Cyclist
Enve’s new Fray combines aerodynamics and all-road capability
Enve has added a new model to its bike line-up. The Enve Fray all-road bike has a more upright geometry and wider tyre clearance than the Melee race bike. It’s aero-optimised for wider tyres and a broader speed range too.
Enve will sell the Fray in seven sizes as a chassis, which can be combined with a range of its components and its wheels to build up a bike that suits the rider’s needs.
The Enve Fray chassis is priced at £5,500 in the UK, including the frame and fork, a two-piece bar and stem and a seatpost.
More endurance-oriented than the Melee
Enve calls the Fray an endurance/all-road bike and says it’s aimed at riders who want performance over a wider range of activities than just racing. The Fray is designed for versatility, offering compatibility with most 1x and 2x road bike groupsets and a wide range of Enve handlebars and stems, while incorporating aero tube profiles.
‘At its core, the Fray is a performance road bike, with incredible versatility that lends itself to forays onto mixed surfaces,’ says Jake Pantone, Enve’s VP of product and brand.
‘The Fray is the bike we take home with us on the weekends and when we travel to ride. Outside of pure gravel events or road races, the Fray is always the “right” bike,’ he continues.
Enve says the Fray’s geometry is designed around 31-35mm tyres, although you can fit 38mm tyres with a double crankset and 40mm tyres in a 1x configuration, allowing you to venture further off tarmac.
It recommends tyres between 29mm and 35mm for road and 35mm to 40mm for mixed surface and gravel riding and says that the frameset has been designed to work together aerodynamically with its SES wheel rim profiles.
In contrast, the Melee, raced by TotalEnergies, is geared to 28 to 32mm tyres and the Enve Mog gravel bike to 40 to 45mm tyre width. Other geometry figures for the Fray sit between the other two bikes as well.
But despite the all-road capability, Enve says that the Fray’s geometry is designed for the needs of road riders, while those planning a more gravel-oriented future would be better suited by the Mog.
Enve says that the frame balances low weight with aero efficiency at 32kmh and 48kmh riding speeds. Enve’s wind-tunnel tests indicate that at 48kmh, the Fray frame cedes an average 3.3 watts to the Melee and 4.4 watts with a rider aboard, which it mainly attributes to the Fray’s more upright geometry.
Modular build options
The Fray is available in seven sizes, with four fork rake options spread across them, which Enve says allows riders of different statures to get an optimum fit and experience consistent handling.
Enve offers a wide range of build options. These include its full range of separate bars and stems and its SES AR one-piece bar/stem, all with internal cable/hose routing using its In-Route system.
There are also five different seatposts, three with zero offset and two with 20mm offset in lengths from 275mm to 400mm. The Fray uses the same aero cross-section seatpost as the Melee.
There’s a T47 threaded bottom bracket, with Enve saying that the Fray is compatible with the majority of road groupsets, with the exception of SRAM and Campagnolo mechanical 2x and previous generation Campagnolo EPS. You can also fit the Classified Powershift system.
In addition, as with the latest BMC Roadmachine range and other bikes such as the Canyon Endurace, Enve has followed the trend by adding mudguard compatibility and internal storage in the down tube, under the water bottle cage. Enve supplies two neoprene sleeves to help prevent rattling, which can be used together to provide up to 600ml of storage space.
Enve’s line of accessories and components now extends to an out-front K-Edge mount, Enve bar tape, Enve co-branded Selle Italia SLR Boost saddles, carbon Enve bottle cages and even a custom Enve Scicon Aerocomfort bike bag.
The high modularity of the available builds increases the risk of selecting a frame and components that don’t match your bike-fit requirements, so Enve has launched an online best fit calculator to allow you to work out the optimum combination of frame size, fork rake, stem length, spacer stack and seatpost offset to match your bike-fit data.
Prices, sizes and colours
The Fray is available in seven sizes from 47cm to 60cm and three colours: Salt (ie, matt off-white), Venom (metallic green) and Ash (aka, gloss grey/black).
The Enve Fray chassis, including a frame, fork, headset, bars, stem and seatpost is priced at £5,500 / $5,500 / €5,999 / AU$9,999. If you want a one-piece bar/stem, that price increases by $480. You can also buy the frameset only for $4,450.
Read our Enve Melee review for more Enve action.
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