Vitus Venon EVO-RS 105 Di2 £3,599 | 7.8kg

Paul Grele tastes freedom on an all-road bike that comes in two flavours

Vitus’s Venon Evo is an interesting concept. It’s an all-road frameset that has been designed with versatility in mind, so much so that the brand offers it as a complete bike in two distinct guises – road (RS) and gravel (GR). To make this feasible it’s equipped with generous tyre clearances of up to 45mm when running a single chainring, and a frame design that aims to deliver both speed and comfort.

It’s the RS we’re looking at here. It’s available in a few builds using Shimano Ultegra or 105 Di2 groupsets as well as SR AM Force and Rival AXS alongside a range of road-specific components. Our review bike was decked out in the usually reliable 105 Di2.

Construction 

According to Vitus, the front end of the Venon Evo is inspired by its ZX-1 Evo aero bike, with drag- reducing tube shapes and integrated cables. At the other end of the bike it takes its cues from the comfy and compliant Vitesse Evo, with dropped seatstays and a carbon layup that’s designed to be forgiving on rougher road surfaces.

The one-piece monocoque frame features a BB386 press-fit bottom bracket and has M12 thru-axles. The aforementioned internal cable routing allows for mechanical groupsets to be used as well as the electronic kind, and the frame has bosses for fulllength mudguards as well as the usual mounts for bottle cages.

Those dropped seatstays are designed to allow for some vertical compliance and are combined with a 27.2mm diameter seatpost that should deliver a small amount of flex, which also helps with comfort.