Bridge Bike Works
“Our framesets are built with premium pre-impregnated (pre-preg) carbon fibre. Our proprietary layup schedule optimizes strength, weight and comfort and our carbon fork has two unique rakes to maintain ride characteristics across all 5 sizes.” – Bridge Bike Works
“We custom form our own latex bladders to produce consistent quality parts and every pre-preg ply is precisely CNC cut on our Autometrix cutting table to maximize material usage and provide repetitive consistency. We wrap these plies around the bladder and insert the raw part into a tool that we mill in-house using our HAAS CNC. The tool with the raw part is then placed in our 50 ton heated press for precision curing.”
“At the start we were selling bike frames, wheels, handlebars, and bottle cages. Very quickly the wheels started gaining traction and that’s when we made the decision to focus on the wheels and make the best possible quality wheels out there.”
Bridge Bike Works Review Video
Alternative Video Link for those reading via email subscription
In this video, JOM of Gravel Cyclist presents his no bull$hit review of the Bridge Bike Works Surveyor, hand-made in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Reminder: ALWAYS BE A STEWARD FOR GRAVEL CYCLING: Respect the roads, respect the locals, respect the land, respect your fellow cyclists.
Written review of the Riding Experience (or watch the video above)
All-Road, a label the bike industry and related marketing companies have given to a bike of this nature. However, I prefer to think of the Surveyor as a fast, race oriented road bike that just happens to fit 40mm tyres as well. This bike isn’t a new design, it’s been on the market since about 2023, in fact, check out my video from 2023 Sea Otter where I interviewed Mike of Bridge Bike works to learn more about the bike’s design and manufacturing process up there in the Great White North.
I took the Surveyor to Boone, North Carolina, to ride with mates on all manner of road surfaces, along with a ton of climbing and descending; there’s nary a flat road around the Boone area. Boone is the perfect area to put a bike like this through its paces. The first thing I love about the bike, it’s not your typical All-Road bike that has a taller stack, longer headtube if you prefer, or rides and steers slow as, and is boring and uninspiring to ride.
The Surveyor is the polar opposite. The bike is comfortable like an All-Road rig, but that’s where it ends. This bike is fast as, corners as if it’s on rails, and at high speed, I’m talking 50 plus mile an hour speeds on paved descents, it just smashes. If you love descending as much as I do, you will absolutely love the Surveyor. I did zero justice to the Surveyor’s ability to ascend, which is excellent. There’s no power loss, no flexing about the place, I can have my rear end planted in the saddle about 95% of the time, that’s my style, to grind out a climb, or once in a while, get of the saddle for a bit of a stretch. I hated life several times riding near Boone crawling up grade of 10 to 15% or more, but It didn’t matter, the Surveyor powered on… as I cursed.. until I reached the summit, and reward time. Time to descend!
For much of the review, I rode three wheelsets with my favorite being the Baumier GT24. The Particle GCX30 carbon wheelset was almost identical in specs to the Baumier GT24, but my choice of tyre for the Baumier, was absolutely magic on the Surveyor. The Panaracer Gravelking Slick R compound tire / tyre, 700c x 35mm. I’ve never reviewed this tyre, and I greatly dislike that marketing word, supple, but this tyre’s casing meshed perfectly with this wheelset, and at the lower pressures I was rolling, was absolutely sublime aboard the Surveyor.
Honestly, this tyre will likely become my go to tyre for any All-Road type action, or just riding pavement on the rare occasions that happens. Adding to the Boone, North Carolina madness, I knocked out a mega 110 miler ride aboard the Surveyor about the hinterlands of North Florida. The Baumier’s and Panaracer GK Slick 35’s accompanied me for this ride, I loved every minute of it.
Pay attention to the Surveyor’s geometry, I mentioned being between sizes. The bike feels long and low, which I like, but due to the shorter top tube, I was sitting a smidge more upright whether riding on the handlebar top, brake hoods, or drops. This played perfectly with my gravel bike position, which is pretty similar. I used to ride a more aggressive position years ago, especially when I was road riding more, not so much now. Admittedly, this getting older BS has a lot to do with changing positions, but I felt very comfortable, speedy, and at home aboard the Surveyor.
Another cool fact about the Surveyor, it stands out from the crowd of boring bikes whose name begins with the letters Spec.. life’s too short to ride the same rubbish as everyone else. The paint on this review sample doesn’t scream look at me, but the Surveyor has drawn plenty of interest for my mates who’ve seen it, along with a few other passers by. The silver bits that Mike of Bridge Bike Works chose really helped this bike pop. I really like the clean and classy aesthetics of the frame, especially the top tube and downtube junction at the headtube to name one example.
Despite this bike being almost four years old now, I can understand why Bridge hasn’t tinkered with it, just for the sake of doing so. My regret is I should have lined up this review at least a year earlier, because I didn’t realize how much I would love riding a true performance oriented big tyre road bike, as much as the Surveyor.
Now you may be wondering, is this a road bike, is it a gravel bike, what is it? I haven’t tried 700c x 40mm tyres on the surveyor just yet, they’ll fit. In my general day to day riding experience, this bike is perfect for about 65% to 70% of the type of mixed surface riding that I do. The rest of the time, I’d prefer a 700c x 45mm tyre, and I have gravel bikes for that.
The surveyor isn’t a quiver killer or anything like that, but it’s definitely for the type of rider who wants to ride road and gravel, but doesn’t want to ride chunky stuff, dodgy stuff, and so on. You could easily road race the Surveyor. It was the perfect bike for the gravel roads I traversed near Boone, North Carolina, and it could be a bike for you too.
There is one final problem with this bike, I really don’t want to return it. Be sure to visit the bridgebikeworks.com website to learn about the Surveyor, and all of available builds, color choices and more on offer.
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Links of Interest:
- Bridge Bike Works Website
- Baumier GT24 Wheelset Review
- Particle GCX30 Wheelset Review (1,020 gram wheels)
- Cane Creek Factory Tour
- 2023 Sea Otter Classic with Bridge Bike Works
- North Florida Freeride Gravel Series
- How to Create Amazing & Fun Gravel Routes!
- Gravel Cyclist’s Route Library
- Gravel Bike Tire / Tyre Pressure Recommendations
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