Getting a Gravel Bike

In this short solo episode, host Tom Butler walks through the build of his newest bike: the Otso Warakin TI, a titanium gravel bike spec'd to be a true do-everything machine. This isn't a review. With only a handful of miles on the bike so far, it's an honest look at the decisions Tom made and why, the ones he feels confident about and the ones he'll have to wait and see on.

Tom gets into why he wanted a third bike in the first place, why he chose titanium over carbon, steel, and aluminum, and how a walk into Northwest Tri and Bike in Enumclaw short-circuited his careful shopping plan. Along the way he covers the Wolf Tooth roots of Otso, the carbon fork, the wheels, the Redshift shock stem, 50mm Schwalbe tires, the oval chainring, the 1x12 drivetrain, and the Shimano GRX 800 groupset. He also shares some fresh news that took a little wind out of his sails: Otso has discontinued the Warakin's Tuning Chip system in favor of UDH compatibility. It's a build episode for the bike nerds, grounded in the idea that the right bike is the one that doesn't limit where you can ride.

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Show music is "Come On Out" by Dan Lebowitz.  Find him here : lebomusic.com

Transcript

Why A New Gravel Bike

Tom Butler 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 Podcast, season 4, episode 15, Getting a Gravel Bike, and I'm your host, Tom Butler. I've been wanting to get into the decisions I made when I invested in my new bike for a while now, so this is it. I'm gonna walk through my new Otso Work and TI, a titanium gravel bike, and talk through why I made the choices I made. I want to say this up front, this isn't a review really. I haven't put enough miles on this bike to do a great review. This is more about why I made the decisions that I did. I picked this bike up to do some specific kinds of riding, and that drove my decisions. Some decisions I feel really confident about, and others I'm just going to have to wait and see if they were good ones. In future updates, I'll be able to talk more about whether or not I made good decisions. So let's get into it. Before this purchase, I already had two bikes. There's the truck FX3, which is my runaround town bike. I like the FX3, but there's nothing great about it. It does a job of being comfortable for short trips. And there's the specialized Roubet, which is what I do most of my riding on, and I have it set up to take on challenging climbs. I love the Roubaix. So the first fair question is, why did I want a third bike at all? I know many of you will immediately understand why, but some people have really questioned me on it. They see one bike is enough, and that's usually an inexperienced cyclist talking. They don't know that a lot of cyclists own many more than three bikes. In fact, as I'm talking about this, I realize I actually have five bikes. I just don't ride the other two. One is a bike I rode in college. The other I should probably think about giving to someone who needs a bike but can't afford one. Here's my answer to the why another bike question. The bike isn't one thing. The machines we call bicycles serve a lot of different functions. Even my Roubaix isn't a road bike in the truest sense of the word, in my opinion. It came out a specialized attempt to create a bike for the Perirubet race, so the design prioritizes handling those jarring cobble sections. That even impacts the frame geometry. To a lot of people, the distinction is hard to see looking at two bikes side by side, but a Perirou Bay bike is different from the bike for long road racing events. If you want to see more about the impact of Perirou Bay on bike design, I'll link an article

What My Current Bikes Cannot Do

Tom Butler 2:46

in the show notes from cyclingnews.com. It's called Conquering the Cobbles A Brief History of Perirou Bay Bike Evolution. For me, the Roubaix isn't the right design for a couple things I want to do. I want more of a traditional position than the FX3 gives me, but something more able to handle rough terrain than the Roubaix. I want to get into gravel riding because I think I'll enjoy the access to nature it provides and the fact that there's less interaction with cars. It's interesting to me that Forbes.com ran an article on gravel riding last May. The article declared that gravel grinding is the hottest trend in cycling, but it also mentions that the earliest bikes were essentially gravel bikes because there were no paved roads. I found it to be an interesting take. And a market research firm in March said that aluminum gravel bikes are expected to lead the bike market in 2026. Connected to my desire to do more gravel riding is my interest in bikepacking, especially camping that's only accessible by gravel roads, so it's more isolated. The FX3 would be okay for that, but the position makes a longer bikepacking trip less appealing. On top of that, I still want to race cyclecross in the fall. Neither bike I had was the bike for chunky gravel, a loaded bikepacking setup, or a cyclecross race. So that's why I sought out a bike built to not be limited by the surface under it. Wide tire clearance, geometry that's stable when things get loose, the durability of taking a beating. It's the do everything category, and do everything is exactly what I was after. One bike that can race cycle cross on Saturday and head out on a loaded bikepacking trip the next weekend. So that's the gap I was trying to fill. Everything else in this episode is really a series of choices in service to that one idea.

