their skateboards – but whether it’s on four wheels or two, they bring a sense of fun to everything they produce. This drop bar MTB is no exception. In fact, it’s one of the most buttoned-up and nicest bikes we’ve seen from Landyachtz.

In this year’s Tour Divide, they will have 3 bikes in the pack, piloted by Alexia Molina, Corey Wallace, and Svein Tuft. All three riders are off to a fantastic start. You may recognize the name Svein Tuft from his pro cycling career that included stage wins in little-known events like the Tour de France and the Giro d’italia.

Landyachtz’s build for the 2025 Grodeo is running all the same geo and design we put together for Svein, but we had a little more fun with the art and design to add some Canadiana. We opted to skip on the batteries and run some good old-fashioned cables, luckily SRAM has an option that allows us to run 12-speed with Eagle range.

Scarab Paramo

Designed around 40 – 50 mm tires, depending on the rider’s desired handling characteristics, the Paramo offers a perfect balance of fast-rolling efficiency and off-road compliance. It slots between the Apüna, Scarab’s all-road platform (up to 40 mm tires), and the Paramo Ultra, an expedition-ready machine that features sliding dropouts and clears up to 55 mm tires. Each model also utilizes a special blend of tubing to provide a unique ride experience.

The Paramo’s wider tire clearance is courtesy of a new design of the rear triangle with redesigned chainstays and seatstays that enable Scarab to adapt the bike to clear wider tires and keep good clearance for larger chainrings. The new Paramo responds to the ever- changing needs of gravel riders. It can be configured with either a fully integrated front end for a clean, modern look, or with a more traditional setup. Additional frame details include T47 bottom bracket and UDH dropouts for modern drivetrain compatibility. The Paramo is also compatible with Scarab’s Colibrí Damping System, an optional integrated carbon seatmast that smooths out rough terrain on longer rides.

Along with the announcement of the new Paramo, Scarab has created a new paint scheme, Tropical Cliché, a twist on their Jungla paint scheme, adding more “air” (or white space) to the body of the patterns, and camouflaged flora and fauna among bolder colors. Tropical Cliché is an homage to the Chocó Jungle in Colombia, a magical place where the mountains meet the Pacific Ocean, it’s one of the most biologically diverse locations on earth.

Ruegamer

Bre Rue is the mechanic for Dave Rosin at Sage. She brought Sage’s show bike to the Grodeo and threw in her own personal hardtail as a secondary show bike to showcase her history with Enve, back when it was originally named Edge Composites.

Bre Rue and Carl made the tubes together at the old factory. This bike was built for the Edge booth back in 2008. The handlebar was the first cross-country one-piece handlebar prototype. She painted hubs and airbrushed the frame herself. The Hope brakes were originally anodized pink with flowers etched in by Bre as well. She used to race for Cannondale, so she had a Team Lefty fork with a full carbon leg and titanium spindle, which was never available to the public.

This was such an amazing piece of history to see pop up at the show, still amazing all these years later.

Trackline Time Trial

By far the most debaucherous part of the Grodeo is the Trackline Time Trial. A short course just out the back door of the Enve factory provides the course for the time trial, which featured categories for kids, builders, and even a shotgun category.

Many of the employees’ kids hold down the finish line with an arsenal of water guns and improvised water sprayers. The kids go hard… maybe a bit too hard in a few instances.

Thanks to Enve again for hosting such a fun event for the rider and builder community alike. I can’t wait for next year!