ONE FOR ALL
IS IT POSSIBLE TO USE ONE BIKE FOR EVERYTHING? YES, SAYS WARREN ROSSITER. HERE ARE TWO WORTH CONSIDERING FOR UNDER £3,500…
From super-smooth endurance bikes to lightweight race rigs and aero-clad, straight-line speed machines, there’s a huge variety of road bikes out there. But what if you want a bit more of an allrounder? A road bike that has quick handling, is light enough and has some aero considerations for racing, but can be ridden all day without kicking you into submission and, above all else, puts a smile on your face? We hear you, so we’ve checked out two serious contenders for around £3,500.
Our opener is the latest iteration of Vitus’s Vitesse race machine. The new Evo loses weight, gains stiffness and has had an aero makeover. But it’s still packed with value and represents an affordable road bike with wireless gears.
Going up against it is the LIOS Bullet, which the British brand calls a ‘racy allrounder’. LIOS has been around for a decade now, operating out of its Lee-onthe-Solent base. Its road bikes are sold with a personalised Rëtul fitting service included – so you’ll get the sort of service normally reserved for full-custom or very expensive builds.
On paper, both look like exceptional value, and they should take clip-on aero bars to boost their versatility, too. But when all is said and done, do they deliver? Let’s find out…
Vitus Vitesse Evo CR Rival AXS
Vitus has a storied history of top-level racing, but since its revival under the ownership of CRC/Wiggle, it’s grown into a brand with value and performance at its core. This Vitesse Evo’s spec sheet features SRAM’s Rival AXS wireless groupset, top-end 1,470g alloy wheels, great tyres, a carbon seatpost, a 910g frame and a light 370g fork.
The frameset is now 10% lighter, more aerodynamic and much stiffer in critical areas – 11% at the head tube, 50.2% at the bottom bracket, 8.9% at the rear triangle and 69.5% in the fork. Vitus says this is because the frame is now a monocoque construction (made from a single piece rather than multiple pieces of carbon being bonded together). In spite of it being the lightest bike here by nearly half a kilo, it’s also the least expensive. An impressive achievement.
It cuts quite the figure in the flesh, too, with its muted navy blue and understated gold livery. The modern silhouette, with its kammtail tube profiles and dropped skinny stays, looks the business. However, the brake routing isn’t fully integrated. Instead, there are single-entry points for the brake hose on the fork crown and on the left-hand side of the frame, which double up for the cable routing if you opt for a non-wireless bike. The 30mm maximum tyre size signals it as a pure road machine.
“Rival AXS really does represent the future of bicycle drivetrains at a price we haven’t seen before”
The geometry is very much the racer’s choice. Our XL test bike (a 58cm equivalent) has a low stack of 582mm and a long reach of 402mm. This is paired with steep 73.2° angles and a compact 1,008mm wheelbase. On the road, this translates to a whip-quick bike with super-fast handling, which is aided by a snappy trail of 56mm.
Those huge increases in frame stiffness and relatively thin tyres did have us concerned for both our undercarriage and our fillings, but the Vitesse Evo simply isn’t harsh. If you’re coming from a smooth endurance bike like a Cannondale Synapse or Giant Defy, you’ll feel the difference, but for a dedicated racing machine, the Vitus impresses with its big-mile comfort.
Specced with SRAM Rival AXS, the Vitesse demonstrates impressive billing on its drivetrain and braking performance. Shifting is smooth and slick with a straightforward logic to changing gear – right lever harder, left lever easier, both together shift the front mech. Simple. And it’s accompanied by SRAM’s excellent AXS app, which adds tunability to the gearing, multishift control, levels of automation and riderecording functions, including uploading to Strava. In this tester’s opinion, Rival AXS really does represent the future of bicycle drivetrains at a price we haven’t seen before.
MORE OR LESS: VITUS
The Vitesse Evo CRS Di2 (£3,699.99) comes equipped with Shimano’s 11-speed Ultegra R8050 Di2 rather than the new 12-speed R8100 version, is finished with quality Reynolds carbon disc wheels and claims a flighty 7.5kg on the scales.
Don’t need electronics? Opt for the Vitesse Evo CR 105 and you can save a heap of cash on the lightweight Evo frameset – built up with Shimano’s excellent 105 mechanical group and Prime Baroudeur wheels for a penny shy of £2,000.
And there’s another upgrade to the drivetrain that isn’t obvious at first but shouldn’t be overlooked. Instead of Rival’s standard steel cassette, Vitus has chosen SRAM’s swish Red 1290 model. This uses SRAM’s one-piece X-Dome construction, resulting in a weight of under 180g compared to Rival’s 340g – and it costs close to £350 compared to Rival’s £112.
The Vitesse’s quality build continues with the Prime Attaquer wheels. Premium wheels don’t have to be carbon and the alloy Primes proved this. They weigh less than 1,500g per pair, are tubeless ready and have a modern, wide rim with a 19mm internal width. They responded well to sprinting efforts with no side-to-side give and seemed a great wheelset, no matter what we threw at them. They’re shod with high-quality tyres, too, in the form of Schwalbe’s ever-dependable tubeless TLE Tubeless Ones.
We’ve very few criticisms of the Evo. Is it perfect? Well, its racing bent means it’s not ideal for winter riding, as there’s no provision for fixed mudguards. We also found the bar tape stretched a little thin over the nicely shaped Prime bar, which meant that after a six-hour test ride, the heels of both our palms felt a little tender. We didn’t get on with Vitus’s saddle, either, which slightly dulled our experience, but saddles are, of course, a very personal thing.
