Moots Routt RSL Is a Gorgeous Gravel-Riding Missile
Price: $12,500 (as tested)
Weight: 18.5 LB (54cm)
Frame weight: 1,350 grams; fork weight: 420 grams
Use: Fast gravel riding and racing
Drivetrain: Shimano Ultegra 1x
Brakes: Shimano Ultegra hydraulic
Wheel size: 700c or 650b
Tire clearance: 40mm, 700c; 45mm, 650b
The right bike for: Inspiring envy on every gravel group ride.
Moots didn’t look far to find a suitably cool name for its fastest gravel bike, the Routt. The moniker comes from the county in Colorado where Moots’ Steamboat Springs-based bike-making shop is located. It’s also nicely aligned with how the company sees this titanium bike being used-in races and fast-paced gravel adventures, rides where careful consideration of the roads and how they connect matters.
The RSL is the third Routt version from Moots. The company uses the designation like car makers use Turbo-it’s for the fastest models. This bike is made for events like the Dirty Kanza and for racers who like to hear the rumble of crushed rocks beneath their tires as they tear down dirt and gravel roads.
Compared with the standard Routt and the made-for-fatter-tires Routt 45, this one has a longer top tube and shorter headtube that puts your hands in a racier position. But you can still fit 700c tires up to 40mm wide and 45mm with 650 wheels. You can also slap on narrower tires and the Routt becomes a capable road bike.
5 Routt Details We Really Like
Titanium’s compliance, rust resistance, and durability make it ideal for gravel riding and off-pavement exploring. And few companies do it as well as Moots. With the RSL, you get internally double-butted 3/2.5 tubes that keep weight low (1,350 grams for the frame) and put strength where you need it, 3D printed dropouts, and a threaded bottom bracket to keep your crank bearings from creaking (and to silence the pressfit bb haters).
The ride is as sublime as you’d hope for on a bike with this price and pedigree. It’s more than speed you feel; it’s control. The frame seems to still the worst rumbles and that elevates the performance of everything else: You get more traction, smoother braking, more consistent handling. The bike is speedy, energetic, and makes even the most challenging routes more blissful.
The Routt Family
There are three bikes in the Routt family. The original, simply called Routt, is a go-anywhere, ride-til-sunset (and maybe a little past), gravel and adventure bike. You can fit up to 38mm wide tires in there. And this year Moots gave it flat mounts for disc brakes. The Routt 45 is made for fatter tires and gets longer chainstays that add wheel clearance and also make the bike a bit more stable. The RSL is the lightest of the three, designed to put the rider in the most aggressive position, and can fit up to 40mm-wide tires.
All three models are made of titanium. Moots sells Routt and Routt 45 framesets for $4,549, and the RSL model here comes in at $5,519.
Moots Custom Options
As far as titanium builders go, Moots is one of the largest. Is frames are offered in stock sizes and the company offers stock build kits as well. But the company still gives customers plenty of choices on those models as well as building one-off frames to suit your needs.
The Routt RSL comes in seven sizes, from 50 to 60 cm. Custom geometry costs an extra $750. The bike also comes in five standard builds, based around SRAM and Shimano drivetrains with 1x or 2x configurations. If you buy from Moots, you can also choose the components you want using the company’s parts selector tool, which has a good but not expansive number of options. You’re limited to a Moots fork; Hed, Enve, and Mavic wheels; tires from Schwalbe and WTB, and cockpit components from Enve, Fizik, and Moots.
Additionally, Moots also gives you a few other choices and add ons. You can pick the color of the logo decals at no cost, and choose more expensive etched or anodized options. Moots also also several levels and styles of finishing details that range in price from $525 to $1,000. Our test bike came with the $1,000 Birch, which combines bead blasting, brushing, etching, and anodization to give a timelessly cool finish rooted in nature.
Routt’s Racy Geometry
Moots RSL-series bikes are built for speed. They’re typically a little more stretched and quicker handling than the standard version. With the Routt RSL, Moots made a bike for gravel races, hard off-road and mixed terrain rides, or just flying along smooth hardpack.
