Spa Cycles Elan Ti Mk2 105 R7000 11-speed

The Spa Cycles Elan Ti Mk2 is part of Spa's Audax and Sportive line-up – and its geometry, contact points and beautiful ride quality mean that the longer the ride, the better! Based around a high-quality titanium frame and full carbon fork the Elan Ti Mk2 is comfortable, and quicker than you'd expect given the figure you see on the scales.

Our best touring bikes buyer's guide looks at our top tourers, while our sister site off.road.cc rounds up 10 of the best titanium gravel and adventure bikes you can buy.

> Buy now: Spa Cycles Elan Ti Mk2 for £2,495 from Spa Cycles

Ride

Like many others, if I was looking for a road bike that is going to give long-distance comfort, an involving ride feel and durability, then titanium would be my frame material of choice – and those qualities are exactly what the Elan Ti Mk2 offers by the bucket load.

First up, the geometry.

There's no doubt that the Elan's tall head tube looks a little ungainly when compared with a racier machine, but on a bike like this it put me in just the right position.

It delivers a relaxed, slightly upright position that still allows you the option of getting more aero in the drops should the need arise. Also, if you were to bin all the spacers, you can still get a decent drop from your saddle to the bar if you desire.

It's good that you can too, as I was surprised how sprightly the Spa feels. At 10.25kg it's no lightweight out of the blocks, but once you're got it rolling it feels much more eager to get a shift on than I was expecting.

The majority of my riding miles on the Elan Ti were commuting to the office, a trip of around 18 miles each way. The route is primarily main roads interspersed by a couple of traffic-packed towns, with a trip across Bath at the end or the beginning.

The tall front end allows you to see over and through the traffic, helping you to make quick progress through snarled-up vehicles, while the neutral handling means slow-speed direction changes are easy and stress-free.

With the assurance of the hydraulic disc brakes backing me up, I felt like I could cut through the traffic like a Deliveroo rider on a sugar rush without having to worry about how to deal with the situation unfolding in front of me.

Considering the stretched wheelbase, the bike is nimble too, which makes integrating with the ebb and flow of urban traffic a breeze.

Away from the congestion, though, the Elan Ti becomes a proper mile muncher. It responds nicely to your touch at the pedals or the handlebar, but when you just want to ride and take in the scenery or let your mind wander it is hugely stable and just a real joy to ride.

What really helps is that the bike fitted me perfectly, not through any customisation – it just felt absolutely bang on. When riding, I really felt like part of the bike and whichever way I leaned, or tweaked my ride too just saw the Elan move with me.

Even on high-speed descents it felt unflustered, flowing cleanly through wide open bends with good visibility, and while it lacks a race bike's razor-sharp steering it coped more than admirably with technical sections.

It's not a bad ascender either. This bike is running a compact chainset and an 11-speed cassette with a decent 11-32 range, but thanks primarily to the position I could happily stay in the saddle and turn the pedals over.

Even long climbs didn't play on my lower back, which can be a bit of a nightmare at times, and should the need arise to get out of the saddle there is plenty of stiffness around the lower half of the frame for your hard efforts.

But it's the big-mile treks where the Elan really comes into its own. The frame has that underlying smoothness that is inherent in titanium alloy tubing, and paired with the full carbon fork the comfort is wonderful.

My longest ride was just over four hours and I stepped off the Elan with sore legs – but absolutely no niggles elsewhere. And that, considering how damaged my body is from various interactions with car bonnets, is very high praise indeed.

Also, ever since I've been reviewing e-bikes for ebiketips I've got into a habit of staying seated in the saddle on a road bike for longer stints than I probably should. Normally I'm reminded to stand up and stretch when I can feel my back tightening up, but I never got that nudge on the Elan.

Overall, the Elan offers great comfort for epic rides while being great fun and quick enough so that you don't ignore it if you want to go out for a quicker blast. It's definitely the kind of bike you could use for commuting and winter training during the week, with longer routes planned for the weekend.

You'll certainly never tire of riding it – I certainly haven't.

Frame and Fork

The main changes to the Mk2 compared to the Mk1 is that it accepts 12mm thru-axles rather than quick-release axles, and the calliper mounting has been upgraded from post mount to flat mount, which brings it bang up to date with modern build specs.

The Mk1 is still available on Spa Cycles' website, so you still have the choice. And this is ideal if you have an existing bike with a quick-release setup and want a frameset to transfer your existing components over to.

The Elan's seamless tubing is the familiar 3Al/2.5V alloy of titanium blended with 3% aluminium and 2.5% vanadium. It has a bright, brushed finish, which is easy to keep looking like new, and the welding quality is to a very neat standard indeed, even around the small components such as the bottle bosses and cable guides.

This size frame weighs around 1.65kg and it comes with a 10-year warranty for the original owner.

The Elan is primarily a light tourer, given even more versatility with some very impressive tyre clearances. Without the full mudguards it'll take 45mm tyres, and even 40mm tyres with fenders fitted.

This means that the Elan isn't limited to the road. With the right kind of rubber, it's a capable machine when ridden on hard-packed surfaces such as canal paths, by-ways and gravel trails, which gives you the ability to try that track or backlane that you've never been down before.

