New brand, new adventure bike - views?

[mnichols]

I'm quite tempted by this adventure bike to replace my Hardtail for offroad touring. Seems like a bargain

Https://www.alpkit.com/sonder/sonder-broken-road

Not sure about the geometry though, looks like a downhill bike

[Sweep]

What purpose does the titanium serve?

I'd check out breton bikes' review of the ridgeback expedition.

A complete bike for the price of that frame.

[Norman H]

An interesting new departure for Alpkit. They have a reputation for competitive pricing by cutting out the middleman and sourcing direct, usually from China. They also have something of a reputation for erratic supplies. Things may have improved lately....... Their down sleeping bags were quite well thought of but I gave up waiting for stock to arrive.

I had a quick look at their other bikes and one thing that I noticed, apart from the unusual drive side chainstays, was that their appear to be no pannier mounts but I guess this ties in with them also selling bikepacking luggage. Why not provide them and leave the individual to decide whether or not to use them.

[Spinners]

Not quite my cup of tea but interesting to see a Ti fork.

[531colin]

There is some hidden information in the spec. sheet....the head tube is 44mm, which means they are using an external bottom and internal top cup to fit a inch and half/inch and eighth tapered steerer.
That gets round the problem of inch and eighth Ti steerers being a bit flexy, and it gives the opportunity to fit a massive "crown" like this one....



However, two things....
It doesn't look to me that Sonder have taken that opportunity, it looks to me like its just an inch and eighth tube below the crown race.
In the picture above, I can understand the massive "crown" because you don't want the maximum stress and flexibility concentrating where the Ti is welded, but they spoil it by having 2 straight blades which are just about the same diameter as the inch and eighth steerer....which takes us right back to the steerer being the most flexible bit of the fork?
Unfortunately, tapered titanium tubing is about as common as rocking horse droppings, so is the answer to sleeve the top of the fork blades like this



I think I would prefer to make the blades oval to round to put the flex where I want it.