You don’t have to be a Leonardo to ride this Devinci! With features like a sporty 6061-T6 aluminum frame, hassle-free GRX drivetrain, and plenty of mounting points for all your gear, you’ll be smiling from ear to ear on the Devinci Hatchet Vista. All of this at a price point that would make the Mona Lisa blush. Read on for Sean’s thoughts and more about Devinci’s adventure gravel workhorse…

If you are reading this in the lower 48, chances are you may not have heard of Devinci, unless you are really into full-suspension bikes. For those unfamiliar with Devinci, it is a legacy Canadian bike maker located in Quebec, Canada. They have been welding frames, predominantly in aluminum, since 1987. They make many of their mountain bikes in-house, and my research shows they also weld up e-bikes and city bikes for Canada’s metropolitan bike programs as well as other city bike programs around the world, including Barcelona, Monaco, Rio de Janeiro, London, and Boston.

If you’re a world traveler, chances are you’ve ridden a bike built by Devinci before.

The Hatchet Vista is a departure for Devinci as a gravel bike, and one not made in their Canadian factory, but it carries all the years of design expertise and showcases their capabilities in aluminum. At $2,099 for the GRX build, it is competitive with other similar gravel offerings from larger brands, such as Specialized (Diverge E5 Elite, $1,599), Trek (Checkpoint ALR 4, $1,949), and Salsa (Journeyer GRX, $2,499).

Divinci Hatchet Vista Quick Hits

• Carbon fork with sparkle paint and everything cage mounts
• 25 mm wide tubeless-ready aluminum laced to Shimano hubs
• Shimano GRX groupset matched to a Deore 11-51t cassette
• Devinci seatpost and drop handlebars
• WTB Resolute 700×42 tubeless-ready tires
• $2099

My most memorable ride on the Hatchet Vista was a weekend loop down in Patagonia, AZ, with the buds. No wild bikepacking adventure or sufferfest. Just a casual spring afternoon in southeastern Arizona. As the locals know, spring (or what we consider to be spring) only really exists for approximately five days out of the year, and it rarely falls on a weekend.

We were stoked, to say the least! I kept the bike stock other than the addition of a Fab’s Fanny mounted to the handlebar as a day bag for extra water and snacks. I also set up the tires tubeless because, as we all know, tubes don’t last long in the desert.

The Hatchet Vista performed as expected on this ride: efficient, smooth, and flawless. Some aluminum bikes can feel harsh and overly stiff, but this bike did not. The carbon fork helped dampen the front end, and the rear end didn’t feel chattery at all. Even after I ripped through several creek crossings, the T47 bottom bracket was smooth and creak-free.

If you are looking for a flashy bike, the Hatchet Vista isn’t it. Its paint scheme is a subdued greenish brown called Bronzite, and its parts are minimally branded. The black carbon fork does have a beautiful gold glitter finish, but it’s probably hard to see in the photos due to it being covered in dust. Love leaving your bike dirty? No problem with this one – dirt is brown and your bike is brown, you’re good to go. Need to leave your bike in the bushes for some reason? This bike will blend right in.

All jokes aside, I’m a fan of the not-so-flashy paint job. It’s very utilitarian and brought back memories of my grey Pake C’Mute. There’s something very calming about a bike that blends in with its surroundings. It feels like it belongs out on a forest service road or on a long stretch of desert highway. The Hatchet Vista could be your favorite commuter, a steady adventurer, or even a long-distance tourer without worry of dirtying it up. One thing that all my friends commented on was the bump on the top tube where it connects to the head tube.

This was not something that bothered me aesthetically, but certainly caught the eye of others. When I asked Devinci about the design choices, they said that it was a signature of their design and echoes the shape of their V logo. The frame has mounts for anything cages on the fork and three bottles. It also has rack mounts hidden on the inside of the seatstays. Having a rear rack on a bike like this is a game changer for smaller riders, folks who don’t like saddle bags that rub their thighs, or even someone who wants to install a dropper seatpost.

It’s not really my thing to ride a dropper on a gravel bike, but the frame is plumbed for it. Having the option to add a dropper is always better than running an external one.

This bike features 42 mm tires and boasts a maximum clearance of 45 mm. This seems to be relatively narrow, as many of the gravel/adventure bikes on the market these days fit at least a 50 mm. I know that people will argue, “Then why not get a mountain bike and throw drop bars on it?”

Well, I agree that people are going to keep cramming larger and larger tires in gravel bikes until the end of time. In this case, I think the bike would benefit from being able to clear a slightly wider tire. I asked Devinci about this, and they mentioned that the market in the Eastern provinces favors a narrower tire. The 42 mm WTB tires did ride great and may be plenty for your applications, but for some of the more rugged desert rides, a bit more width would be better.

I also had a hard time setting up the tires tubeless on these particular rims. It required setting up one side of the bead with a tube, removing the tube, then carefully shimmying the bead on the other side before blasting it with a compressor. I haven’t had to do this kind of tubeless setup lately, as most wheel and tire combos have become tighter and don’t even require a compressor to set up tubeless.

Other than the initial tubeless setup giving me a little trouble, the bike had no issues. I’m six feet tall, and the large size fits me perfectly, with very little bar drop. Devinci has a comprehensive geometry chart on their website with sizing suggestions that I found to be fairly accurate. The stock wheels were stiff and worked well. The cockpit and saddle provided a comfortable platform for riding off-road without any unnecessary branding. Sometimes the saddle that comes with the bike is the first thing to get ditched, but the Devinci-branded saddle was quite comfortable, and I appreciated its lack of seams.

What impressed me most in the build of this bike was the mechanical GRX 610 groupset with the wide-range cassette. The gearing was substantial and shifted like a dream. If you haven’t ridden a bike with GRX, I recommend it. It feels durable and the brakes work just as well as their MTB flat bar offerings. The extra-long lever tops create an additional hand position similar to that of a bar end, and I love it. Something about having one more place to rest your hands on a long ride seems to help with fatigue and hand numbness.

I would recommend the Devinci Hatchet Vista to anyone who is looking for a gravel bike that is more rugged and set up for touring. A few upgrades could be made to get it race-ready, if that’s what you’re into. The Hatchet Vista would be the perfect bike for YNDRBTS, an annual bike tour so secret that the organizers and advisory board would only let me refer to its name without vowels.

The tour consists of four days of physical feats of strength, emotional growth through karaoke therapy, and one burrito crit that literally races against state lines. With the Hatchet Vista, it would be no contest. So whether it’s cruising your local dirt roads or touring cross country, the Hatchet Vista will get you where you need to go.

Pros

• Designed in Quebec by a company that has been designing and manufacturing bikes for decades
  Comfortable stack height
• The aluminum frame is lightweight and stiff, perfect for loading up with gear for adventures and taking on long dirt road rips
• The Shimano GRX 610 groupset is robust. It shifts and brakes flawlessly. The ergonomics of the levers are comfy for longer rides
• Branding on the Hatchet Vista’s components is minimal, giving the bike a clean look, while details like the gold flake in the fork make it pop just the right amount

Cons

• Wider tires and more clearance would be nice for more rugged expeditions
• The wheels are very stout but kind of heavy as a result
• The seatpost construction is basic. A carbon seatpost or butted seatpost might offer more compliance and comfort
• Tubeless setup with this tire and rim combo requires some persistence