Moots Vamoots CRD - Simon Richardson’s titanium bike for Inferno mountain challenge

Carbon is the material of choice for many, but the Moots Vamoots CRD proves that titanium is a strong adversary

15:30, Friday 1st September 2023

The Moots Vamoots CRD titanium road bike

Simon Richardson
GCN Presenter
Former pro road and mountain biker racer
MOOTS
Moots is an American frame manufacturer that work specifically with titanium. The brand is well established as one of the worlds premium titanium frame manufacturers of road, gravel and mountain bike framesets.
Shimano
Shimano is a bike component manufacturer based in Osaka, Japan. The company is one of the industry’s most popular manufacturers and it makes up around three-quarters of the bicycle component market by value.
ENVE Composites
ENVE Composites is based in the United States and specialises in wheels and components across all of the cycling disciplines.
Wahoo
Wahoo is a fitness technology company based in Atlanta, USA. Wahoo produces a range of cycling technology products, from cycling computers and smart watches to indoor trainers, pedals and other accessories.

GCN's Si Richardson recently took on the Inferno, a 480km-long race packed with 12,000m of climbing. For a mighty mountain challenge like this, he would usually opt for a carbon road bike. Carbon is synonymous with light weight, making it the obvious choice.

It’s not the only frame material available, though, and this time we wanted to do things differently. Luckily, Moots was on hand to provide its Vamoots CRD – a seriously impressive titanium bike which proved to be a valuable ally in Si’s mammoth challenge.

Before we take a look at the bike, find out if Si completed the event here.

Moots: masters of titanium

Moots has channeled all of its titanium know-how into the Vamoots CRD

It’s become so dominant in the cycling industry, you could be forgiven for thinking that carbon is the only frame material available. That’s far from the case and there are a range of brands which specialise in other materials like titanium, including Moots.

Based out of Steamboat Springs in Colorado - a familiar name on the gravel scene due to the famous SBT GRVL event - Moots has exclusively been building titanium frames for over 30 years, becoming masters of the material.

And titanium is one of the best materials for building bike frames, saving weight over other materials like steel while retaining a good strength-to-weight ratio. Plus, it’s much more durable than carbon and aluminium.

Complete Race Design

For his challenge, Si used the Vamoots CRD – with the CRD standing for Complete Race Design, an indication of the ethos of the bike.

As the name suggests, it’s performance-orientated and Moots has used the most advanced tube set it’s ever created, which tips the scales at 1.4kg. That’s not quite in the territory of lightweight carbon frames, but it’s seriously impressive for titanium.

The tubes it has selected include Titanium Vanadium Alloy for the main frame, and 3D-printed dropouts. This 3D printing adds stiffness to the rear of the bike and improves caliper alignment accuracy.

As always, the welding on the frame is of the highest quality. We saw first hand how much care is put into the creation of the frames when we toured the factory last year, and it’s reflected in the finish.

The welds are impressively tidy

On the topic of aesthetics, anyone buying the bike can select from a range of colourways. Si’s choice was the Apex and the pictures speak for themselves - it’s stunning!

Upgraded design

The Vamoots range has been around for a while and the CRD is an update to its predecessor, the RSL. Much of the bike is similar but it’s been upgraded in two key areas, including an increase to 32mm of tyre clearance, in line with modern trends.

There are no cables in sight

The bike now also features fully integrated cables, made possible by the ENVE Chris King handlebars, stem, and headset. For the front of the bike, the cables are routed through the handlebars and stem and then down the fork between the fork steerer and the outer bearing race.

To accommodate internal cabling, Moots had to use a larger bottom bracket shell, switching to the T47 bottom bracket standard from a BSA threaded option.

The components

Beyond the headset, ENVE components dominate the build, including a carbon fork, seatpost and the SES 2.3 wheels. That’s the shallowest rim in ENVE’s premium SES range that’s specially designed for climbing, weighing only 1,274g.

These are tubeless-compatible wheels, but Si chose to go for a tubed set-up, mainly to avoid any messy sealant situations while out on the road - not something you want to contend with during an ultra-endurance challenge. Pirelli’s P Zero 4S tyres were also picked for their practicality over pure performance and are optimised for all weather conditions.

Gearing set-up is the most important thing to perfect for a mountain challenge like this. Get it wrong and it’s easy to grind to a halt on climbs, especially when you’re over 300km into a ride.

That’s why Si went compact with a Shimano Dura-Ace 50/34 chainset, combined with an 11-30t cassette. It’s not a huge cassette by modern standards, and many pros regularly use 11-34t options, but it proved to be ample for Si.

The 11-30t cassette provided enough gears for Si to conquer the climbs

Discomfort often proves to be the biggest obstacle on rides like this and is one of the biggest causes of abandonments. Luckily Si had his trusty Selle Italia SLR Boost saddle to keep his derriere happy.

The build was completed with Wahoo’s Elemnt Roam computer which has a larger screen than the Elemnt Bolt, making it easier to navigate.