GRAVEL WARS
At first glance, adventure bikes seem to be getting closer to being mountain bikes, just with drop handlebars and a ton of cargo fixtures. So just how capable are they when you put them into the most testing terrain possible? We took Mason’s steel-framed ISO and Salsa’s latest carbon-framed Cutthroat to the Kintail Affric trail in the Scottish Highlands to find out.
IN AT THE DEEP END
The last time I rode over Glen Affric (or the Morvich loop or Ben Attow as it’s sometimes known) it was on a six-inch travel enduro mountain bike. I still pushed and carried several sections up and down and that was during an unseasonably hot May a couple of years ago.
The good news is that as my testing wingman, Ryan, amd Is it in the beautiful, eco-heated, picture window cosiness of our accommodation – The Field House in Avernish – the fells gradually appear out of the mist and rain on the other side of the loch. Well, the lower 100 to 150m of them do and we’re only going up to 350m at the highest point.
Thankfully, there’s a light tailwind funneling us down the first part of the route as we settle into our bikes. There are some big differences between them, too.
Mason’s ISO (InSearchOf) frame is built from a carefully curated blend of custom Italian Dedacciai and English Reynolds 853 steel tubing, curving sculpturally from a relatively steep head tube to exclusive 148mm boost-width bolt thu-axle dropouts made in the UK by Bear components. It’s studded right
