Boardman ADV 8.9 2021

Time and time again Boardman has proved that it can deliver a lot of bike for the money, and it's no different here with the ADV 8.9. For an entry-level gravel/adventure bike, its well-mannered handling will look after you should you be new to riding on a surface that moves beneath your tyres, and if you are likely to spend a fair amount of time on the road then you'll soon see that it is also a very capable tourer.

If the Boardman ADV 8.9 was a movie it'd be rated 'U', suitable for all, and I mean that with the utmost respect.

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With its £1,100 price tag it's easy to look at the Boardman and see this as an entry-level model, and if you are a seasoned roadie with good bike handling skills it would be very easy to overlook it for something more advanced (or expensive) when making the transition to gravel. But unless you are racing or are a really fast rider looking for precision handling as your ride passes by in a blur, you really won't be let down by the way the Boardman handles, or rides.

The ride

Off-road it's a very capable machine, just taking everything in its stride. On all but the most technical or roughest of descents it just gets on with the job, unlike some big money, speed-orientated gravel bikes.

It's one of those bikes that you can just get on and ignore, really. Just line the handlebar up in the direction you want to go and spin the pedals, it'll take care of the rest. You can just cruise along looking at the view.

This might make the ADV sound sedate and boring, but it really isn't.

If you give the pedals a bit if a hammering the ADV feels responsive, quite lively in fact, and thanks to the stiffness in the frame none of your effort is wasted.

At 10.95kg it's no lightweight, but thanks to the low gear ratios you can still have a laugh on the climbs. On downhill sections you can let it fly, the weight actually helping to give the ADV a planted feel, and with 40mm tyres it feels less flighty on smaller gravel sections.

If you are looking for a 'one bike does all' kind of thing then you can't go far wrong with the Boardman.

Its geometry takes some cues from mountain biking while not detracting too much from the road scene. The biggest change is the slack head angle, which just tames the speed of the steering a little.

This means that on the road it behaves very well. It's no race bike, but if you wanted to press it into commuting duties it'd give plenty of confidence on wet, greasy winter roads. With skinnier race rubber it's a none-too-shabby road bike, especially if you enjoy the very neutral handling speeds.

With mounts for mudguards and a rack, it's got lightweight tourer written all over it.

With such an oversized aluminium alloy frame, I wasn't holding out a huge amount of hope in terms of ride comfort, but it is actually surprisingly supple. Yes, the tyre width helps, but even when pumped up hard for a bit of road use the bike never felt harsh.

Off-road, the Boardman copes well with all sorts of terrain from a comfort point of view. Its relative plushness disperses most of the buzz from small aggregate and corrugated sections, although I would prefer some thicker handlebar tape as standard.

On rockier sections you can still feel the jolts from hitting large stones, but the Boardman doesn't bang and crash all over the place. The carbon fork offers enough flex to cope, and the rest will be left up to your knees and elbows to deal with.

On the whole, the ADV offers a well-balanced and rather refined ride quality, especially at this price point.

Frame and fork

The ADV 8.9 uses a triple-butted (three differing wall thicknesses along the length of specific tubes) 6061 grade aluminium alloy frame and a full-carbon fork with a tapered steerer.

Boardman states that the frame uses hidden welds, but while they aren't exactly the most agricultural I've seen on an alloy bike, they aren't exactly undetectable either. I've no problem with that, though. Coated with the thick, robust orange paint, the 8.9V looks very classy indeed. It's also available in a black/grey fade.

It's a chunky looking frame, not just in the usual places like the head tube and down tube. Even the top tube and seat tube have quite large profiles. But as I've mentioned, it does give plenty of stiffness throughout the frame.

Boardman has gone with external cable and hose routing which keeps things simple should you fancy a go at some home mechanics, or if you need to fettle anything while out on a ride.

Ideally on a bike of this style, riding through mud and getting covered in grit, dust and rain over the course of the year, I'd like to see the gear cabling running full outer casing for protection.

Other than that, the cable routing is well thought out and I can't see any issues from water getting trapped in the system anywhere.

