By The takeaway: If your gravel rides consist of chunky rocks or the occasional foray into singletrack, the Lauf True Grit is for you.
- Frictionless leaf spring fork reduces vibration and improves control
- Big tire clearance and endurance road geometry help you go long
- Lightweight frame and springy fork make for an exciting ride
Price: $4,190 as tested
Weight: 19.7 lb.
Fork travel: 30mm
Tire clearance: 45mm
Lauf’s True Grit makes the drop-bar bike feel a whole lot more viable (and comfortable) off-road. The carbon fiber Icelandic gravel bike employs the company’s signature Grit SL fork to give you 30mm of undamped, progressive travel. While in the saddle, you’ll barely notice as it subtly irons out road vibrations with excellent small-bump sensitivity. And it comes alive on rocky, loose descents, giving you the confidence to ride this gravel bike in ways you probably shouldn’t. You’ll appreciate the True Grit’s vibration damping on smooth, hard-packed gravel, but you’ll come to love the bike for shale, chunky forest roads, and light trail riding.
The Grit SL Fork
After riding the True Grit for a few months, I can’t imagine not wanting front suspension on my next gravel bike. Its 30mm of travel isn’t so much that you need damping, especially with the fork’s progressive spring rate that lets you use all of the travel on extra-rough terrain without feeling like you’re riding a pogo stick. And unlike a telescoping fork with valves and chambers and seals, the Lauf’s 12 glass-fiber leaf springs flex under load and make for a frictionless system. That means incredible small-bump sensitivity, which gives you the improved ride and control of a high-volume tire without the added unsprung weight, rolling resistance, and squishy, imprecise steering. Gravel racers, take note.
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“The idea is that the spring rate should be set to maximize comfort and traction, but stop before it starts to mess up pedaling,” says Benedikt Skúlason, Lauf founder and CEO. “It should feel like a rigid fork on flat ground and not get out of control while sprinting.”
5 Things We Love About the Lauf True Grit
Tapered Head Tube
The design makes the front end stronger.
SRAM AXS Eagle
The 10-50t cassette gives you gearing for everything.
45mm Tire Clearance
You can go wider than the stock, 40mm Maxxis Ramblers.
Smoothie Bar
The glass fiber handlebar damps vibration.
Fully Guided Cables
Routing doesn’t cut into ride time.
That’s about how the True Grit rides. In the saddle, we really didn’t feel the fork bobbing unless we were really rocking on the bike. Out of the saddle, it dips into its travel slightly but not too far—it felt like standing on one of those tightly sprung fitness trampolines, giving us plenty of energy back when it decompresses. The spring rates are tuned for each frame size, so your bike’s fork should feel like it was made for you.
The other benefit to the Grit SL is the maintenance—there is none. “You just keep it clean…or don’t,” Skúlason says. The fork should outlast the bike’s other components; if it doesn’t, it’s covered under a five-year warranty.
Frame Like a Mountain Bike (and a Road Bike)
The True Grit’s carbon fiber frame is shaped to make the bike handle like a combination of a road bike and a hardtail. There’s a long top tube and a short headtube to get you into a more aggressive, aerodynamic riding position than you’ll find on most gravel bikes, but a 70.5-degree head tube angle lends proper off-road stability. The frame also meets ISO mountain bike standards. I’m 6-foot-2 and found the fit about perfect on a size large; the bike fits similar to my road race bike with the handlebar slightly higher up and closer to me.
Lauf uses the same standard-modulus carbon across the True Grit range. The frame feels nice and stiff under hard pedaling, and although there’s some vibration damping, the rear triangle doesn’t feel particularly soft—no high-flexion stays here. You get bolts for a front derailleur, or a bolt-on bottle opener if you maintain the stock setup. Tire clearance is officially 45mm. There are three bottle mounts, a threaded bottom bracket, and fully guided cable routing—things that make the bike easy to live with.
