Fairlight Cycles Faran 2.0

If you're looking for a dedicated bikepacking or touring bike then the Fairlight Cycles Faran 2.0 should be on your list. It can be built up however you want for the adventures you have in mind, and it's an ideal bike for loading up and heading off into the great beyond. Or even just out for an overnighter.

I've ridden this bike a lot, and I've used it for many different types of riding over the period I've been testing it. So much so that it's almost a long-term test; apologies to Fairlight for that. It's been a bikepacking bike, loaded up for overnight trips. It's been a gravel bike for day excursions. It's been a road bike, with narrower tyres. It's had mountain bike tyres and road bike tyres and semi-slick gravel tyres, and it's been fitted with 650B and 700C wheels, and through all that it's been an excellent companion on the tarmac and off it. The TL;DR here is this: it's an excellent bike. More on what it's best at later, but for now, let's dive into the spec.

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The Faran is an all-steel bike, with a Reynolds 631 frame and fork. Dom Thomas from Fairlight described it as a 'touring, audax, randonneuring, utility and all-purpose bike' in our chat when the bike was launched (check the video out here), and you can probably surmise from that, and what I've been using it for, that you can throw plenty of different types of riding at the Faran, and most of them will stick.

Fairlight has the excellent Secan gravel bike in its range too, and that's a bike more for the dedicated gravelleur; the Faran is designed to be more capable at the loaded end of the spectrum, although it's still a fairly tight geometry so that it's fun to handle off-road.

Reynolds 631 is the same steel as the 853 that Fairlight uses for its other frames, although the 853 undergoes an additional heat treatment process. But the fact that both tubesets start out the same means that Fairlight can use its custom tube shaping from the Secan – the bi-ovalised down tube and the flattened top tube – on the Faran too.

Although 631 is a bit cheaper than 853, at the wall thicknesses Fairlight is using for the frame it's plenty strong enough to handle the forces involved.

Fairlight offers the bike in five frame sizes – 51, 54, 56, 58 and 61cm – but also in two configurations for each size, with a shorter or taller head tube. Fairlight calls this proportional geometry, and says it allows for a good fit on a much wider range of riders. If you have geometry data from a session with a bikefitter then you can send that to Fairlight and it'll match you up with a frame size. Or you can measure a bike that you like and get a size recommendation based on that.

Your bike can be customised for size, stem length, spacer stack, crank length and bar width direct from Fairlight; it's most of the way to a custom service without the associated cost. I submitted measurements from a Kinesis Tripster ATR and was recommended a 58T frame, the taller of the two 58cm frames. And it's the right size, so it certainly worked for me.

Fork handles

The most noticeable difference between the 853-framed Secan and the Faran is the steel fork, which is very much designed around carrying a load. There are mounts for low-rider pannier racks, a randonneur rack, or multi-purpose cages, and the geometry is designed to work with weight on the fork legs.

The fork is butted from 1.2mm at the crown to 0.8mm in the legs, and it uses a non-tapered 1 1/8in steerer; it's not over-heavy but it is capable of dealing with a touring load.

With four cage mounts on each leg it's possible to run either a three-bolt multi-purpose cage in the high or low position, or even two bottle cages on each leg for a water bottle up top and a storage bottle below. There are a multitude of options.

There are front and rear crown holes for lights and mudguards that are independently threaded to make them easier to use. There's even a boss for a cable guide to stop your dynamo wire hitting your tyre. The level of attention to detail here is quite something.

There's also dynamo routing through the fork and into the frame, so if you're running dynamo lights – as I did during testing with a high-quality SON system – all the wires are neatly hidden.

Fairlight makes a 3D-printed mount for a SON rear light so that it can be mounted by the dropout, or you can fit one to a mudguard or rack if you have them. If you're heading off on a foreign adventure you can route the rear light down the other side of the frame too.

Apart from the dynamo wires – and Di2 wires, if you're running an electronic groupset – all cabling and hosing is external. Hoses run on bosses fitted to the frame, and the Faran uses a clever modular system of 3D-printed mounts, depending on what combination of mechs and dynamo you're using. Everything is covered, and it's a neat solution that means the bike never has any spare guides that aren't needed.

External cabling requires a little more ongoing maintenance as it's a bit more susceptible to ingress of dirt and water, but stripping out a broken cable and replacing it is simplicity itself, and can be done on the road with minimal tools.

In terms of routing, everything has been considered. A quick flick through the lookbook will reveal pages and pages of routing options for mechanical and electronic drivetrains, with or without a dynamo. However you want to build the Faran, your use case will have been considered, and everything will look neat and tidy.

If you are setting out into the great wide beyond, then one huge benefit of a steel frame and fork is that it can easily be repaired, anywhere in the world, with widely available tools. The Faran is built as a bike to carry loads, but it's not overbuilt. It uses 14mm non-tapered, non-butted stays, which are narrower than those you'd find on a world tourer to give the bike a better ride feel.

It's not going to be as torsionally stiff as a dedicated world tourer for a heavy pannier setup, but realistically the target user is more likely to be loading up for a few nights on the road, and a lot of the time a bike like this will be ridden unloaded. It's always going to be a trade-off.

