The ENVE Custom Road Bike Is An Exercise In Delayed Gratification

Sep 23, 2023

ENVE Custom Road

Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas challenged me to a gravel race last year in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Okay, it wasn’t a direct challenge. But I knew the Alfa Romeo driver would be competing in the 2022 STB GRVL event. Ergo, if I signed up for the same race distance, we’d compete against one another. Obviously, I had no choice but to accept his challenge and to ultimately crush the Finnish driver’s spirits on the 60-mile Red Course.

Given that Bottas is an elite athlete who competes at the pinnacle of motorsport. And considering I’m 18 years his senior and not an elite athlete, the difference between winning and losing could come down to equipment choices. My everyday gravel bike for the past several years has been the Chamois Hagar by Evil Bikes. This is a gravel bike designed for mountain bikers—a full-send gravel bike, if you will—that is mega-fun but not necessarily an SBT race machine. The gravel roads of Steamboat Springs are fast and smooth. For good reason, they’re described as the “Champagne of gravel.” Indeed, the most rubber you could need is a 38c tire, but a 35c offers plenty of girth if maximum pace is the priority. Fortunately, I’d just taken delivery of a new ENVE Custom Road that had been a year in the making. This would be my secret weapon.

Taking delivery at ENVE headquarters

ENVE announced its new Custom Road frame—a first for the US company that’s better known for its wheels—in early 2021. I interviewed ENVE marketing manager Neil Shirley about this big move when it debuted and then ordered one shortly thereafter. The promise of this one-of-a-kind road bike was that it would be handcrafted in Ogden, Utah, to exact specifications. ENVE developed a novel approach to determining each rider’s frame design based on three key measurements: saddle height, bar height, and the distance between the bar and saddle. This is one’s ideal riding position, which had likely evolved from years of riding different stock bikes. Except with those, headset spacers and setback seat posts were likely used to achieve that fit. The Custom Road would do away with those by extending the head tube length and increasing the seat tube angle, respectively.

Since I live about an hour’s drive from ENVE headquarters, I did my frame fitting in person and also got a walk-through of the Custom Road birthing process. Like all carbon fiber frames and components, it starts with sheets of raw carbon fiber that are cut, formed, shaped, heated, baked, and so forth until they come out of a mold as more-or-less the thing you want to make. Stock carbon fiber frames are typically created from a monocoque process, which is a single mold for each bike size. Since each Custom Road is unique, these frames are the sum total of 12 different carbon fiber frame pieces that are fitted together per the rider’s specifications in creating a one-off frame.

The ENVE Custom integrated handlebar and stem

One of the more compelling features of the Custom Road is the integrated handlebar and stem. Each of these is built for it’s own frame, as it is part of the customization process in achieving the ideal fit and riding position. When setting up factory bikes, I typically ride a 56cm frame and then make two adjustments to the cockpit. First, I add spacers to raise the bar height to balance the pressure between my hands and butt. Next, I shorten the stock stem to 90mm or 100mm to tighten up the reach and shift my weight toward the center of the bike. The ENVE Custom bar/stem is designed around these specifications. Of course, you can choose the bar width, as well, and I opted for a slightly wider hand position—44cm vs 42cm—because I intended to use it for gravel and wanted that extra stability. I also opted for the All Road geometry, which adds 100mm to the wheel base. This also increases stability on uneven surfaces, while sacrificing some handling on steep, twisty asphalt sections.

Perhaps the biggest decision in designing an ENVE Custom Road is color choice. After all, this will likely be a forever bike. You might upgrade components and wheels. But there will never be a reason to sell this bike. So you better enjoy its aesthetic. ENVE has four different paint templates, two finishes and 38 colors to choose from. That’s a lot of combinations. First, I narrowed it down to the Solo template, which features two colors and one finish, and then decided on a gloss finish. This template features a primary color for most of the frame and fork, along with a secondary color that is found inside the fork and chainstays. Plus, the ENVE decals can match the secondary color to further highlight it. In deciding on the colors, I drew inspiration from one of my childhood heroes, Carroll Shelby, and went with Atlantic Blue Metallic as the primary color and Arctic White as the secondary color like that of a 1968 Shelby Cobra sports car. So I call this the “ENVE Cobra.”

Shimano Dura-Ace Di2

I didn’t choose Shimano’s top-of-the-line road group with the intent of flogging it across hundreds of miles of gravel terrain in both Steamboat Springs and Finland. That’s just the way it worked out.

What was my first impression of riding what is perhaps the most advanced drivetrain ever to grace asphalt? Let’s say it was a combination of Burberry, Balenciaga and Mercedes Benz AMG. Yes, it’s an ultra-high-performance groupset, but it’s also luxurious. It’s refined and precise. It’s beautiful to look at with a certain polish that transcends its mechanics. At the same time, it’s still somewhat rare due to recent supply issues.

