3000 Miles & Counting - Matty’s Enve Mog

My Mog has seen a few build iterations, from the standard drop bar / sram AXS build, to my flat bar exploration weapon, and here are my honest thoughts. Any bike that shows you new places and opens up new routes is a great bike in my book, the MOG was just better at that than almost any other gravel bike I’ve ridden. 3 key factors of overall compliance, massive tire clearance, and the right mix of race and adventure come together on this frame. And in my humble opinion, Enve beautifully masters the engineering behind all 3. 

Enve has had a long time in the game of engineering carbon. Being one of the first to take the step into the largely unknown and unexplored Carbon wheel segment has left them with lasting knowledge that keeps them at the forefront of engineering in an expanding segment. This is immediately felt when you throw a leg over the bike. The frame has amazing small bump compliance that silences many of the higher frequencies that are felt on many other bikes when off road. Compliance goes just beyond the frame with Enve having the entire build tailored around Enves other great products. This includes my favorite drop bar of all time, the Enve SES AR Bars (40cm bar for me), Enve AG25 Wheels, and if you choose not to run a dropper, then you also get an Enve 27.2 seatpost which is very compliant. 

Luckily compliance doesn't always mean inefficiency. The mog feels plenty stiff when you have to get out of the saddle and put out max power, whether that’s in a sprint to the stop sign to beat a friend or going for a KOM. Obviously it's not as stiff as a dedicated aero road bike, but it's surprising nonetheless. When the bike is able to keep such speed over rough sections of trail due to its compliance, you don't expect it to be snappy or sharp out of the saddle. It just seems to be one of the laws of designing bikes, but they somehow bypassed it.

Like mentioned earlier, the SES AR In-Route bars are my favorite bars of all time. This is all based on feel, but the 76mm reach, and 127mm drop seem to be the absolute perfect numbers to get the most comfortable bar set up. The flat top section is a great place to rest your hands while climbing or even a great place to rest your forearms to drop down and get aero. This flat section of the bar is also where Enve engineered the majority of the compliance into the bar. It should be noted that these bars do have noticeable flex, again, great on gravel, but there are stiffer options if you want a very snappy front end.

An often overlooked feature is the massive 50c tire clearance on the frame (when running 1x - which is the only way this bike should be built IMO). And I'm not going to sit here and say that this is a game changing innovation, but having the freedom to opt for a slightly larger 50c tire is amazing. This has allowed for riders to have a larger selection of tires, which in tune allows for better customization to your riding locations. You can choose to go for the perfect race set up and run Schwalbe G-One RS in a 700x40 and then throw on a set of 29x2.1” tires to go explore the unknown back country the next weekend. Small things coming together to make this a more compelling offering for most riders. This larger tire clearance was also super welcomed when I ran the flat bar set up. It allowed the bike to feel more like an XC race hardtail when charging, rather than a complete noodle.

A great job of balancing race efficiency and storage features have helped this bike appeal to a very wide range of riders. For example, the Specialized Crux and Crux DSW are incredible bikes, but lose out by only having 2 bottle mounting locations and no other accessory mounts. Even if most riders aren't planning on doing any bike packing trips, having the ability to run a small, bolt-on top tube bag or simply bolt on an emergency kit makes all the difference while also clearing space in jersey pockets. And, if you want you can change out your seatpost collar then you now have the ability to mount racks for the back in addition to having the fork accessory mounts. This opens up a whole world of possibilities for bike packing and more adventures. 

There is also internal frame storage on the Mog which is nice, but honestly it's not the selling feature of the bike. Riding a 58cm frame and having full access to the downtube does provide a lot of space for internal storage, however the frame opening is smaller which makes getting spares, tools, and food in and out a little tricky. 

My MOG has been my tool for exploring and doing many rides and races that I wouldn't normally want to. At the end of the day, this bike likely won’t make you faster, but there's something special about it. It has an innate ability to make you want to get out and ride the bike, and that in itself is worth every penny to me.