You can also run the Elan with 650b wheels.

Unlike some frames the Elan isn't adorned with loads of mounting points but from my point of view that isn't any reason to mark it down. With the amount of frame, bar and seatpost bags available to us now, it would be easy to load up the Elan up for a lightweight tour.

What it does have, though, is mountings for bottle cages in the traditional places and the ability to take a rear rack.

Full mudguards are catered for, and with the mounting points again in a traditional position there's no faffing around with the stays to get them to fit.

The Elan's frame doesn't offer internally routed cables or hoses, so it only really works, or at least looks right with, mechanical groupsets with cable or hydraulic brakes.

I've got no real issue with that to be honest. The tubes don't need to be drilled or have ports or guides welded to them, which both keeps the cost down and makes maintenance either whether on the commute or in the back of beyond.

The titanium frame is paired with a full carbon fork. Ours came with the Elan Mk2 standard option, though for an extra £95 you can upgrade to an Enigma C-Six model.

There are six sizes available in total, ranging from 50cm to 58cm of which we have the 54cm here for review.

It has a top tube length of 552mm, head tube height of 175mm and a seat tube of 540mm. The wheelbase is 1,047mm and the chainstays are 440mm.

From a stack and reach point of view you are looking at 602.6mm and 384.1mm respectively, which ties in with how tall the front end is.

The head tube is a quite shallow 71.5°, with the seat tube steeper at 72.5°.

Finishing Kit

The build we have here uses a Shimano 105 R7000 groupset and hydraulic disc brakes.

As both of those reviews report, the gear shifting and braking performance is hard to fault even in the rain or mud, and it offers excellent value.

As I touched on above, we've got the compact chainset with 50/34T chainrings, but Spa provides you with plenty of options including the Shimano GRX 46/30T or for an extra £40 you could get Spa's own TD2 Super Compact in 46/30T, 44/28T, 42/26T and 40/24T chainrings, giving you a super-low 32x24 bottom gear.

In fact, Spa builds all its bikes to order and offers plenty of customising offers, with Hope Edition builds adding a bit of bling. Go to the website for a full build and upgrade list.

Our bike's finishing kit has an FSA Wing Compact handlebar and its Omega stem, with a Deda Zero 1 alloy seatpost.

As standard the Elan comes with Spa's own Navigator saddle and it isn't one that I exactly gelled with and is probably the only bit of the build I'd change.

The standard price includes Mavic Aksium wheels, which are tough and durable though they are a little weighty. But I've ridden thousands of miles on Aksiums over the years though and they are a good choice for this kind of bike.

Our test bike has handbuilt wheels, which Spa says the vast majority of Elan buyers go for. These add a comparatively modest £160 to the cost and during testing these performed excellently in all kinds of weather conditions and over numerous different surfaces – so I'd say they're a worthwhile upgrade.

Spa also offers a range of Schwalbe tyres, with the default model the Schwalbe One Folding fitted to our bike.

It's an excellent tyre designed for fast riding, with plenty of grip and low rolling resistance. It's probably not a tyre I'd use all year-round, but for the spring, summer and autumn it's a belter and helps give the Elan that bit of a boost.

Price, Value and Options

Overall, I think the Elan Mk2 offers good value, and that is helped even more by the fact that the four different models are currently on sale – I'll put those prices in brackets.

So, this 105 build starts at £2,950 (£2,495) which includes the kit I've mentioned above, although the wheels mean that this bike is £3,110 (£2,655) as reviewed.

Other than that, you can have the same base build with Ultegra R8000 for £3,199 (£2,770). The builds with the Hope components and wheels start at £3,400 (£2,965) for the 105 and £3,549 (£3,240) for the Ultegra option.

A frameset is £1,315 which includes the frame and the fork.

If titanium is a little out of your reach, then there is a Reynolds 725 Mk2 steel option on offer. A 105 build with cable discs is £1,445 or £1,710 with hydraulics. Ultegra R8000 is £1,950, while the Hope Editions are £2,180 for 105 and £2,420 for Ultegra.

Both the Ti and 725 builds are available with Spa's Mk1 frames too and you can add numerous accessories to your bike at the time of ordering.

From a competition point of view, you could go for Ribble's Endurance Ti which in a 105 build with Aksiums is £2,599, though that's without any extras such as the mudguards that come as standard on the Spa.

I rode the Ribble a while back and was very impressed, although I would say that I feel the Elan has a slightly better ride quality, and the geometry was spot on for me.

Alpkit has quite a large range of bikes, one of which is the more gravel-focused Sonder Colibri Ti 105. Way back in 2015 David tested the pre-production model and was impressed. With a 105 groupset it costs £2,549, with mudguards an extra £40.

Conclusion

At the current sale price, the Elan is very competitively priced, but even at its full retail price I think with the build and ride quality on offer it definitely goes on my recommended list. The way the geometry works alongside the comfort of the titanium makes is a great long-distance machine, but with that nippiness there if you want to ride quickly.

Verdict

Belies its weight in terms of performance and offers an incredibly comfortable ride