For the bottom bracket Boardman has gone down the threaded route, another welcome choice for easy maintenance and reliability.

I mentioned the mounting points for mudguards and a rear rack earlier, and along with those you get mounting points for two bottle cages, but that's it.

We're seeing gravel bikes at all price points now coming with more and more places to attach various bags and kit, not only on the frame but also on the fork legs too. The Boardman doesn't have any of that, sticking closer to its road bike DNA, but it's not a massive omission unless you are planning on some major touring. There are plenty of frame, seat and bar bags out there for you to strap on, or you could go down the rack and pannier route.

Tyre clearance is decent. The Boardman website says that this model comes with 38mm tyres fitted, but ours has the slightly wider 40mm Schwalbes; you could easily go for 42mm or even 45mm without mudguards, I'd say.

The brake callipers are flat mount, and thru-axles are used front and rear for wheel retention.

Geometry

The sizing range of the ADV 8.9 is actually quite – it's available in just four sizes (S, M, L, XL) which Boardman says will roughly cover rider heights of 1.70m to 1.95m.

Here we have the medium, which comes with a 555mm top tube, 150mm head tube and 530mm seat tube.

As mentioned, the geometry of the ADV is balanced between mountain and road biking; for instance, the head tube angle is slackened off a fair bit to bring some neutrality to the steering, at 71 degrees.

The stem is much shorter than you'd find on a road bike of this size, at 80mm; you'd normally be looking at around 110mm. Going shorter gives you a slightly more upright riding position, even with that long top tube, and keeps the handling just on the right side of boring.

The seat tube angle is a much steeper 73.5 degrees, which gives a forward position on the saddle, allowing you to get the power out when seated.

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Chainstays of 430mm push the wheelbase length out which adds to the balanced ride keeping the ADV easily controllable when off road.

If you go by stack and reach figures then you are looking at 573mm and 385mm respectively on this medium size.

Groupset

There is a bit of a mix and match approach to the gearing, but mostly it's based around Shimano's very capable gravel-specific groupset, GRX. The 10-speed GRX 400, to be precise.

If you haven't come across the GRX range yet, then basically in use it feels very similar to Shimano's road groupsets but comes with lower gear ratios, in 1x and 2x options.

> Your complete guide to Shimano’s GRX gravel groupset

The biggest bonus for me is the shape of the brake levers. The front section is flattened, which gives you excellent purchase when riding fast on a rough surface. Even on really rocky sections when you are getting bounced around there is very little chance of your fingers slipping off the levers.

The excellent stopping power of the GRX hydraulic braking and 160mm rotors means you can even control it with just one finger on the lever, leaving the rest of your hand to wrap around the handlebar.

Shifting here is comparable to the equivalent Tiagra 10-speed system, although the rear mech does incorporate a clutch to keep the chain taut and stop any slap against the chainstay.

The action is light, but still defined enough that you know whether you have made the shift or not.

Going for a single or double chainring divides opinion, but from my findings it really comes down to your regular riding terrain.

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If your routes are more muddy singletracks and byways than firm and well-drained gravel then there is simplicity in the 1x system: no front mech to get clogged with mud or chainrings to wear under shifting loads. Plus you can use the redundant shifter to control a dropper post if needs be. The large jumps between sprockets can feel a bit gappy, though, and top speed is also limited, so if you are going to be travelling on road sections or your gravel is fast and flowing then I’d take a 2x system any day of the week.

The Boardman is running a double FSA Omega Adventure Mega Exo chainset, with the shifting between the 48 and 32-tooth chainrings being conducted by a Tiagra front mech.

With that 48/32 chainset paired with an 11-36 cassette, I didn't find many instances where I was overgeared, and that's with a few extra kilos of frame bags and kit on board.

Wheels and tyres

On a bike costing just over a grand, it's good to see the combination of tubeless ready tyres and wheels straight out of the box.

The Schwalbe G-One Allround TLE tyres are, as their name would suggest, good all-rounders. The dimpled tread doesn't hold you back on the road as they roll quite well, and their suppleness and the rubber compound provide plenty of grip too.

