Sitting on the ISON stand at the 2020 edition of cycling trade show Core Bike, this dreamy go-fast All-City Cosmic Stallion gravel bike is being used to showcase the very best from some of the distributor’s key brands. Here, we take a close look at this race-focused build.
The Cosmic Stallion is All-City’s all-out steel gravel race wagon. The frame is made from All-City’s in-house A.C.E tubing and features signature details such as the cast seatpost binder. A carbon Columbus Futura fork is fitted up front.
The bike has clearance for 47mm 700c tyres and, in a nod to versatility, also has provisions to fit full cover mudguards.
Of course, most importantly (you can’t go fast on a boring lookin’ bike after all), the bike is finished in a delightful deep purple to white fade paint job that looks even better in real life.
For the build, starting from the cockpit, the bike features a full complement of suspended finishing kit from Redshift. Redshift is gaining ground in the gravel world and its Shockstop stem scored well in a BikeRadar review last year.
A Whisky Parts Co No.7 12F drop bar rounds out the finishing kit.
(If you want to see a funkier endurance-focused bar, check out this prototype from Redshift that we also spotted at Core.)
The bike is built around a Shimano 800-series GRX groupset. GRX is Shimano’s gravel/'cross/adventure/whatever drop bar groupset and is now a regular sight on custom and OEM builds.
The Princeton Carbon Works Grit 4540 wheels are one of the highlights of the build.
There’s a lot of interesting tech on these wheels that probably merits a separate first look but, in brief, the brand uses a distinctive waveform profile on its rims that is reminiscent of Zipp’s Humpback technology.
However, unlike Zipp’s profile, Princeton Carbon Works uses a more symmetrical wave-like form (or, if you prefer Princeton’s terminology a “variable depth sinusoidal cross-section”) rather than the sawtooth-ish pattern seen on the Zipps.
The pattern is claimed to allow the wheels to behave like a deeper wheel in terms of aerodynamic performance without suffering from crosswind stability issues.
The Grit 4540 wheels are the brand’s gravel-specific wheels (yes, aero gravel is absolutely a thing now) and are laced to either Tune or White Industries hubs.
ISON will be All-City’s distributor for 2020 onwards, so we expect to see more of these popping up across the UK.
Click through the gallery above to see the bike in full and let us know in the comments what you would change on this build.