Why Titanium For The Frame

Tom Butler 4:39

Let's start with the frame because that's the foundation of everything else. And a big question there is why I spent the money needed to go with titanium. I wanted a gravel bike that would be the last one I'd have to buy. I knew I wanted a frame that was going to be tough, and that immediately eliminated carbon fiber as far as I'm concerned. And I also felt that aluminum might not be durable enough either. So that left a decision between steel and titanium. I've talked about titanium as a frame material on the podcast before. Back on august thirtieth, 2024 episode, I interviewed Leonard Zinn, and we got into titanium quite a bit. If this is a material you're curious about, I'd point you back to that conversation. Here's my thinking. Titanium offers something unique in the gravel world. In fact, Bike Tips recently posted an article titled Titanium Gravel Bikes Are Back Why 2026 is the year of the TI Renaissance. I'll put that in the show notes. Titanium is incredibly durable. It's virtually immune to corrosion, and that matters when you're riding through mud and salt and whatever else gravel throws at you. It won't fatigue the way aluminum does, and it has a natural compliance to it. It smooths out rough terrain without feeling dead or flexi. I think of it as a middle ground between the outright performance of carbon and the sole of steel. I'll be honest with you about the compliance claim. I'm not the most sensitive rider. You could probably put me on a steel bike and then on a titanium bike, and I'm not sure I'd feel the difference. But I felt beat up after gravel rides on my FX3, and I trust the science here. The reduced fatigue, the way titanium smooths out rough terrain, that's well understood. And I'm buying into it even if my body isn't sensitive enough to register it ride to ride. I want to be honest about the trade-off. This is not going to be the fastest bike I could possibly ride. There's a reason why a titanium bike has never won the Tour de France. GCN did a really fun video on exactly that question, if you want to go down that rabbit hole. I'll put that in the show notes too. But fastest isn't what I'm after here. Most durable is what I'm after. And there's a practical reason behind that. My plan someday is to load this bike on an Amtrak train, go somewhere and ride with people, and honestly, I don't fully trust a setting like that to be gentle on a bike frame. With titanium, I just don't have to worry about it. I can ride it over the roughest terrain and not think twice, and hand it off to some baggage person on a train and feel like it's gonna be fine. There's a weight piece too. I'm still a little heavy, I'm currently over 200 pounds. I'm completely comfortable putting that weight on a titanium frame over rough ground. That piece of mine is worth a lot to me.

Practical Choices For Maintenance And Fit

Tom Butler 7:34

I made the choice to go with external cable routing. I went external after talking it through with Andrew at Northwest Trion Bike. Internal routing looks cleaner, no question, but external is easier to maintain and easier to work on. And on a bike built for adventure, practicality wins. When I'm a long way from any kind of bike shop support, I think I could possibly appreciate that simplicity. On sizing, I ride a 56 centimeter Roubaix and it fits me well. So I went 56 centimeters on the Wurkin. That doesn't always translate cleanly between frames, but now that I've ridden the Wurkin, it seems to fit me great. It's interesting how the larger tires add a feeling that the bike is bigger at the same size, but more on tires

