Photos and words by @rad_baron

I used to make fun of gravel bikes. like, a lot. when I’d be on a road ride and hit a small section of gravel or a rough shoulder I’d holler out “oh #@$! I can’t ride this I need to switch to a gravel bike” (I am the worst) or when on my cross bike and we’d go from 1-track to 2-track I’d bark out something similar (the WORST.) to me, gravel bikes are just touring bikes without zits. I’ve always happily ridden everything from root bound single track to 100 mile gravel races on my cyclocross race bike and never felt like I was being held back. in fact, it wasn’t even a gravel ride or race that pushed me to pick up my Cannondale Topstone, but a 100% paved double century benefiting the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation and trepidation about spending that many hours on my whispy, stiff crit bike (which in retrospect would have been fine.) essentially, I wanted an endurance road bike with big tire capability - which is exactly what the topstone delivers. I went to my local Conte’s Bike Shop and put in an order on one of the brand new 2020 models in “sandstone.”

Team Normalize Compassion - let it be found in us all.

I still maintain that, categorically, there is no difference between a cyclocross bike and a gravel bike. different ‘cross and gravel bikes from different manufactures embrace different philosophies about 1x or 2x compatibility, bottom bracket drop, seat angle, wheelbase, head-tube angle, reach, and stack height (basically everything that matters) but perhaps the bell curve of gravel bikes skew slack and low and the bell curve of cross bikes high and tight … but honestly my ‘cross bike is plenty slack. in my estimation, a good gravel bike is an endurance road bike with big tire clearance (which again, hi, Cannondale Topstone) and a good cross bike is more on the criterium bike spectrum (except that mine is not, and i love it. so there.)

so what did I expect would change about my riding when I added a “gravel” bike to a stable that already included a (actually more than “a” since I have a single speed, too) cross bike? actually not much. what I expected to change was that I would no longer have to fret about or mess around with my tires, wheels, rear derailleur, cassette, or chain ring. I could leave my cross bike a cross bike and not feel i needed to make build kit changes or make sacrifices to get it to be the gravel bike it could be. my cross bike could await sketchy single track jams and cross races and my Topstone could remain set up with a wide range 2x11 105 groupset for steep climbs and long, straight paved road jams. I didn’t expect that the Topstone would unlock for me any type of riding I couldn’t already do on a cross bike, and I was right. but I also didn’t expect the topstone to be so good at all those kinds of riding, and I was surprised. it’s a testament to just how well designed this “gravel” bike is.

there are plenty of websites and reviews you can go to if you want to learn all about the specs of this bike, so i’ll spare you and skip straight to my thoughts about riding it. the first thing i noticed is that it feels super stable and reasonably fast for what it is. on long road or gravel-road hauls it holds a line while i mess around with pulling slices of pizza out of my framebag or tearing gels open with my teeth… and on tricky stuff and single track it is surprisingly confidence inspiring. I raced it to a PR at monster cross this year and never once thought about the bike holding me back or sapping my power on the climbs. when you step on the gas it responds well, despite the fact it’s a very comfortable ride. it’s not a road racing bike, but it’s also not a heavy, noodley touring bike.

except i found it makes a pretty good touring bike. I loaded it up for an overnight on the canal with a large capacity seat bag, handlebar bag, and frame bag, even adding a third bottle mount to the bottom of the down-tube to carry tools and tubes - and despite all that gear the bike was still super fun to ride. It didn’t change the character of the bike at all. it was still fun and sprightly. I will surely use this bike a ton on gravel rides and races, but quite to my surprise the thing I am most excited about using it for is bike packing (bike touring? speaking of meaningless distinctions…) on the canal trails.

all in all I am really stoked on this bike and it’s an incredible value on top of it. for 1750 bucks you get a racing and touring competent, light(ish) frameset with a carbon fork and hydro 11 speed 105 kit. banging deal! pretty hard to beat that with today’s tariff fueled bike prices (eat $#!%, donald.) I did change a few things. I put a 105 crankset on it because the FSA one it comes with sucks, i put a Thomson stem and post on it because that’s what i do, and i put flared salsa bars on it because this bike is begging for flared drop bars. I finished it off with brooks tape and a Cambium saddle, though I am currently testing one of those brand new, stubby looking, Fizik Argo Tempo saddles on this bike.

