Fara F/All Road Review

Throwing £3737 at a bike that you’ve never seen in the flesh, let alone test ridden might be an instant turn off for some people, but if you do take the gamble then the Fara All-Road will reward your decision. The stunning paintjob and competitive spec sheet is only half the story here, the All-Road lives up to its name more than other bikes of the genre we’ve ridden, with genuine all day comfort on the road and enough compliance and clearance to take on gravel duties too.

It's machine with a different character to the BMC Roadmachine X but that’s the beauty of this genre, there are so many great bikes that all excel in different areas.

4.5/5

£3737 | Buy from Fara

Pros

Have we mentioned the paintjob?
Competitive spec for the money
Composed ride over most terrain
Hidden luggage mounts

Cons

No chance of a test ride
Sizing requires some attention
Tyres a little lifeless

The Lowdown

Full carbon frame and fork
8.3kg
SRAM Force AXS Groupset
Double Crankset
Fulcrum Airbeat 400 DB Carbon Wheels
Integrated bikepacking luggage
38mm Tyre Clearance

Think of the pioneering cycling brands of the past and present and the majority will come from the sunny climes of Italy, France and the USA. Norway would not even feature in the top 10 counties renowned for their cycling prowess but that might all be about to change.

Hailing from the aforementioned fjord riddled and pine covered Norway, Fara is the new kid on the block. Taking inspiration from the German behemoth Canyon, you won’t find Fara stocked in any shops as they sell direct to consumer in an attempt to bring top tier bikes to customers at a competitive price.

Fara currently only offer three bikes which cover the spectrum of road to gravel very nicely. The bike we’ve been riding for the past few months is the All-Road, which sits at the intersection between the pure road and pure gravel ends of the spectrum.

We’ve become a bit smitten with the all road concept of late, offering most of the speed of a road bike with most of the capability of a gravel bike to provide a true one bike garage. The all road thinking isn’t all rosy though, compromises have to be made somewhere and the balance between tarmac and gravel balanced. The All-Road has a few tricks up its carbon sleeves so we’ve been riding it over any surface we could find to see if it’s worthy of your attention.

What even is Direct to Consumer (D2C)?

Buying a bike direct from the manufacturer isn’t uncommon these days, Canyon pioneered the approach and have since gone on to compete with the traditional sales model of stocking bikes in a bricks and mortar store for customers to poke, prod and peruse before parting with their cash. Canyon have now forged an excellent reputation, providing bikes to riders at the pinnacle of the sport across a host of disciplines, carry them to world championships and podiums aplenty.

The D2C model means that the middle man is axed from the equation, removing distributors and retailers who take a cut of the sale price. In theory, this means the bike can be sold at a lower cost to the consumer whilst the manufacturer can maintain their margins.

Selling directly to the consumer does have its pitfalls though, the obvious one being you can’t go and look at the bike before you buy it, the first time you see it will be when you’re unboxing and building it. Some won’t be phased by this, but we could understand if you’d be nervous paying a few thousand pounds for something you’d only ever seen on a screen and we’d be pleasantly surprised if we saw any out on the roads of the UK.

The first time we saw the All-Road we were left suitably impressed; the deep glossy ‘Fjord Green’ paint job with metallic flecks looked exceptional, it’s also available in ‘Wet Asphalt’ but we’d go with the green any day.

Once we’d prised our eyes away from the sumptuous paint job, the rest of the bike pulled its weight too. SRAM Force AXS took care of the shifting and braking with the Fulcrum Airbeat 400 DB wheelset capping off a great looking machine. Speaking of weight, in this guise the All-Road tipped the scales at 8.3kg which is very respectable for a mid-tier adventure bike. The BMC Kaius gravel race bike we reviewed last year is one kilo lighter and 2.5x the price, so make of that what you wish.