How I Landed On Otso

Tom Butler 8:19

later. So that's the frame material, but why Otso as a brand? Here's a funny thing about how this actually happened. I had planned to shop for a grival bike the careful way, making a list of options, weighing them all, then choose. Had several brands I was going to consider. It was going to provide great content for the podcasts, following my careful consideration of different bikes. That is not what happened. The first bike shop I walked into was Northwest Tryon Bike in Enam Claw, Washington, and the owner suggested the Warrican. I asked a bunch of questions about it, and came to believe it was a complete fit. So much for the careful list and drawn out investigation. Part of what drew me in was the company itself. I had never heard of Otso cycles before, so I went home and did some research on them. One of the first things I learned is that Otso was born out of the Wooftooth Components Company. Wooftooth was a brand I already knew and trusted. They built their reputation on precision machine components designed to solve real problems for riders. Otso launched in 2016 and they brought that same engineering mindset to building complete bikes. The company is based in Minnesota. I genuinely admire the bike manufacturing infrastructure that's been built up in Taiwan, but for this particular bike, I was happy to be working with a North American manufacturer. And someday I hope to load my warkin on an Amtrak train and make the trip to Minnesota to visit Otso. I think that would make a great along for the ride episode. Atso's whole focus is versatile bikes for riders who don't want to be limited by terrain or season. They describe the warkin as a bike that adapts to you rather than forcing you to adapt to it. That's a big claim, and I'm curious to see how it actually plays out for me. And as you'll hear through the rest of this, that Wolftooth connection ended up showing up over my build. A small detail here. I really like the look of the titanium bike, and the Warkin looks great, but Wolftooth also makes some parts that are colored to add just a splash of color to the bike. I went with blue. It's subtle, but it gives the bike a little personality without drawing away from the titanium

Warakin Geometry Chip Versatility

Tom Butler 10:30

frame. Otto makes two bikes they identify as gravel bikes. So why did I choose the Warkin specifically? The main reason is that the other bike, the Wahila, is really designed to be a racing bike. And gravel racing isn't part of what I want to do. Even when I think about potentially using the bike for cyclocross, I see that as significantly different from gravel racing. Gravel racing is closer to road racing on dirt, where cyclocross is run on courses that demand more technical skill. And cyclocross is better suited to a bike with a little more ground clearance. There is something with the Work in that I found very compelling. There's a slot in the dropout where the rear axle attaches. In that slot is something Otso calls a chip. By flipping or rotating that chip, you can actually change the bike's geometry. It has three positions. Depending on the position, you can shift your wheel base as much as twenty millimeters and your bottom bracket height as much as four millimeters. In plain terms, if I want a shorter wheel base and snappier, quicker handling for a cyclocross race, I can set the chip one way. If I want more stability and a slacker, more relaxed setup for a loaded bikepacking trip, I can set it another way. Same bike, different geometry, depending on what I'm doing that day. For someone like me, someone who wants one bike that I can use on a cyclocross race on Saturday and do a loaded bikepacking trip on the next Sunday, that's a real game changer. That's one feature that really made the work and stand out. In theory anyway, and I want to be honest about that. A twenty millimeter change doesn't sound that significant on paper. The real question is whether I'll actually use it, or whether I'll just find one setting I like and leave it there forever. I genuinely don't know yet, but I'm really interested to see and I'll be reporting back on it. The fact that the option is there and I can tune the bike to the ride, that's something I haven't found elsewhere, and that's one thing that sold me on the Warkin.

The UDH Curveball

Tom Butler 12:31

My enthusiasm over the tuning chip has been significantly reduced just today. I just learned that Otso has discontinued the tuning chip system on all their bikes. They're looking to accommodate the universal derailleur hanger referred to as UDH. I'm obviously behind the times, but I'm just learning about UDH. I bought this frame to last for the rest of my life. I'm hoping that the industry switch to UDH doesn't mean that I will be severely limited in component choices in the future. I do plan to write more about UDH on the Tacoma Washington Bicycle blog if you're interested in seeing that somewhere in the future. I do plan to write more about UDH on the Tacoma Washington Bicycle Club blog at some time in the future.

