Here at PEZ, we’re all about the superbike: The Italian gems ridden by Pogačar and Pidcock — or at least the German machines that Mathieu van der Poel has ridden to so many victories, both on and off-road.
Our Readers’ Rigs tend towards the flashy and the carbon — or the skinny-tubed steel kind, built before anyone had heard of carbon fiber, and ridden by LeMond, or Hinault, or Merckx.
It all begs a key question, though: Do any of us actually need one of those bikes? With every notch up the price ladder the earned marginal gain gets a little smaller — but since most of us could gain much more by, say, losing a few pounds or cutting back on beer, maybe most of us duffers should make do with good-enough bikes — that cost far less.
This is what I was considering as I test-rode the Batch Bicycles GB.2.
Out of the box, the Batch is plenty pretty, though not flashy. The steel gray paint has a glint, and the branding under the top tube is elegantly understated. The lack of logos on the components were a surprise — I’m used to seeing Ultegra or Force — but served as a reminder: This bike is intended to be functional, solid — and inexpensive.
Assembly was simple, even for a non-wrench like me, and as it came with plenty of spacers, I was easily able to find a comfortable handlebar height and reach. But as I removed the padding, I discovered a small flaw, the flip side of the appealing gray paint: I barely ran my scissors along the downtube, and already had my first solid scratch.
My bad, of course, for not being more careful, but I’m confident that I’ve scratched other bikes much more roughly, and noticed nothing.
The post BATCH Bicycles GB2: The Entry-Level Gravel Bike You’ve Been Waiting For? appeared first on PezCycling News.