The shifts felt fast, smooth and precise…but also expensive and indulgent if that’s even possible. The shifts feel privileged and rarified. Using the E-Tube mobile app, the group can be tuned and programmed according to a number of different rider preferences, as the Bluetooth connection is fully integrated. First and foremost, I configured the shifters such that the large paddles on the right and left are for upshifts and downshifts of the rear derailleur, respectively, and the small buttons on the right and left do the same for the front derailleur. In other words, the right shifter is for harder gears, and the left shifter is for easier gears…much like a high-performance automobile or race car. This makes shifting as simple and intuitive as it can possibly be. Despite a few rides to get used to this new UI, I can’t recommend it highly enough. You can also program the shift speed, which has achieved new heights with this new generation of Dura-Ace technology.

The Di2 9200 rear derailleur is also the charging point for the battery

The 9200 group also upgrades the Di2 system with a partial wireless system. The shifters now communicate wirelessly with the battery, which can be located close to the derailleurs. The battery is hard-wired to the derailleurs with much less cabling than previous Di2 generations. Shimano also did away with the junction box, which was often located in the bar end, and integrated it to the rear derailleur. This is where you both charge the battery and use the toggle button to change shifting modes, which are established via the E-Tube mobile app. In addition to programming the shift buttons to a more F1-like interface, you can opt for shifting synchronization modes. These have been available for Di2 for a while, and they effectively eliminate any need to shift the front derailleur. When the rear derailleur hits an extreme gear range (big-to-big or small-to-small), it will automatically shift the front derailleur to a more optimal gear combination while simultaneously shifting the rear derailleur up or down to match the gear ratio you were seeking with that up or downshift. The only caveat is that you want your cyclometer (in my case, a Garmin) to alert you that this series of automated shifts is about to occur. Otherwise, it may catch you off guard while pedaling out of the saddle or worse, when in the middle of a sprint. As with the shift button configuration, this will take several rides to fully internalize.

The SES 2.3 is the lightest tubeless wheel that ENVE offers

The timing for my delivery of the Custom Road coincided with ENVE’s release of its new, 2022 SES wheel lineup, which included a new, superlight SES 2.3 model. Truth be told, I’ve been asking ENVE for this wheel for several years i.e. a tubeless wheel that reduces as much weight as possible for getting after my climbing PRs but without sacrificing the durability and ride quality we’ve come to expect from wheels like the all-purpose SES 3.4. And they delivered. At 1,179 grams, this is the lightest wheelset I’ve ever ridden. It features a 21cm internal rim width, which ideally suits it for 28c tires. But you can go either way with ENVE’s 26c tire to shave grams or its 31c tire to gain more grip at lower tire pressure and with lower rolling resistance. I preferred the 28c to get maximum performance on climbs. Given that the Custom Road is not the lightest frame at this price point, the SES 2.3s offset this and get the bike down to a svelte 16ish pounds even with pedals. That said, the SES 2.3 is not a gravel wheelset, so I did require something more stout in taking full advantage of the Custom’s All Road geometry, wider handlebars, and its ability to accommodate 35c gravel tires.

As previously mentioned, the Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset was incredibly difficult to source, and the power-meter equipped crankset was nearly impossible. In order to add a power meter, I opted for the new Garmin Rally RS200 dual-sided power meter pedals, which are now based on the Shimano SPD body and cleat interface. And there are several advantages to measuring power from the pedal spindle. The most obvious is convenience. If you ever travel to rent a bike, it’s easy to take your power meter with you so you don’t lose those data. On a more geeky rationale, Garmin’s pedals capture a lot more data than a typical crank-based model. You’ll get offset and pedal phases and cycling dynamics in addition to left-right balance, all of which can aid in improving overall efficiency for each individual leg. My real-world experience with these data has helped to identify a muscle strain in my right leg that needed therapy to full unlock its potential and match the power of my left leg.

The integrated seat post makes for a more compliant ride

As you’d expect from a bike of this caliber and construction with a geometry designed specifically for your body and riding style, the ride quality is about as good as you can get. It weighs 16 pound, 3 ounces with pedals. It’s light but not scary light. The extra wheelbase from the All Road geometry gives it tremendous range as a light-duty gravel bike with 35c tires. It was precisely what I needed for both the SBT and FNLD GRVL courses.

The one aspect of the geometry that takes getting used to is the high top tube. ENVE seeks to eliminate headset spacers to give it a slammed race look. In order to achieve this, the head tube has to be much higher (longer) than a factory bike, and the top tube rises with the head tube. So when you pedal out of the saddle, the head tube is much higher than you might expect. This doesn’t affect performance; you just have to adjust to it.

Perhaps the best feature of the ENVE Custom Road has nothing to do with actual performance. Unless inspiration can be converted to watts. Because as you look down at the bike between your legs, you can’t help but to appreciate how beautiful it is. The aesthetic of the paint and craftsmanship and how the frame, stem and handlebar flow together as if sculpted from a block of carbon fiber is awe inspiring. Beyond the custom geometry, this is what truly sets it apart from a factory bike and makes the yearlong wait entirely worth it.