Why A Carbon Fork Works Here

Tom Butler 13:16

Here's something that might seem to contradict what I said earlier. I spent a good while telling you why I wanted titanium and not carbon fiber for the frame, but I went with a carbon fork for this build. Otso uses lithic carbon fiber forks for the Warkin. Lithic is one of the product lines from the engineers at Wolftooth. So why carbon up front on a titanium bike? Comes down to what carbon can do that metal can't. Carbon fiber can be tuned in ways metal simply can't be. By adjusting the layup, the way the carbon is laid down, engineers can control exactly where the fork flexes and where it stays stiff. The result is a fork that soaks up road chatter and small impacts, but stays laterally stiff, so the steering still feels precise. Paired with the natural compliance of the titanium frame, I felt like the carbon fork would give me a ride that was smooth without being soft. On rough gravel, it filters out the harshness, but it still gives you the feedback you need to actually read the terrain under you. And there's a weight angle. Carbon is lighter than steel or titanium for the same strength, so it keeps the front end of the bike nimble. If I'm muscling through a technical section or lifting the bike over a barrier and cycle cross, I do think weight matters. So instead of a contradiction, it's titanium where I want durability and compliance and carbon where I want tunable lightweight precision.

Stock Wheels With Upgrade Paths

Tom Butler 14:44

The wheels are one area where I did not splurge. I went with the stock, Sung Ringle, Duroc G30s, and I want to explain why. First, a little background because these aren't a no-name wheel. Sun Ringel has real heritage. Their parent company, Sun Metal Products, has been around since 1946. They started out making motorcycle racing wheels back in the 60s and moved into high-end bicycle rims in the 80s, and have been refining their design ever since. The Duroc G30 is their gravel specific wheel, a wide tubeless channel, easy tubeless setup, and a reputation for durability. I don't run tubeless at the moment, and I have a lot to think about before I make the decision to do that. But I wanted a wheel set that could accommodate a change if I decide to go that way. Their SRX hubs have 12 degree engagement, which just means faster pickup when you stomp on the pedals. Are these the lightest wheels out there? No. The most exotic? Definitely not. But they are well built, they're reasonably light, and they're going to handle everything I throw at them. For my riding level and my goals right now, these wheels are plenty. That said, I'm already researching wheel upgrades. I'm even thinking about buying a second set down the road. Having two wheel sets opens up options. Maybe one set with wider tires for chunky gravel and bike packing, another set with tires for cycle cross and hard pack gravel. We'll see if that actually makes sense once I put real miles on the bike I've got. A brief note here UCI sanctioned cycle cross racing requires tires no wider than 33 millimeters. So if I do build a dedicated cycle cross wheel set, that's where I'll run narrower tires. Though obviously I'm not going to be chasing a UCI ranking, so that is not going to drive my tire choices.

50mm Tires And Clearance Freedom

Tom Butler 16:35

Let's talk about what's actually touching the ground, because this is where the Workin's generous tire clearance really pays off. I'm running Schwalby G1RX Pro tires in a 50mm width. One of the main reasons I wanted the Workin in the first place was its ability to take genuinely wide tires. These G1s make full use of that clearance, and even at 50mm, there's still room to spare in the frame. The G1RX sets in an interesting spot in Schwabby's lineup. It's actually the most aggressive of their three new G1 gravel tires. The R is the all-arounder, the RS is the fast semi-slick, and the RX is the one built for rougher, looser conditions. The tread has smooth rolling elements in the center for speed and a more prominent knob on the shoulders for corner and grip. The Pro designation means you're getting their top tier build. The Attix Race Compound, Shelby's new Race Pro casting construction, the V Guard puncture protection belt, and the tubeless ready design. All meant to keep rolling resistance low while still protecting against punctures. Here's my reasoning on the 50mm width specifically. For gravel, that width gives me comfort for all day rides, enough air volume to run low pressure for traction on loose surfaces, and enough cushion that I'm not constantly worried about pinch flats on a rocky terrain. For cyclocross, I might actually drop down to a 40mm or 45mm for faster courses. And I want to note again that even 40mm is still above the UCI maximum. So as soon as I go pro, I'll have to get used to narrower tires. For my riding, I think 55mm is the right choice. Will these be my tires long term? That depends on how they perform across different conditions, but the bigger point is this. Having a frame that gives me the freedom to experiment with tire width and tread, that's exactly why I wanted generous clearance in the first place.