Tyre options

Between the stays there is space for a 650B tyre up to 58mm width, or a 700C tyre up to 47mm. Fairlight recommends measuring the physical dimension of the tyre rather than relying on the stated size, as tyres can differ dramatically even when they're nominally the same size.

Our test bike came fitted with Continental Race King tyres in a 2.2in width, and I've also fitted IRC Boken Plus 650x47mm, Challenge Strada Bianca 700x36mm and even some Giant 700x28mm tyres during testing, which made the bike look a bit gappy but still worked perfectly well.

Realistically, you'll be looking at the Faran if you're thinking of going loaded and fitting big tyres for varied terrain. If your aspirations are to go faster on gravel, with lighter loads, then the Secan is the better choice, and an excellent choice at that.

The Faran's fork is reasonably stiff; it needs to be to cope with the larger loads it's designed to carry. For that reason it's a pretty firm ride when you're running 28mm tyres, and based on my testing, the 36mm Challenge Strada Bianca tyres are about the smallest I'd recommend. It's a better bike with 650B wheels and bigger tyres.

> 29 of the best gravel bike tyres — get the right go-anywhere rubber

My favourites during testing were the IRC Boken Plus 47mm, which are slick enough to be quiet and quick on tarmac while also offering surprising amounts of grip on a wide range of surfaces.

That big air chamber softens the front end response, and the ovalised top tube – which is designed to allow the bike to wallow a bit under load – combines with the 27.2mm seatpost to make the Faran comfortable at the rear. It doesn't ride like a tourer: the rear end is reasonably tight, and in fact the tyre size on a 700C wheel is limited not by the width of the stays but by the distance to the seat tube.

The steering when the bike is unloaded is quite lively. The trail on the Faran is 10mm lower than the Secan; the idea is that when the fork is loaded, the steering response will slow down a bit and the feel of a loaded Faran will be very similar to an unloaded Secan. At times that means that the front wheel can wander a bit on slow technical climbs if you're riding unloaded, rather than holding its line, but overall the handling of the bike is pitched about right. It's a fun bike to be aboard off-road, and it can cope with tight technical terrain very well.

I found that I was striking pedals more than I'd like on the rockier stuff. The bottom bracket on the Faran isn't especially high, and I was running 175mm cranks on the test bike. Given my experiences from the test period I'd certainly spec a shorter crank if I was building up the bike again.

Faran’s forte

What's the Faran best for? It's best for what it's designed for: sticking a few bags on and heading off for a bit of adventure. I did a couple of overnighters on the Faran, including a two-day Exmoor and Quantock adventure, with a Tailfin Aeropack on the back, a frame bag and some small cages on the fork.

The bike proved itself to be a hugely capable companion over a variety of surfaces, and it didn't put a foot wrong. It was comfortable and easy to pilot, and fun to ride too.

The Shimano GRX600 1x transmission on the review bike was functionally flawless, with a sensible range of gears for tarmac cruising and off-road grinds.

The Hope/SON dynamo wheelset – a Fairlight exclusive – put up with some fairly serious abuse on rocky Exmoor descents and remained true; they're easy wheels to set up tubeless, too, for all of the tyres I tried.

The SON lighting is dependable and the front beam is ideal for road and light off-road riding. If you're having to navigate slow and technical stuff in the dark you'll probably want to pair it with a head torch, but you could easily ride all night on the lanes with just the dynamo lighting.

The 3d printed rear light mount feels like it could be a little bit exposed to a stray stump or rock, but it survived the test period unscathed.

One thing that didn't survive entirely unscathed was the paint, which had rubbed off around the seat tube under the frame bag mount thanks to a couple of wet, gritty days on Exmoor. If you're fitting bags, best to invest in some frame protector strips for where the straps will be.

Value

As a frameset the Faran 2.0 retails for £949, and the cheapest full build (with GRX600) is £2,099. The bike I've been riding, with some Hope bling and the dynamo system, would set you back just under £3,000 all in. That's not cheap, but the frameset is good value, especially considering the level of attention to detail. It's £400 less than the Secan 2.5, although some of that extra cash is going on a carbon fork.

> 19 of the best 2021 gravel bikes & adventure road bikes

In many ways this is a similar bike to the £720 Fearless Warlock that we recently reviewed; the Warlock is approaching bikepacking from the mountain biking side and the Faran is coming from road, but they're more or less meeting in the middle in terms of their aspirations. I haven't ridden the Warlock so I can't give you a side-by-side comparison or tell you whether the Faran justifies its higher price, but I can say that I'd have no qualms about spending my own hard-earned cash on the Faran.

> 14 of the best touring bikes — get your dream steed for taking off into the beyond

The Mason ISO is another obvious competitor, but at £1,595 for the frameset it's considerably more expensive, albeit with a carbon fork and higher grade tubing.

Conclusion

I had lots of fun on the Faran, and would certainly recommend it. If you're looking for something that can be loaded up and pointed at some tricky terrain, but that's also fun to cruise around the lanes on or even spec up for a big adventure, this is a bike that can handle all sorts of riding. Other bikes – including Fairlight's own Secan – cover the fast end of audax and gravel better, but for longer, slower rides with more stuff, the Faran 2.0 will be an excellent long-term companion.

Verdict

Excellent bikepacking and touring machine that loves being loaded up and pointed at the wilderness