there is a lot to love about this bike out of the gate, but here are a few of my favorite things:

great, stable geometry. seriously this bike just feels great both loaded and unloaded. it carries speed well, climbs well, turns in well. feels so nice.
great stack and reach numbers for big guys like me makes my back very happy. Most bikes don’t increase their stack height proportionally with seat tube size. Cannondale does a nice job of making this bike fit proportionally across the size range
reasonable weight for the cost and capability. to have it be super fun to ride unloaded and then be able to go and have the ability to pack the gear on it and let it maintain the fun factor is super great.
‘just right’ tire clearance (42mm in 700c, and YES 650b wheels with 47mm tires fit we tried it.) it lets it look and feel like a road bike, but takes you where you want to go when there aren’t “roads".”
105 hydro stuff is superb.
3 bottle mounts - excellent for the long haul.
integrated mount for bento box on the top tube is a nice touch.
27.2 seat-post size is the right choice for comfort. it’s got internal dropper routing, which would make more sense with a bigger seat-post diameter - but it’s a dumb gimmick and I am glad they went with comfort.

it is a Cannondale though, so of course they had a make a few bizarre choices, like:

they put mounts for a traditional rear rack on it, which may appease the commuter crowd but what is this, 2010? and if you are going to put mounting points on it, where are my zits to put bottles (or even better, salsa anything cages) on the fork? really limits packing options.
while i am at it, they should have put a mount for a light or rack on the fork crown and given the fork clean routing for a dynamo. this is advertised as an adventure bike and despite being set up to accept fenders and having 12 weight bearing braze ons for bottles, accessories and a rear rack they made no provision to carry weight up front to balance the load. its almost like they designed a nearly perfectly balanced bike and then dared you to put 50 pounds of gear over the rear wheel and ruin it. swap the fork out, Cannondale, what the hell?
goofy fork choice aside, i’m not stoked on the low bottom bracket drop. i put 172.5 mm long cranks on it because I hate pedal strike. I understand Cannondale did this to reduce the effective stand over height of the bike to fit more riders while maintaining a big, healthy sized frame bag space which i do really appreciate, but don’t try to sell this to me as a bike handling or stability thing. bottom bracket height does not impact lateral handling stability on a two wheeled vehicle. its called physics, honey, look it up. the position of the bottom bracket to wheel axles may impact downhill endo-avoidance, but I’m not throwing this bike down the chunder anytime soon so i don’t care.
they speced it with the worst crankset on the planet. the mechanics at Conte’s had to cut it off when i wanted it replaced with a 105 one. FSA sucks. tell me I’m wrong.

anyway, it is what it is. it’s a gravel bike. it’s really good at riding on rough roads, carrying a light load and generally being pretty good at pretty much every kind of riding i regularly do. I’m stoked to ride country roads, race gravel, and bike camp with it - which is high praise coming from a guy who owns like 100 god @#$! bikes. for the perspective of someone who uses this same bike for even more things than I do I asked Great Eskpae 2nd year racer Kat to tell me about her experience with her Topstone over the last year or so. she commutes on it, has ridden more single track, and actually raced cross on it a couple times. here is what she had to say about it:

My Topstone is my favorite bike for everything from all day gravel grinders to shorter jaunts on the trails. It feels super solid on and comfy on rough roads and single track, but is still efficient and quick on pavement - and it navigates those DC potholes on the way to work pretty darn well too. It's an all around solid bike that's been my go-to, trusty steed since the first ride!

I’d say that about sums it up. good job cannondale, now send me a new fork with some 3 bolt rack mounts on it.

-Baron von Radler

(Ed: Next up, another Cannondale. This time, Kelly’s Parkway Cup winning Cannondale SuperX. Stayed tuned.)