Cockpit Comfort For Long Rough Rides

Tom Butler 18:30

When it came to the cockpit, I wanted to get it right. I plan on spending hours on the bike in rougher conditions, and I felt the bars and stem could make or break my endurance. I love the future shock on my Roubaix, and I wish other manufacturers would copy that system. Closest I could find is a redshift shock stop suspension stem. There's a significant difference in the feel between the future shock and the redshift. The future shock moves straight up and down inside the head tube, and the redshift hinges the stem, and that makes the bars drop in relation to the head tube. I haven't found it to produce a bad feel, but it does feel different. The stem has elastomers inside that allow the absorption to be adjusted. On a long gravel ride, I already know that there's an almost consistent vibration that can add up over time. And so taking the edge off it, I think is genuinely worth something to me. The red shift I'm running is six degrees of rise and it's 99 millimeters long. Right now I've got the medium stiffness elastomer in it, but I'll eventually want to compare it to the firmer one. I suspect my weight might be a bit much for the medium option, so I do want to feel the difference. The 90mm length is an educated guess. It's based on the professional bike fit I did on the Roubaix. The Roubaix and the Warrick aren't identical bikes, so I may need to adjust the stem once I've got serious miles on this setup. While it costs money, stems are easy to swap. But the redshift isn't the cheapest stem out there to replace, so I'd rather get it close the first time. The Warrican came with lithic adventurine handlebars, 44 centimeter measured at the brake hoods, and that width came straight from my Roubaix bike fit. The difference is these bars flare in the drops, meaning they're wider down low. I don't spend much time in the drops on long gravel rides, I'm usually on the hoods or the tops. The theory is when you hit a technical descent, those wider drops provide more leverage and control. It's a gravel specific design that I might end up adapting to. On the Roubaix, I spend a significant amount of time on top of the bars, and these lithic bars feel different up top, less real estate. So it's going to take miles to know if I can get used to them. It might seem like a small thing, but I went with Zip Service Course for Bar tape. That was recommended to me during my Roubaix bike fitting, and the feel is great. And I also like the look a lot. They come in a road texture and also a CX texture. I chose the CX and I'm really anxious to try them out because I love the feel on the Roubaix, and I think having really nice bar tape makes a difference.

Pedals Cleats And Future Shoe Plans

Tom Butler 21:22

I'm genuinely excited about the pedals. Well, I mean, there's a lot of things on this bike I'm excited about, but I am really intrigued by this new pedal. I went with the Wolftooth Control Trail Clipless Pedal, and that's CTRL, not control spelled out. The key thing they give you is a larger platform than a traditional road pedal. That bigger platform means better stability and better power transfer when you're on rough terrain, which on a gravel bike I'm planning on most of the time. There is a cost dynamic here because as I mentioned, I Gone with these blue highlights on the bike, and as soon as Wooftooth releases the control pedals in blue, I'm swapping these out to match the frame accents. Obviously, that's not a performance decision, that's me just wanting the bike to look the way I want it to. I'm also using the Shimano CL MT001 SPD cleat, which is fairly new and is designed to be a multi-entry cleat. It offers multiple options for engagement, the traditional toe-in-first method, a step on top and press method, or heel in first, then toe. I'm going to be really curious if it feels like I'm able to get back into the pedal more quickly when I'm coming out of some technical section because of the multiple options for engagement. The selling point is being able to click in multiple ways, means quicker re-engagement and less fumbling around, getting your foot lined up perfectly. The shoes I wear are really comfortable, I love them, but they're also made for just running around town, not any performance at all in them. So that will be something I might look at, getting specific shoes for doing gravel rides.

