117 - Lauf Seigla Race Wireless Gravel Bike

Now is your chance to own the famous Icelandic gravel bike, the Lauf Seigla! The Seigla [Say-glaa] is designed for gravel racing without compromises, while also fitting extreme tires for your roughest rides. With Seigla, Lauf aims to redefine gravel by combining speed with capability like never before.

What makes the Lauf Seigla stand out:

The Fork

It’s no coincidence gravel cyclists all over the world praise Lauf’s Grit forks. They are designed for the high frequency vibration seen in gravel riding. They iron out road imperfections like no other.

Lauf’s Grit forks are also far lighter than the competition, more energy efficient and they don’t require any maintenance.

Traditional telescopic suspension forks are designed to absorb large impacts, and they are good at that. While they are inherently unable to come close to Lauf Grit’s response to higher frequency vibration. They simply have too much friction and inertia, no matter how they’re tuned and tweaked.

Our Grit 3rd gen has more tire clearance than ever, plus broader shoulders for increased lateral stiffness. How much weight does this add from previous generations? None!

The use of a lighter core material for its rear parts (dropouts) offsets the weight we added to the fork crown and shoulder area. This doesn’t just keep the weight in check, even more importantly it lowers the (already lowest in class) unsprung weight.Lower unsprung weight = Faster response to impacts = More traction, speed and comfort.

Long 4 Speed Geometry

When we launched the True Grit back in 2017, its geometry changed the gravel game. It uniquely combines the fast fit and feel of a road bike, with the stability and control associated with XC mountain bikes. It’s a bike that enables you to ride faster, and at the same time makes you long for that speed.

Lauf Seigla has that same legendary geometry, only now combined with equally legendary tire clearance and more rear compliance…

Industry Leading Tire Clearance

It’s no problem to make a bike with massive tire clearance. The tricky thing is doing so without sacrificing other desirable traits. Our goal for the Seigla was to keep the go-fast-attitude of our older True Grit bike, with its short 425mm chainstays and fast rider position, while leaving no stone unturned in our hunt for tire clearance. The headline grabbing result ended up becoming: Up to 57mm 700c tire clearance, or equivalently 2.25” 29ers.

To achieve this, we were NOT ready to:

• Sacrifice clearance between the chaining and chainstay. It's unacceptable for a chainring to be so close to a chainstay that a dropped chain damages the chainstay
• Resort to a dropped or elevated drivetrain-side chainstay. For reasons we cover below.

Fitting a Maxxis Reckon Race 2.25” 29er still leaves good clearance around the tire.

Read more about the tire clearance here

Single for a Reason

The absence of a front derailleur mount is not just that, the absence of something. Its absence brings the presence of approximately 5mm extra tire clearance. Using space that would otherwise be reserved for an inner chainring, even though you’re riding a 1x configuration. As we strongly prefer 1x on our bikes for its simplicity, light weight and robustness, this “tradeoff” was an obvious choice to make.

BSA 73 (Not 68)

While most gravel bikes use a road-sized bottom bracket shell, e.g. BSA 68, we opted for the 5mm wider BSA 73. We do however not do this to then go ahead and use MTB cranksets with their wide q-factors (L/R distance between pedals). This would have detracted from the go-fast attitude of the Lauf Seigla.

We can use BSA 73 because we’ve worked with SRAM to get fitting road cranksets that maintain a slim q-factor while also providing additional 5mm tire clearance.

These, in our opinion, gravel-optimal cranksets could also be used with a BSA 68 bottom bracket shell, with the help of 2x2.5mm spindle spacers. However, this would be painfully sub-optimal. The narrower BSA 68 frame would have inferior strength/stiffness/lightness due to:a) The narrower connection to the crankset requiring thicker carbon in the bottom bracket shell for given strength/stiffness, andb) The wider BSA 73 shell makes for a smoother fiber flow back to the chainstays = less structural imperfections and less stress concentration.

Going for BSA 73 on gravel bikes can only catch on. Look at it this way, if BSA 73 was already the norm on gravel bikes, nobody in their right mind would ever suggest making it 5mm narrower!

Solid Chainstay on Drivetrain Side

The drivetrain-side chainstay on Seigla is solid carbon in its most squeezed location, between the chainring and the tire. We combined this with an oversized vertical dimension to get to the astounding 6mm width (or the lack thereof), maximizing tire space. An added benefit of this solid (and slim) chainstay is better than ever impact resistance. No dropped chain is going to mess with solid 6mm of carbon fiber!

No Plan (650) B

Some gravel bikes resort to the smaller 650b (27.5”) wheel size standard to squeeze in more tire width. Seigla doesn’t. This was never an option for our development of Lauf Seigla. The larger diameter 700c (29”) standard simply rolls faster on rough roads.

Think of a small-wheeled shopping cart on a rough parking lot. Imagine how much easier it would be to push that shopping cart if it had bigger wheels. The same physics apply to 650b vs 700c for gravel riding.

We’d argue that rolling fast is pretty important for a go-fast gravel bike.

IRM Fibers

Stands for Lauf’s Impact Resistant Modulus fiber layup. We like to achieve our low frame and fork weights through careful shape and layup designs combined with good manufacturing methods. Rather than using more brittle high-modulus or intermediate-modulus carbon fibers.

Yes, we are boasting about exclusively using “normal” carbon fiber in our products!

By doing so, we are rejecting shortcuts to lower frame weights. Higher modulus carbon makes it easier to pass compulsory fatigue tests, as microcracks don’t develop as much in/around the stiffer fibers. The stiffer fibers effectively “lock” frame members from flex. This would however demand sacrifices we’re not ready to make. Impact resistance of higher modulus fibers is far worse than for standard modulus carbon, and the stiffer fibers can make a bike feel overly harsh.

We believe a carbon gravel bike should not just be light, it should also be reliable. Lauf frames, forks and handlebars represent our preferred combination of the two.

Dropper "Compatible" 

We were a bit torn on this one. We want to keep things as focused as we can, and we honestly think dropper posts are rarely appropriate on a gravel bike. They inevitably make a bike heavier and require maintenance. Plus, they would reduce our ICE’d rear compliance. However, at the same time we recognise that some (few) actually ride gravel bikes where a dropper is beneficial. So, during our development of Seigla we reached out to SRAM and got to know that they had a wireless one coming up. Perfect! This meant we could avoid adding “unclean” routing holes to our frames. Case closed.*

*There is BTW also a way to convert the rear derailleur routing to dropper routing (as most of our bikes have wireless shifters). This can be done quickly by a professional according to Lauf’s instructions.

Lowest Weight Possible, at the Desired Strength

Our gravel bikes pass MTB strength and durability testing. We also do not take the shortcut of using lighter but more brittle high-modulus fibers in our layup designs.

A broken frame is not a good frame, no matter how light it might have been.

Our gravel bikes are designed to deal with tough conditions and heavy use. Within that envelope, we chase the lowest weight possible. This is achieved through clever shaping, sophisticated manufacturing methods and attention to detail.

Lauf Seigla Race Wireless:

• Lauf IRM* Carbon Frame
• Grit 3rd gen Carbon Suspension Fork 
• Smoothie Handlebar 
• Wireless Force AXS XPLR 
• Single-sided Quarq Power Meter 
• e*thirteen XCXR Carbon Wheels

Winner receives (1) Lauf Seigla Gravel Bike, Race Wireless build. Winner may pick their size and color, shipping date subject to availability. 

For further specifications and images, visit Lauf's website