With mounts for racks and mudguards it’ll make a very competent commuter or tourer, especially in the winter months. The added weight never making the steering feel ponderous, and all round quite lively should you want to get a lick on.Įven on the road it’s quite the joy to ride especially if you just want to take in the scenery and avoid the main roads. and adding about 6kg to the overall build the Gorilla still responds very well. It’s a really easy bike to ride, but should you want to give it a nudge it’s decently responsive.įully loading it up with tent, stove etc. I found it just glides along with very little input from me (apart from the legs obviously) thanks to the geometry and the components. Loading the Monsoon up with plenty of kit, supplies and spares in Restrap’s bar bag, seatpack and frame bag I could easily switch off on the well-travelled routes before finding somewhere new to ride. I’ve covered a fair amount of the huge network of permissive by-ways so to get anywhere new means a bit of trek to start exploring, which let’s be honest can get a bit monotonous. Living about 2 miles away from the Imber Range Path on Salisbury Plain means that I have easy access to 100s of kilometers of wide, hardpacked military gravel tracks. The Gorilla isn’t really about hooning around in the woods though, (it’s just good to know that you can) it’s on those longer rides that it comes into its own. All-City seem to have designed enough stiffness into the legs without sacrificing ride quality, there is still plenty of that steel smoothness there.Ģ021 all-city gorilla monsoon rival1 front tyre.jpg, by Liam Mercer With the big tyres fitted it’d be hard to detect any flex anyway, but when trying out some narrower 700c Panaracer GravelKings pumped up hard for road use I could feel that this is quite a tight frame. You can get out of the saddle if needs be, but to be honest you don’t really gain a lot of forward momentum compared to the power you are putting out.įor such a slenderly tubed steel frame I was quite impressed with the amount of stiffness around the bottom bracket. I lost a bit of time on the uphills, but I was happy just to sit there and spin. The whole build just feels invincible which does bring a certain amount of smugness to your ride, as you feel like you are just riding through things rather than over them. It rolled along nicely on the flatter and better-surfaced sections, a bit more draggy at times than my own Merlin Malt GX2 with 45mm tyres, but with the Gorilla coming into its own on the more abusive sections where I could just hop and bounce over the roots and ruts, rarely having to call on the brakes to get me out of trouble. Pretty much unladen with just a few spares being carried I found the Monsoon a lot of fun to ride on my usual off-road loop which covers a real range of surfaces, everything from gravel to chalk, mud, grass, road, and singletrack sections.
With a 71.5° head angle and 47mm of fork offset the front end feels quick, especially on the looser surfaces, but without ever feeling like it’s on the twitchy side.
It wasn’t really much of an issue if I’m honest.Ģ021 all-city gorilla monsoon rival1 rear tyre.jpg, by Liam Mercer The first thing I was worried about was the weight, at north of 12kg how much it was going to affect the ride, and more importantly the fun levels. The Gorilla Monsoon brings back all of those memories with the comfort and quality ride of a steel frame and fork, yet with the added bonus of probably being able to cope with larger rubber than the bikes I was riding back in the day.Īll-City have created a clever balance here with a bike that is stable and trustworthy when laden, but still fun to ride, and should you head out the door with nothing but your jersey pockets carrying your spares, then you can have a right blast on some pretty unforgiving terrain. Basically, because it takes me back to my teens when I was riding rigid mountain bikes and your knees and elbows were your suspension. I normally like the racier end of the gravel scene, after all, I spend the majority of my time over on testing the latest skinny tyred road bikes, but while poo-pooing the whole gravel scene when it first became a thing, I’ve grown to love it. 2021 all-city gorilla monsoon rival1 3q rear.jpg, by Liam Mercer