VITUS VITESSE EVO CR RIVAL AXS £3,199.99 VITUSBIKES.COM
SPECS
Weight 8.08kg (58cm/XL) Frame SL UD Carbon Fork SL UD Carbon Gears SRAM Rival AXS, 48/35, 10-33) Brakes SRAM Rival Hydraulic disc Wheels Prime Attaquer disc Finishing kit Prime Doyenne aluminium bar, Prime Doyenne aluminium stem, Vitus Race Performance saddle, Schwalbe One Performance TLE 25c tyres
HIGHS Fantastic handling; light weight; superb value
LOWS Thin bar tape; awkward saddle
BUY IF… You want an undiluted road racer at an impressive price
92%
VERDICT: VITUS KILLS IT ON PERFORMANCE AND VALUE. A STUNNING COMBINATION
LIOS Bullet Disc Rival AXS
LIOS founder Steve McCulley started the brand over a decade ago after an improvised explosive device brought his career in the armed forces to an end. The company’s bikes are specified, tested and developed in the UK and, like most major bike brands, the frames are manufactured in Asia.
LIOS’s difference, however, is in the buying experience. Every buyer is offered an accurate Rëtul 3D-scanning bike fit and consultation so your bike will be set up to your requirements, with everything from bar width to saddle choice, wheels and kit selected by you.
“This bike is punchy, powerful, full of character and deserving of the ‘Bullet’ name”
Our Bullet Disc bike is representative of LIOS’s base build for the Rival AXS model, but we supplied our Rëtul details, so the bike came with the correct-width bar and height, and the saddle choice and reach set up perfectly.
The brand describes the Bullet as its goto ride. The aim was to combine swift, racy handling with a light frame and fork, but one that gives you enough smoothing compliance for comfortable long days out on challenging rides.
Its frame and fork are nicely realised, with the bike’s front end combining a tapered, oversized head tube with a down tube that spreads into a triangulated junction, the head tube giving the bike a stiff, solid-feeling front end. The fork spreads at the crown to maximise tyre clearance and minimise air turbulence from the spinning front wheel.
At a claimed 1,050g for the frame and 400g for the fork, the Bullet is competitively light. And its 8.5kg overall weight is not far off the Vitus.
MORE OR LESS: LIOS
Fans of rim brakes will be relieved to see that the Bullet is available without discs. Builds start at £2,495 for Shimano Ultegra, while the SRAM Force AXS-equipped model dips just under the four-grand mark (£3,995). You don’t need to go electronic, and if mechanical shifting is your thing, then LIOS offers the Bullet frameset with Shimano’s ever-dependable Ultegra mechanical group at the same competitive price (£3,495).
The Bullet’s shape is built for speed. Its steep 73.5° head angle and racy 73° seat combine with a wheelbase just over a metre long to deliver a tight, taut bike that revels in being muscled through corners, while its stiff frame responds to sprinting efforts with a welcome snap. Our 58cm test bike’s 579mm stack made it possible for us to get into a low ride position and the 398mm reach adds to its performance feel. The short, 43mm fork offset combines with the head angle to create a snappy 56mm trail.
So how did we find the ride? Punchy, powerful, full of character and deserving of the ‘Bullet’ name. The solid chassis responds superbly when you want to go for it and its build enhances that.
The quality Zipp cockpit has a deep-drop bar, while the neat and racy Rival AXS gearing pairs a 46/33 chainset and a 10-30 cassette. The close gear progression means we never struggled for a gear whether climbing or descending, and it really comes into its own when you’re building speed on rolling terrain. For its overall quality and bang-for-bucks value, SRAM’s Rival is fast becoming one of our favourite groupsets.
Each element of the bike’s build represents great value and none more so than LIOS’s own excellent tubelessready carbon wheels. These have 35mm deep, broad-blunted, aero-shaped rims with a modern 21mm internal width. Their alloy CenterLock rotor-compatible hubs are a simple design with large, flat flanges and straight hub bodies that hold easy-to-service cartridge bearings.
At 1,550g per pair, their low weight adds to the Bullet’s flighty feel.
LIOS hasn’t scrimped on tyre choice either. Buy a Bullet in the spring or summer and you’ll get Vittoria’s speedy Corsas. In winter you’ll get Pirelli’s foulweather Cinturato tyres, a favourite of ours thanks to a tread that works well in the wet without dulling the ride.
The value-packed Bullet’s ride quality is firm. The stiffness that makes the bike responsive and fun to ride doesn’t allow much compliance, and touches like a carbon seatpost help to keep the worst knocks and vibrations at bay. After three hours of our first test ride, we could feel more aluminium bar than foam padding under the heels of our hands, though. The Bullet frame is built for the road and, with 26c tyres fitted to those wide rims, the frame’s rear tyre clearance was close to its stated 30mm max. And while we’d like to have seen mudguard mounts, there are good clip-on options out there.
LIOS BULLET DISC RIVAL AXS £3,495 LIOSBIKES.COM
SPECS
Weight 8.5kg (58cm) Frame T800 carbon Fork Carbon Gears SRAM Rival AXS, 46/33, 10-30 Brakes SRAM Rival hydraulic disc Wheels LIOS CD35 carbon tubeless ready Finishing kit Fizik Arione R5 Open saddle, LIOS carbon seatpost, Zipp Service Course alloy stem, Zipp Service Course Ergo 80 alloy bar, Pirelli Cinturato 26c tyres
HIGHS Awesome spec for the money; superb handling
LOWS Thin bar tape; tyre clearance isn’t huge; no mudguard provision
BUY IF… You want a bike built to fit at a fraction of the usual price you’d pay
90%
VERDICT: IN A COMPETITIVE MARKET LIOS OFFERS MORE THAN ENOUGH TO STAND OUT