Enve Composites tucked a pair of Easter eggs amongst the treasure trove of titanium bikes at the Moots booth at this year’s North American Handmade Bicycle Show: the new GRD carbon road disc fork with clearance for big tires, and a new carbon fiber seatpost, both of which we anticipate could be available for sale later this year.
Enve’s new fork looks to be catering specifically to the burgeoning crop of all-road bikes hitting the market with a 382mm axle-to-crown length that splits the difference almost perfectly between the current Road Disc (367mm) and Cross Disc (395mm) models. Official weights and pricing are still to be released but according to Enve marketing man Jake Pantone, the GRD will clear 38mm-wide tires and features a tapered 1 1/8-to-1 1/4in steerer tube. Based on the available dimensions, we expect it tip the scales at around 350g.
The new Enve fork (and matching fender!) are gorgeous
Enve has apparently embraced the upcoming, lighter-weight 12mm thru-axle standard for disc-equipped road bikes with gracefully tapered fork legs that finish in compact and tidy dropouts. While some sort of quick-release skewer option is likely, the fork at NAHBS was fitted with a clean, flush-fit unit. The post-mount brake tabs are sized for 140-160mm rotors.
Just as with its rigid carbon mountain bike fork, Enve has developed a fender for this new dirt road fork – in carbon fibre of course. It’s neatly executed from a visual standpoint but also clever in design. Down below, two U-shaped ends snap into shallow channels at the ends of the fork tips. Similarly, two ‘dots’ up top snap into small dimples on the inner sides of the fork blades, just below the crown. There’s no hardware to fasten or remove, and no tools are required – and it feels impressively stable, too.
The 12mm thru-axle dropouts are elegant - and serve double-duty as the fixing point for the quick-release fender
Filling the space between those dropouts is a new matching Chris King front hub.
We’re still awaiting claimed weight comparisons between the current 15mm thru-axle system and this new 12mm setup but according to Moots, it’s a fairly significant difference. From an aesthetic standpoint, it looks more suitable to a road bike’s more elegant lines.
Joining the fork is a new two-bolt Enve carbon fibre seatpost. Instead of the current cylindrical head design that can occasionally be prone to slipping, this new one uses a novel two-bolt, four-wedge design that presumably offers better security than the current version. It looks like it’ll be easy to make tilt adjustments, too – simply iteratively loosen one bolt and tighten the other.
The new Enve two-bolt seatpost looks to offer better security than the current single-bolt design
Stay tuned for more soon as all of these items look tantalizingly close to being production-ready.