Off-road they work fine on dry, hardpacked surfaces like byways and gravel trails, and they'll also cope with wooded singletrack in the height of summer. Like the majority of gravel tyres on the market, though, they'll struggle to cope with wet conditions and the type of muddy trails we tend to find across the majority of the UK.

The Boardman-branded wheels use asymmetric rims, with the spoke bed being offset from the centreline to increase dishing (the angle of the spoke between the rim and the hub) on the drive side of the rear wheel, and the rotor side on the front wheel, to increase strength.

The Formula RX-512 (front) and RX-142 (rear) hubs run smoothly and have stood up to the abuse of the test period, which saw a real mixture of dry, dusty rides and some wet ones.

Overall, the wheels are decent performers. They'll deal with day to day riding over rough surfaces, with little to complain about. They are on the weighty side, and I reckon if you are going to spend a fair bit of time in the hills then you could easily drop a few hundred grams going for an upgrade.

Their narrow rim width doesn't lend them that well to wider gravel tyres either, giving an almost bulbous 'lightbulb' profile rather than a smooth, rounded one achieved by wider rim widths.

Finishing kit

The bar, stem, seatpost and saddle are all Boardman branded, and it is decent quality kit.

The alloy handlebar has a shallow 120mm drop, but more importantly a 6-degree flare to make the 44cm bar wider at the drops. This gives you a better stance for more control when travelling at speed off-road, and I also find that the slightly slanted angle of the shifters gives a more comfortable hand position when riding on the hoods.

The ADV uses a 31.6mm diameter alloy seatpost. It's often said that a narrower 27.2mm option brings more flex, which it does marginally, but it's not enough to really affect the comfort overall.

The Boardman saddle is quite plush without being overly bulky, and that'll definitely take care of any additional firmness from the post.

Value

This is where the ADV 8.9 sticks its chest out – it's a lot of bike for the £1,100 price tag and, more importantly, highly upgradable over time thanks to the excellent frameset.

The Genesis CDA 30 is an aluminium alloy gravel bike and has a very similar ride to the Boardman, though the latter is a touch more lively thanks to being around half a kilo lighter.

The CDA comes in at under a grand (£999.99) which looks decent at first glance when you see the GRX finishing kit, but it drops the hydraulic levers and callipers in place of mechanical Tiagra shifters and Promax cable-operated brakes, which really take the shine off the stopping power.

It also lacks a carbon fibre fork, coming with a steel version instead, which is where a lot of that extra weight comes from.

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A similar beast to the ADV 8.9 is the Merlin Malt G2X GRX. It's light on mounting points, but thanks to its revised geometry over the previous version, it's a fun bike to ride and makes a great entry to gravel riding.

For its £1,199 price tag it's specced similarly to the ADV, with alloy wheels, Schwalbe G-One Allround tyres and alloy finishing kit.

It uses a GRX groupset (1x) but it is the 11-speed GRX 600 setup, which sits one higher than the 400 on the Boardman. The Merlin does use GRX 400 callipers, though.

> The best gravel bikes and adventure bikes you can buy for around £1,000

Like many brands, Giant's prices have increased for 2021. Back in 2020 the Revolt 1 with its Tiagra/FSA groupset blend and Conduct mechanical/hydraulic braking system would have set you back £1,149.

Now, for that sort of money you need to drop down a model to the Revolt 2, which comes with a 9-speed Sora groupset and Tektro MD-C550 mechanical braking. That costs £1,199, and doesn't come close to the Boardman's spec. It's not like the Boardman doesn't match the ride quality either.

Conclusion

The Boardman ADV 8.9 is a classy bike. It balances everything well, like comfort and stiffness, and the neutral handling still provides enough fun for the bike to be a laugh to ride. It's a really versatile package too, when you consider the way the geometry lends itself well to both riding on the road and off.

Verdict

An excellent entry point to gravel riding thanks to sorted geometry and a great ride quality from the Boardman's frameset