First thing you’re gonna notice is how big this bike is… it’s huge! its the XXL (roughly 65cm.) I am 6’3″ tall, mostly legs and i’ve been running huge spacer stacks my whole cycling life, always trying to get the bars up high enough not to kill my already aging back. Sizing up on a bike helps one do such, and with this enormous sized frame, my bars are finally high enough for me to feel pretty pretty pretty good! It’s rare for a cycling brand to make bigs bike OR small enough for the tallest or smallest riders, and Crust has many frames for both.

I had previously owned what is arguably the finest gravel bicycle frame made today, the Open WI.DE. My build of this bombora is a near one to one swap of those parts, so i can actually do a direct comparison (more on that later) (here’s a pic of the open and the bombora side by side to get the flavor)

If you consider yourself a shade tree bicycle mechanic as i do myself (Garrett has called me his favorite bicycle mechanic, so i have quite the pedigree… but i digress) building up any Crust bike is a joy! Matt has really thought out every feature and it shows. i’ve never built a bike faster! for example, my Open took me over 8 hours to build! YIKES. i was done with this bombora in about an hour… maybe more since i did change bar tape a couple times.

Ride Quality: Having a bike that fits me very well, and gets the bars up high enough is a real treat. This bike reminds me alot of my Open, but not as painfully stiff. On the Open i had to run big 650b x 2.4″ tires to get the same comfort i get on the Bombora with 700c x 42mm tires. Sure, i could run the bigger tires on the bombora, but for now, this feels perfect.

Build List:
Frame: Crust Enve Bombora
Headset: White Industries
Wheelset: Random Stans i had
Tires: Ultradynamico 700c x 42mm Cava Race
Brake Levers: TRP RRL Carbon
Handlebars: Crust Nullar
Bartape: Blue Lug Cloth
Brakes: Crust Palm Oil
Shifter: Microshift 12sp SRAM Eagle Bar End
Derailleur: SRAM GX Eagle
Cassette: SRAM Eagle XX1 (ohhh fancy)
Crankset: SRAM Force with DogMouth™ 36t Oval Chainring
Stem: “Polished” Ritchey (it was black and now my dremel made it look worse)
Seatpost: Nitto S65
Saddle: Berthoud Aravis
Bottle Cages: King
Light: B&M IQ-XS
Pedals: Eggbeaters (i do not recommend these to anyone, they will break, but they have amazing float and if you have bad/old knees, they really really work. BUT THEY WILL BREAK ON YOU ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN (ask me how i know))

Gallery!

Signing off! –jdg