Compared with the standard Routt, the RSL has a longer reach, and shorter stack height. My size 54 test bike has a 72.5-degree head angle, 430mm chainstays, 381mm of reach, and 585mm of stack. It’s a bike that’s a little longer and steeper than most gravel bikes, but with a slightly higher hand position. “We wanted a bike that, compared to the original Routt, felt racier,” said Jon Cariveau, Moots’ marketing and social media director.
For comparison, it’s slightly steeper with a bit more stack than another custom gravel bike we recently reviewed, the Stinner Refugio. That bike has a 71.3-degree head angle (with a 55mm offset fork; Moots’ has 47mm) and 555mm of stack. The bikes have very similar reaches. To dig a little deeper, the popular 54.5cm Salsa Warbird has a reach and stack that measure 372mm and 566mm, respectively; a 54cm Trek Checkpoint has a 383mm-long reach and 567mm stack.
All the Good Stuff
Like every Moots, the Routt is made from beautifully crafted and joined titanium tubes. The company starts with US made straight-gauge tubes that it ships to Reynolds in England to internally butt, reducing weight from sections that don’t need to be as strong.
Once back in Moots’ Steamboat Springs, Colorado, shop, the tubes are welded into place. The beads marking their fusion are tiny, elegant, meticulous. Like a necklace, but so much cooler.
On the RSL, Moots uses a 3D-printed dropout that has flat mounts for disc brakes. The part helps maintain a tight alignment, says Moots Cariveau, so the company can produce more frames with tighter tolerances. The dropout has a rougher finish than the other tubes, which isn’t bad, but it does visually interrupt the otherwise seamless flow of those smooth ti tubes.
Unlike any other RSL model, this one gets a standard, threaded English bottom bracket. Its chainstays are shaped to work with 1x and 2x drivetrains, and will fit up to 40mm wide tires on 700c wheels, and 45mm tires if you go with 650 wheels.
This bike comes with a carbon fork from Factor bikes. It has a 395mm axle-to-crown height, 47mm offset, flat mounts for disc calipers, and 12mm thru axle. There are fender mounts (complementing two in the rear) so you can slap on some rain guards to minimize road spray on wet rides.
Moots also gives you all sorts of options and add ons. Choose from internally routed cables, a third water bottle mount, a pump peg, or even a press-fit bottom bracket if you’re really into those.
Riding the Moots
The Routt is the type of bike you can ride almost anywhere, and makes each trip so enjoyable you will want to take it everywhere. The titanium frame, fork, wheels, and tires make gravel roads feel almost as smooth as paved ones. You feel it when you roll over larger rocks and ruts, but it’s not jarring or bumpy. You hear it too-the ride is as quiet as it is smooth.
There’s more to that smoothness than just comfort. Seated climbs over rough roads seem faster because your tires stay better connected to the ground-driving you forward instead of skipping over loose stones and other nasty things. On some descents, even ones with loose sand and deep ruts, I could hit speeds close to what I might reach on a mountain bike. Compared to other gravel bikes I’ve tried, even those with titanium frames, rough downhills felt faster, smoother, and less sketchy. You can relax your death-grip on the drops, shift into a harder gear, and let the Routt fly like you would in a bike park.
What you will feel is the price tag. At $12,500 the Routt costs more than twice as much as the most expensive complete Warbird ($5,399, with Ultegra Di2). Only people dealing in that stratosphere of bike prices can determine whether there’s value in the Routt, but the bike does make a compelling case.
If you ride off road lots, the ride is sublime. It’s fast too. The position is racier than many gravel bikes, but not so uncomfortable your back will revolt after a few hours. The relatively tall stack height helps there without making you feel like you’re riding a hybrid.
The stock 37mm WTB Riddler tires roll great on dirt and pretty good on pavement. Like a lot of gravel bikes you can add road tires if you’re doing a lot of pavement miles, and the tighter handling of this one makes it feel more capable on the road than some others. And if you want to go exclusively off road, drop down to 650b wheels with 47mm-wide tires and go find paths not yet on Google Maps.
The titanium frame, especially with this bike’s Birch finish, looks as captivating and timeless as you’d hope, which is important because the Routt should last a very long time. The titanium frame makes rough roads more enjoyable, and shouldn’t rust or crack like a carbon or steel. The bike will probably outlast most gravel grinders and almost definitely will still be humming long after the gumwall tire trend fades.
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