The new Condor Bivio+ is a gravel bike that should be simple and hardy enough for far-flung adventures – and your weekly shop.
The Bivio+ is based on Condor’s existing Bivio gravel bike but focuses on practicality over performance. To this end, it has clearance for 50mm tyres, a steel rather than carbon fork and uses strong steel in the frame.
Condor describes the Bivio+ as a “gravel beast” that’s “designed to carry everything for a self-sufficient off-tarmac adventure” but says you can also fit a front rack or basket to it for shopping and commuting.
The Bivio+ is said to be similar to the Fairlight Faran, Brother Kepler and Cotic Cascade. But the idea for the Bivio+ extends back further than any recent trends for super-capable steel gravel bikes.
Condor says staff member Adrian Lamb built the concept for the Bivio+ in 2016, using the brand’s Heritage touring frameset. Lamb requested that the frame had a custom fork with rack mounts, three bottle cages and clearance for 26in tyres, because there were few 700c options for gravel tyres over 45mm wide at the time.
There was demand for a bike with similar attributes in Condor’s annual customer survey. Condor says some were looking for a rugged shopping bike and others wanted a rugged bikepacking bike, with rider requests often overlapping.
As other smaller bike brands have said of their new bikes, Condor’s progress developing the Bivio+ slowed during COVID, with factory closures and increased demand for the rest of its range.
Balancing strength and weight
Condor says it worked with Columbus to design steel tubes in specific shapes and forms for the Bivio+.
While the Bivio uses Columbus Spirit and Spirit HSS steel tubing, the Bivio+ uses Zona tubes. Condor says it opted for Zona because of its strength and moderate weight. The frame has lightweight triple-butted tubes at the seat tube and top tube, and double-butted tubes at the stays.
Condor also worked with Columbus to develop custom dies to create “improved clearance for 50mm tyres” (or 55mm if you’re running 650b wheels) and to ensure the geometry worked well when heavily front-loaded.
Unlike the steel fork on the Condor Heritage model, the Bivio+ fork has a unicrown design. This is a structurally stronger approach, which Condor chose because of the rough terrain it imagines the Bivio+ will be ridden over.
The fork has four bottle mounts on each leg, plus barrel mounts for Condor’s front rack.
Made in Italy, the Bivio+ tubes are formed, shaped and cut in Milan by Columbus before being sent to Condor’s factory in north west Italy, where they are brazed by hand before being dipped in a rust-inhibiting treatment and painted.
Practicality over performance
Unlike Condor’s performance-focused gravel bikes, the Bivio+ has external cable routing to make maintenance easier. This is in keeping with many adventure-focused bikes, which are built to be ridden – and fixed – far from any bike shops that can help with complicated internal cable routing.
However, Condor has provided internal cable routing in the fork for a dynamo setup and in the top tube for a rear light.
Condor has specced the Bivio+ with a 1 ⅛in external headset, which it says is easy to maintain and “readily available across the world”. Condor says using an oversized head tube, as found on its performance bikes, would be heavier and not provide any advantage to the Bivio+. There is also a threaded bottom bracket for simplicity.
Available from 17 January
Condor says the Bivio+ frameset, priced at £1,299.99, will be available from Friday 17 January.
For customers purchasing a complete bike, the build queue will be roughly three to four weeks from when the frames are in stock.
Condor can build its bikes to your specifications. But its example builds for the Bivio+ start from £2,427 with a Shimano GRX 600 groupset and extend to £3,215 for a bike with Campagnolo Ekar GT.
Condor also provides custom geometry and colours with an eight to 10-week build time.
