New Parlee Taos Gravel Bike is all about Traction

Scorching on the heels of their Ouray all-road bike comes the Taos, a flexible gravel bike with the identical monocoque “nude” carbon body development however a give attention to delivering next-level traction.

Impressed by the wide range of terrain round Taos, New Mexico, their newest creation suits large tires and makes use of a dropped-stay, closely sloping body design to absorb chatter and hold your wheels planted. It additionally replaces the Chebacco as their inventory providing, although you’ll be able to nonetheless get a full customized Z-series gravel body if you need.

An all-new body

Just like the Ouray, the Taos’ body is a full monocoque design, made in a single piece of their new European companion manufacturing unit, and comes with a waxed end sans paint.

parlee taos gravel bike shown from rear angle.

This design provides them full management over your entire bike’s experience high quality in ways in which tube-to-tube or lugged development can’t. And so they do it with such precision that each UD layer you see is strictly the way it comes out of the mildew, completely positioned and completely practical…there are not any added beauty layers, ending, bonding, overwraps, or filler.

closeup of parlee taos gravel bike carbon fiber layup.

Which is why they provide it with a nude end that has nothing however a sturdy wax coating over it. That makes it lighter, with a claimed common body weight underneath 1kg, but it’s powerful sufficient to resist the weather and some knocks. As a result of it’s a gravel bike, high-impact zones are bolstered, and rubberized protecting shields cowl the underside of the downtube close to the BB and the chainstays.

About that traction

parlee taos gravel bike shown from non drive side.

With the one-piece development, Parlee is ready to tune the carbon fiber used within the seat tube, high tube, and seat stays to be extra compliant on the saddle than a typical gravel bike. They declare it has 20% extra compliance on the saddle than is typical. When you really feel that as extra consolation, it additionally means the rear tire has extra constant contact with the bottom, which interprets to raised traction because the wheel skips much less.

closeup of parlee taos gravel bike tire clearance.

The Taos suits as much as 700x50mm (2.0″) tires, which maximizes the tire patch and quantity, additionally aiding in grip and luxury. They are saying all of it provides as much as a motorcycle that provides higher traction than anything available on the market.

It’s additionally quick…

closeup of parlee taos gravel bike drivetrain.

The underside half of the bike is stiff for environment friendly energy switch. Whether or not you’re grinding up a climb, hammering for the end, or simply making the miles disappear as rapidly as doable, it’ll take advantage of all of your watts.

Refined aero touches assist with this. The highest of the downtube is a subtler model of their wind tunnel-proven Recurve design, and all cables and wires are hidden contained in the stem and body for a full stealth look. Parlee isn’t making any aero claims for the Taos, but it surely’s designed with single-day races like Unbound, BWR, and many others., in thoughts.

closeup of parlee taos gravel bike internal storage compartment in downtube.

As such, it has three bottle cage mounts (two contained in the entrance triangle, one beneath) and high tube bag mounts, plus their first-ever inside downtube storage compartment. However that’s about it. You possibly can strap extra luggage to it, but it surely’s not meant for fully-loaded bikepacking.

…and versatile

closeup of parlee taos gravel bike front axle flip chip.

The Taos’ geometry is suspension corrected. Its fork has a 425mm axle-to-crown measurement, just like fashionable gravel suspension forks. Add any 30-40mm fork you need and geometry barely modifications.

Hold it inflexible and you should use the flip-chip dropout to vary the fork offset from 45-51mm. Whereas it’s billed as a gravel bike, Parlee is aware of many riders like their bikes to tug double obligation, and this one’s suitable with tires all the way down to 700×32. Change the fork offset to regulate the dealing with to fit your tire dimension and desires.

Geometry & requirements

The Taos is obtainable in six body sizes, every with the choice for normal or tall head tube setups. This, together with full customized part builds for each bike based mostly in your match information, guarantee nearly each rider can discover a good match aboard the Taos.

closeup of parlee taos gravel bike cockpit.

The bike comes with built-in headsets for stealth routing, and so they use the frequent headset requirements so you should use any frequent setup from FSA, ENVE, Token, Deda, PRO, and many others.

Additionally they use a typical spherical seatpost and T47 BB. The entrance brake comes normal with a 160mm rotor because the smallest dimension, which helps you to simply swap to a 180mm rotor with none particular adapters. The rear brake sticks with the frequent 140/160 sizing.