Fara offer the All-Road in three guises, series 1, 2 and 3. We’ve got the Series 2 here but the higher spec Series 1 comes decked out with a SRAM Red AXS groupset and carbon wheels, whereas the Series 3 keeps the wireless shifting but drops to lower spec wheels. All the builds are customisable to fit with your budget.

Our build came equipped with a 3T handlebar and stem but there’s options to upgrade to a one piece carbon bar with fully integrated cabling if you want the super clean look. Other finishing kit included a full carbon seatpost topped with a Fizik Tempo Argo which we had no complaints about. The Tempo Argo seems to be the go to saddle for gravel/adventure bikes and we can see why; all day comfort paired with a stubby nose to put the power down when things get more sporty.

Available in four sizes from 49cm to 59cm, there isn’t quite the same range as you might find from other manufactures which leads us onto one of the pitfalls of buying direct. We’d normally ride a 58cm frame and the closest Fara offer is a 59cm, it’s only 1cm difference but we felt the reach was a little too long for us and might have been better on a 56cm. Ordinarily we’d be able to go into a shop and get some advice on the ideal size but that isn’t the case with Fara.

The All-Road borrows elements from both the Road and Gravel models in the Fara range which makes it an enticing proposition. Adopting a similar geometry to the Road but pairing it with generous 38mm tyre clearance, the All-Road has the potential to tackle a little bit of everything. Curved seatstays took the edge off poor road surfaces and the geometry was relaxed enough that it was comfortable to ride on 100km+ routes yet when you wanted to put the hammer down it allowed for quite an aggressive position with the carbon frame being stiff and responsive enough to reward our efforts.

Handling was spot on too, Fara have struck the perfect blend of the All-Road feeling composed but not completely numb; we had the confidence to point it into a corner and trust that we’d make it out the other side. On the flip side, the handling didn’t feel twitchy when riding on the flat.

We did find the All-Road was more susceptible to crosswinds than we were expecting, this could be down to the profile of the Fulcrum rims not being optimised for crosswinds but if you live somewhere very windy, we might be inclined to spec a shallower rim.

It's obviously not going to compete with a dedicated gravel bike in its stock form as we found the tyres were more geared towards tarmac than gravel (mud at this time of the year). Swap the Panaracer GravelKing Slick’s to something with a bit more tread and we’d be confident that the All-Road could hold its own against a pure gravel machine.

The stock tyres served their purpose, but we didn’t feel they did a huge justice to the bike. They we’re a little sluggish on road and lacked any meaningful tread off road so we’re almost the worst of both ends of the spectrum. They are tubeless ready however, so we’d recommend ditching the tubes to breathe a bit of life into the ride.

Take a closer look at the frame and those with a keen eye will notice that it’s festooned with mounts; on the fork legs, downtube and the carbon seatpost which might give a clue as to what the All-Road is made for.

Those mounts can be used to attach all manner of bikepacking bags to; Fara will even sell you a set of bags designed specifically for the All-Road which fit perfectly in the frame. The bags use a Fidlock connector so are rock solid when they’re on but can easily be removed with a press of a button.

Perhaps more useful for the everyday rider, the All-Road also has hidden mudguard mounts and Fara will even sell you a set of guards custom designed for the All-Road.

Whether you intend to use the All-Road for bikepacking or not, the healthy spread of 24 gears across the 12 speed cassette and double chainring will be suffice to hoist you up even the fiercest of inclines. However riding a 2x chainring on this bike has reminded us of the foibles of a front mech, even with huge leaps in technology and fancy electronic shifting, we still managed to drop chains and have the mech rub. With some tweaking we did iron these issues out, but it just made us ever fonder of the simplicity of a 1x drivetrain.

The F/All-Road from Fara is an example of a bike that can do almost everything pretty well. Few of us are lucky enough to ride straight out the door onto gravel so a bike that can hold its own on tarmac and gravel Is no bad thing. We’d love to take the All-Road on a bikepacking adventure as we think this is where it’ll really shine thanks to the integrated luggage mounts and dialled geometry.

Fara F/All Road Review

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