Despite its pedigree, and aero appearance, Scott's new Addict Gravel bike sees racing take a back seat

Scott's Addict road and gravel bikes have a 19-year legacy in the peloton, but their latest edition is taking a different route. 'Find yourself, get lost' is the slogan, and given how it rides, it seems fitting.

The new Addict Gravel that we rode at the recent launch in Germany is designed for everyday performance rather than the elite racer. They're better served by the Addict Gravel RC. This means enough versatility to tackle a variety of trails or even a bikepacking trip across a continent. Having said that, we think it's still perfectly capable for anyone who does want to compete.

Compliance is key

While many of the best gravel bikes focus on low weight and greater aero savings, this Scott Addict has placed a premium on compliance. Not that it's heavy. At 8.4kg for the Premium build it’s a reasonably lightweight bike, especially given the huge 50mm wide tyres.

Tyres that size run at a suitable pressure will naturally give compliance, but it was also central to the design of the frame. It has a high degree of vertical flex in the seat tube, with a claimed 60% increase in vertical compliance over its predecessor, and 30% more vertical compliance at the front, thanks to the bowed fork leg design.

Stiffness, pedalling efficiency and confident handling haven't been sacrificed, but both the HMX and HMF fibre builds are around 5% less stiff than on the performance focused Addict road frames.

Scott has pushed the boundaries of carbon tubes with 8.5mm-wide chainstays that house the brake cables. Whereas other frames I have tested with similar design principles have lacked lateral stiffness in this region, the Addict Gravel has retained it well.

The Addict's finishing kit has also been updated with compliance in mind. The seatpost features an impressive degree of deflection, which the team at Scott demonstrated to the gathered press by attaching a weighted rig.

They've done this predominantly with the use of a large cutout at the rear, similar to that of the Scott Foil race bike. This feature alone accounts for the majority of the vertical compliance at the rear of the bike. Quite brilliantly, it also provides attachment for a rear light.

The bars are a brand-new design featuring a forward sweep and outwards flare for better wrist clearance. Their flexion helps absorb some of the vibration we all encounter on the trails. They also have an optimised drop shape that means you can almost roll your hands from hoods to drops to maintain control in hazardous moments, while also better aligning the brake levers, improving on some bars that twist the hoods inwards slightly and thus alter the ergonomics.

Adventure machine

In addition to the compliance, the Addict Gravel has also been created around the use of 50mm tyres. With a claimed 57mm of clearance, it means large 55mm tyres can be fitted while anything less wide will have plenty of clearance when riding in the mud. But this frame goes beyond just having room for larger tyres, basing many elements of its geometry around them.

If you go from riding 30mm road tyres to, say, 55mm, your position is raised, altering the headtube angle in relation to the ground, as well as increasing the trail. In essence, if you design a bike around smaller tyres and then fit larger ones, it will feel excessively slack at slower speeds and lose agility. Meanwhile, switching the other way will lead to a twitchy ride feel, hence why Scott designed the frame geometry around 50-55mm tyres deemed most suitable for the bike’s purpose. To do this, it dropped the bottom bracket and also increased the fork rake to preserve the desired ride characteristics with wider tyres.

I'd agree that the larger-width tyre is well-suited to the sort of riding this bike is designed for. If you’re tackling the ‘road less travelled’ then wider tyres will offer more grip on wet and loose surfaces, provide greater rolling resistance on rough terrain, and much greater levels of comfort for longer and more adventurous rides, which was, according to Scott, the entire purpose of this bike.

Aero isn’t everything

Refreshingly, during the launch presentation, there was not a single mention of aerodynamic savings for this bike compared to the previous version – or any other frame, for that matter. I love aero-optimised equipment, but I despise the current gravel industry standard of providing single-figure aero savings at 45km/h. These are highly imperceptible to almost any user and, frankly, irrelevant to most of us.

The Scott Addict Gravel still features components such as an integrated one-piece handlebar with aero tube profiling and a D-shaped seatpost. Meanwhile, integrated cables and cut-off aerofoil tube shapes will undoubtedly assist aero performance compared with those without. But those design elements were never the focus, and the bike is all the better for it. Compliance and practicality have been sought, along with a bike that is pleasing to the eye, resulting in something that has the necessary performance attributes but, more importantly, is a joy to ride.

In-built and ready to roam

Scott introduced the idea of a single tool to cover most of the bike with the Addict RC. Here, a tool hidden in the bar end with a T25/H6 head could be used to tighten and adjust almost every component of the bike, as well as remove the thru axles. It was a neat, integrated solution that also saved weight compared to carrying a multi-tool. The Addict Gravel takes this a step further.

Firstly, the same T25 multi-tool remains, and I found it wonderfully easy to use. Adjusting the bars or seatpost using the tool was a cinch. For several of the Addict Gravel models, a tubeless repair kit has also been added with plugs and a fitting dart. The seatpost also features the same clip-in light system as seen on the Addict Road and Foil RC bikes.