Components and Build Kits
I tested the second-most-expensive True Grit, the $4,190 Race AXS. It comes with a SRAM Eagle Force AXS XX1 drivetrain and SRAM hydraulic disc brakes. The 10-50t cassette and 42t chainring gave me all of the climbing torque and descending ability that I could want. Lauf uses its own Smoothie handlebar, and the stem, headset, and carbon seatpost are all FSA. The DT Swiss XRC 1501 wheelset is made for XC riding and comes in at 1,544g for the set.
That’s a whole gram less than the DT Swiss GRC 1400 wheelset on the top-range True Grit Ultimate, which costs $6,490. It upgrades your drivetrain to SRAM Red AXS, and you get a power meter in the SRAM Red 1 AXS Dub crank. It’s otherwise the same as the Race AXS model and weighs half of a pound less.
More affordably, you can have the Weekend Warrior and Weekend Warrior AXS builds. The base model starts at $2,790, although you can spend almost $500 extra to have glossy red, orange, or green paint, or the lava black color of our test bike. That build provides a SRAM Rival 1 drivetrain with an 11-42t cassette and DT Swiss X1900 wheels. The $3,690 AXS version upgrades you to SRAM Force 1 AXS electronic shifting and a carbon fiber seatpost.
Frame: Lauf True Grit Carbon
Fork: Lauf Grit SL Carbon, 30mm travel
Wheels: DT Swiss GRC 1400, tubeless ready
Tires: Maxxis Rambler, 40c
Drivetrain: SRAM Force 1 AXS
Brakes: SRAM Force 1 flat-mount hydraulic, 160mm rotors
Cassette: SRAM Eagle 1275 10-50t
Crank: SRAM Force 1 DUB, 42t
Seatpost: FSA SL-K Carbon
Saddle: Ritchey Trail WCS
Handlebar: Lauf Smoothie, 420mm
Ride Impressions
In three months of testing, I put hundreds of miles on the True Grit, riding roads, gravel, and light-to-moderate singletrack. It’s the most versatile drop-bar bike I’ve ridden, and the one I’d buy if I were in the market for a gravel bike.
Gravel speed demons will love the True Grit. The suspension fork allows you to hold the aggressive position that the bike puts you in without the terrain bouncing you off the handlebar. The bike feels stable at speed and the steering isn’t too quick, but not so slow that you can’t pick apart technical singletrack, either. It’s a brilliant combination that lets you hammer a gravel tow path KOM, ride the roots and rocks, and take the pavement back home without ever feeling out of place.
The Grit SL fork does such a good job of reducing vibration that you don’t notice it much while riding hard-pack gravel. Its effect is most evident off-road. While riding a rigid-fork drop-bar bike, like the Ibis Hakka MX I tested last year, I had to be very precise about my front wheel placement because my upper body became the suspension when I hit stuff I didn’t expect. In one case, a small tree cut down to a two-inch stump nearly sent me over the handlebar.
When I rode the same singletrack on the True Grit, the fork gobbled up those small but tedious obstacles and allowed me to carry more speed rather than pick apart the trail. There are obviously trail systems I won’t ride because the rocks are too big for the bike and my confidence in it, but I did make it through some rocky East Coast XC quickly enough to feel like I got away with something.
Why Have the Lauf
But of course Lauf isn’t the only company doing gravel suspension, and other manufacturers have found more economical ways to eke travel out of their frames and forks. The Cannondale Topstone has 30mm of rear travel from a thru-axle pivot in the seat tube, and the Specialized Diverge uses the company’s Future Shock to pack 20mm of front travel in the head tube. Both systems deliver real compliance that you notice when it’s needed and mostly forget about when it’s not. Or there’s the opposite approach: the Niner MCR 9 RDO, a full-suspension gravel bike with 50mm of highly adjustable travel.
To my mind, I like the Lauf’s springy, playful suspension from the Grit SL fork more than the Diverge’s subtle, head tube-based suspension. It’s not in the way when you don’t need it, but it’s there when a mischievous off-route adventure beckons you away from the gravel.
A former Division 1 runner, Dan grew up riding fixies and mountain bikes and now reviews everything from performance running shoes to road and cross bikes, to the latest tech for runners and cyclists at Bicycling and Runner’s World.
