A pleasant surprise: The Spot Rallye is more than a mountain biker's gravel bike

Sep 23, 2023

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Headed down the steep and rutted Red Mountain Road.

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Honesty is good in bike reviews, right? Well, I’ll be honest: before I rode it, I was slightly skeptical of the Spot Rallye gravel bike.

Also being honest: I adore my Spot Ryve mountain bike (it’s pretty much all I’m riding at the moment), and I’ve put hundreds of happy and heavy bikepacking miles on my Spot Rocker hardtail. I’d love to add a longer travel Spot Mayhem to the quiver.

So, it was kinda for those reasons that I didn’t think I’d love Spot’s foray into drop bars and skinn(ier) tires — the Golden, Colorado brand is just really good at mountain bikes.

Related: First look: Spot Rallye

I should have known better. Spot is really good at whatever it does. This is largely due to the exacting standards of the brand’s chief engineer, Andy Emanuel. Before launching the Rallye in April, Emanuel dedicated years to riding and researching other gravel bikes in order to develop something that would have the qualities he found important.

Although I erroneously assumed this would result in a gravel bike that rode more like a mountain bike, it turns out that the real goal, according to Emanuel, was to create a bike “that puts riders in a position for good handling and steering, giving them confidence and capability through the geometry.”

Over the past few months of riding the Rallye, I experienced just that, and most importantly, in equal measure on dirt roads, tarmac, singletrack, and all surfaces in between.

Operating under my false pretenses, my first ride on the Rallye was on some local singletrack. Not techy, rocky singletrack, but swoopy smooth trails that can easily be ridden on a drop-bar bike. It was super fun.

However, the big surprise was how well the bike rode on the road to and from the trail. It felt like … a fast gravel bike.

I tend to prefer gravel bikes with more “race-oriented” geometry (for lack of a better description) because it’s fun to go fast and feel the bike respond to your input. With the Rallye, Spot has gotten fairly close to that end of the spectrum without going near words like ‘aero’ or ‘aggressive.’

For comparison: (and these measurements refer to a size small frame) the Rallye’s head tube angle is a respectable 69.3 — a 66.67 degree Chamois Hagar it is not. It’s much more akin to the last bike I tested, the Ventum GS, which clocks in at 69.5 degrees.

The seat tube angle is similarly restrained, although not as steep as the Ventum’s (73.5 vs 72.5).

This all plays into the confidence and capability-inspiring geometry that Emanuel was referring to. Sure, the bike is capable on trails, but there’s no compromise for also motoring up steep gravel climbs and ripping down road descents.

The other memorable ride I did on the Rallye was a mix of just that — a huge multi-surface ride that anyone who’s ridden in the Roaring Fork Valley might be familiar with. The ride starts with a long gravel grind up Prince Creek Road, followed by a sweeping tarmac descent on West Sopris Creek. Then, more mix of paved and dirt roads all the way to Lenado, a tiny mining town perched above the Woody Creek Canyon. From there, it’s a relentless singletrack climb to Four Corners, where the next segment is a very steep and rutted jeep road descent.

The Rallye has a nice ride feel on any terrain. It’s easy to pilot through technical singletrack sections, and on long dirt or paved road stretches, it cuts through the air like a knife through butter. In addition to taking it on any backyard adventure, I would definitely do a gravel race on this bike.

A couple of details to note: one, both builds of the Rallye feature internally-routed cables, although accommodations to this can be made upon request. Two, the bike features unique bottle cage mount placement. While there are mounts for three bottles (as well as mounts on the top tube for a ‘bento box’ style bag) on the Rallye, they’re all on the downtube (two sets on the top side and one set on the bottom). The lack of mounts on the seat tube is to accommodate a dropper post.

Emanuel said that the mounts were spaced to accommodate one 22oz and one 26oz bottle, but I struggled a bit to get the top bottle out of the cage easily. Might have been my cages.

The Spot Rallye is offered in two complete builds (a frameset is available for $3,299).

Emanuel said that the same thought and consideration that went into designing the Rallye’s frame also went into completing the bike.

“We’re really proud of our spec,” he said.

The two complete bikes — called 5-star and 6-star builds — are both outfitted with SRAM drivetrains (1x only). The 5-star build features a SRAM Rival XPLR AXS drivetrain and Stan’s No Tubes Crest MK4 alloy wheels.

The 6-star build shaves weight with the SRAM Red XPLR AXS drivetrain and Enve G23 carbon wheels.

Both bikes come with Schwalbe G-One Bite Super Ground 700 x 45c tires and an FSA bar/stem combo, aluminum for the 5-star and carbon for the 6-star.

For those riders who do want a more mountain bikey gravel bike, the Rallye’s spot custom carbon fork can be replaced with a suspension fork. The frame is also dropper-post compatible.

All versions of the Rallye — which is available in limestone grey or twilight purple — are currently on sale, and I cannot overstate the value for the price.

Right now, a 5-star build costs $4,999 and a 6-star build is $6,999. Demo bikes are available at Spot in Golden, Colorado, and I highly recommend riding one if you can.

You’ll be more than pleasantly surprised.