If that wasn’t enough, the Save the Day kit has been added under the downtube where it meets the bottom bracket. This includes a hand pump, levers, and TPU inner tube for 50mm tyres. It looks smarter than a saddle bag, weighs less, and drops the centre of mass lower for a marginal improvement in stability. The seal for the hatch is also very secure and can be easily opened even when clogged with mud. Fortunately, I didn’t need to use it, but it was there in case the day needed saving.

Finally, Scott has developed size-specific frame bags with S, M, and L offerings that connect directly to the frame. It’s a very neat solution, and similar in design to the Argon18 Anti Matter system. It uses internal zip-up storage, with a flexible pouch on the exterior that’s ideal for stashing food wrappers and the like. The idea is that your jersey pockets remain relatively unburdened while the bike as a whole maintains a sleek, attractive silhouette. Even the fork bottle mounts are hidden internally for aesthetics, while the bottles are mounted farther back to reduce the steering moment force that would be created by fitting them farther outboard.

Scott Addict Gravel - First ride impressions

To really get to grips with the Scott Addict Gravel, I was hosted in Germany's Black Forest for the launch. We had one 70km ride, and then freedom of choice for routes on the other two days.

The big ride took in a mix of fairly classic champagne-style gravel, some rocky climbs and descents, technical terrain, root-infested singletrack, and some truly horrid steep ascents. We were even graced with a shower of rain, which broke up the humid heat nicely.

The Addict Gravel sizing was spot on for me, with a 58cm frame a great fit for my 192cm height. Saddle height and setback were easily achieved, and although the stack was high and stem was short, it was a suitable position for what was to come.

With 50mm tyres fitted as standard, the bike's geometry feels nicely snappy at the front for quick changes of direction, yet slack enough for good stability. Sharp 180-degree turns on trails were a little cumbersome but nothing to cause concern. It is simply a very easy bike to ride off-road, and after I got the pressures sorted, it felt wonderfully smooth across varied terrain.

The enhanced seatpost and handlebar compliance really showed itself by the end of the three-hour loop on my second day in Germany. More often than not, I get a bit of discomfort on the base of my palm after a longer gravel ride. By the end of the loop, my hands felt fine despite the fairly rough terrain. Equally, I had no saddle discomfort, which was impressive given this was a new saddle, which I often find leads to pressure points.

Another area of the bike that really impressed me was the design of the rear end, and the handling as a result. Over some single track with plenty of rocks and roots to avoid, the shorter chainstays allow for some rapid corrections as the front end avoided the obstacles. It’s an impressively lively bike on this type of terrain, unexpectedly so given the stability when going at speed. This was again highlighted by some ad-hoc route planning for the final day, which took me up some questionable trails. Steep, slippy, rocky, and lacking in gravel, the bike was able to be easily manoeuvred up the climbs to find the best traction.

I was initially hesitant of the one-by gearing only on the frame, as I often prefer two-by. However, given the terrain we covered, I never felt I was missing a gear with the SRAM Force XPLR groupset, while the chain retention was fantastic.

As mentioned, I appreciate that the bike does not chase aero performance or watt savings. The lateral frame stiffness at the BB is sufficient to transfer power to the ground effectively, but seeking comfort is itself a performance gain for longer gravel events. It also has the wonderful effect of making the Addict Gravel a joy to ride on pretty much any off-road terrain. It's good enough to use for gravel races, but the focus is on adventure. I would argue it compromises on neither at the speeds most riders will tackle in gravel events.

Let’s see how that holds when I get one to take around the UK and some MTB trails in the Forest of Dean and Wyre Forest.

Builds and pricing

There are four frame options available, with the standard Scott naming convention: the higher-end model referred to as the Premium, and other models progress down from 10 to 40 in intervals of 10.

The Premium HMX frame build comes with SRAM Red XPLR 13-speed and a claimed weight of 8.4kg, with a 794g frame shaving 75g off the previous iteration. This and the Addict 10 HMF frame models, which use Force XPLR, all feature the Save the Day kit, handlebar tool, and tubeless kits. They also come fitted with the Fulcrum Sharq wheelset and Schwalbe G-One RX PRO Evolution 700x50C tyres as standard.

Moving down to the Addict 20, the tubeless kit is removed and the bar and stem become two-piece rather than the one-piece integrated Syncros SYN IC-R501-CF2. Meanwhile, the Addict 30 moves to SRAM Rival XPLR and Syncros Capital GR 35 CF II wheelset and misses out on the power meter and Save the Day kit. Finally, the Addict 40 switches to Shimano GRX 1x12 mechanical gearing, the only non-electronic model in the range.

All models are 1x only and come with a bespoke chain guard designed for the supplied chainring size. Frames range from XXS-XXL sizes.

• Scott Addict Gravel Premium – £7,999 / $10,499 / €8,999
• Scott Addict Gravel 10 – £5,799 / $8,499 / €6,499
• Scott Addict Gravel 20 – £4,999 / $6,499 / €5,449
• Scott Addict Gravel 30 – £3,499 / $4,799 / €3,999
• Scott Addict Gravel 40 – £2,499 / $3,499 / €2,699