Oval Chainring And 1x12 Gearing

Tom Butler 23:20

Now the oval chain ring. If you've been listening for a while, you know that I have a history with this topic. I did a whole episode on oval chain rings back on February 5th of 2025 with Garen. So I won't rehash all of that here. If you want the full reasoning, the episode is the place to go. The short version is this I had Northwest Try and Bike put on a Wolftooth Power Track Oval Chainring, 38 Teeth. I've been curious about Oval for a while. I recently talked about how I put an oval chain ring on my FX3. My honest reasoning is that I think oval is a better fit for my pedal style. And by that I mean I don't have a particularly good circular pedal stroke. Wolftooth has been developing oval chain rings for years, so it's not an unproven idea. And here's the honest part. Same thing I said about the FX3 earlier. I haven't noticed the oval shape at all while I'm riding. Not on climbs, not anywhere. But as I said in a recent episode, I'm convinced by the science behind oval. Not the feel, so me not noticing isn't a problem. It was never about what I'd feel in the moment. It's the same way I think about the titanium frame. I trust what the engineering is doing, even when my own body isn't sensitive enough to register it. The chain ring up front tells half the story, the other half is the cassette in back. And part of that story is the one by setup. This is a 1x12 drivetrain, 12 cogs in the back. The cassette I went with is a 10 to 51 range. I feel that big 51 tooth cog is what gives me the low climbing gears I need for steep gravel climbs, especially if I'm loaded down with camping gear. And the 38 tooth chain ring up front keeps things efficient on flat ground and on descents. Although I'm expecting that I will run out of top gears at some point, but having lower options for the rides I'm planning on doing, I think are more important than having full out speed options. I do question if 38 teeth turn out to be the perfect chain ring size for every condition. And time will tell, probably a lot of time. And that's both the beauty and the curse of the one by system. You're committed to that one chainring, so you have to choose it carefully. I've got some experimenting in mind down the road. I'll probably try a 40 tooth chain ring at some point, and I'd also like to try shorter 165mm cranks. Right now I'm on Shimano GRX 170mm cranks. My Roubaix runs 172.5mm. Shimano is supposed to be releasing a 165mm GRX crank this month. For now though, I want to live with this exact setup for a while so that if I do change something, I can really feel what the change did.

Splurging On Shimano GRX 800

Tom Butler 26:17

Last thing to address is one of the biggest decisions I wrestled with. That's the group set. After thinking a lot about it, I splurged here and went with the Shimano GRX 800 over the cheaper 600 level option. GRX800 is Shimano's top tier gravel group. For my road group set, I didn't go with the most expensive option. Actually felt like the 105 was a more durable choice. And I kind of expected the same dynamic between 800 and 600. But looking into it changed my mind. Compared to the 600, you're getting weight savings from more carbon fiber and lighter alloys, more refined internals for crisper and more reliable shifting under load, more sealing against mud and water, and higher grade materials that should hold up longer under hard use. But I did not go with electronic shifting. Was it worth the extra money? For me, yes. This is a bike I plan to keep for years, and I want the shifting to stay crisp through thousands of muddy gritty miles. And GRX was purpose built for gravel. The shifter ergonomics work even with full gloves on, and the clutch in the rear derailler keeps the chain quiet over rough terrain. The hydraulic brakes are meant to hold up with stopping power on long descents with a loaded bike. It pairs with the 1x12 10 to 51 cassette I talked about. Simple, wide range, exactly what I wanted for this kind of riding.

What I Will Change Over Time

Tom Butler 27:42

So that's the build. An Otso Workin' TI spec to be my do everything gravel and circle gross bike. I just want to say if you made it this far through this episode, you're my kind of bike nerd. If I set back, what makes this bike work isn't any single part, it's the way the choices fit together. Titanium for durability and compliance, the tuning chip for genuine versatility, woof tooth components throughout, because I believe the company builds parts to solve real problems, fifty millimeter tires that take advantage of all the frame clearance, and a group set that won't quit when things get rough. Will every one of these choices turn out to be right? Probably not. I might change the stem length. I might land on one tuning chip position and never touch it again. I might go to a forty tooth chain ring or shorter cranks or upgrade the wheels, but that's the process with any new bike, I guess. You dial it in over time, and you learn the bike by riding it. Here is what I believe. I've got a bike that can race cycle cross in the fall, handle bikepacking trips in the summer, and tackle just about any gravel route I can find in between. For a rider who doesn't want to be limited by his equipment, that versatility is the whole point. I will be documenting how these choices actually play out as time goes on, so this won't be the last time you hear about this bike. If you're thinking about a not so or building up your own gravel bike, I hope walking through my reasoning helps you make better decisions for your own riding. And please email me about choices that you have made on your bikes. I would love to hear what decisions you wrestled with. Talking through all of this has me itching to get out and put some real miles on this thing on a gravel path somewhere. Soon I'm going to be taking it out on my first long ride. And you'll hear about how that went.