All-City Cycles Mr Pink

The All-City Mr Pink, with its wide tyre clearance, is a versatile road and gravel-lite bike, but the brakes are a disappointment and the wheels don't allow the frameset to truly shine.

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Frame and details

All-City is a US brand and the frame is handmade from Columbus Zona tubing... in Taiwan. Nevertheless, the quality of the build is exceptionally good, with smooth welds and a deep and vivid paint job that is evocative of an old Eddy Merckx.

The retro theme continues with the skinny size of the main frame tubes, all double butted (the tubing is thinner in the middle, thicker at the ends where more strength is needed) to trim a bit of weight and improve the ride quality. No oversized tubes, press fit bottom brackets and tapered head tubes here, it's classic steel road bike tube dimensions, a non-tapered head tube and externally threaded bottom bracket.

When it first launched, the Mr Pink also featured a steel fork, but in pursuit of a bit of weight loss, the company has now fitted a carbon model. It saves 650g over the steel one. It's made by Whisky and is one of the rare number of full carbon forks with a non-tapered steerer tube, which allows All-City to keep the regular head tube that befits a skinny tubed steel road bike like this.

There are some nice details: All-City signature dropouts, brazed seat clamp, custom head badge, internal top tube cable routing for the rear brake, reinforced bottle bosses and a pump peg – when's the last time you saw someone using a frame pump?

Ride and performance

Billed as the company's 'flagship road racer', its road bike pedigree shines through. The handling is fast and nippy, with lively steering that definitely takes a few miles to tune into, but once there you'll be swinging the Mr Pink through turns with rapid pace.

It displays the classic steel road bike feel, but it's not as refined as other steel frames I've tested over the years. As an experiment, I swapped the Halo wheels for a more expensive wheelset and the smoothness level increased, so it's clear an investment in the wheels would pay off well to really untap the true potential of the steel frame.

It isn't the quietest ride ever, either, with an annoying rattle from the front brake that removes some of the shine from the ride experience.

Many people are drawn to steel instead of carbon, aluminium or titanium because of the material's balance of properties, able to provide a smooth ride by dissipating the majority of impacts and vibrations. You won't be disappointed with the Mr Pink's road handling manners but it's not quite as good as it could be, especially given the excellent competition the price tag puts this bike up against.

There's no lack of stiffness if you like to ride in a spirited manner. Granted it's not as direct as a state-of-the-art carbon fibre race bike but it gets up to speed convincingly. The addition of the carbon fork gives the front end a lovely direct and crisp feeling; it's nimble and easily manoeuvrable at lower speeds, when negotiating traffic, say, but at higher speeds it relaxes into an easy canter.

Race bike-inspired geometry encourages fast riding. The 999.9mm wheelbase aids the responsiveness, while the 560mm top tube on the 55cm test bike provides a comfortable reach for extended periods on the hoods or in the drops.

Despite the race bike geometry, it's a reasonably comfortable bike for daily riding, whether that's regular training or riding to work. There are a generous number of headset spacers if the 165mm head tube on the 55cm bike tested is a little on the short side. Deflate the 28mm tyre pressure to 60-70psi and there's plenty of cushioning and grip if you take to the dirt.

At nearly 9kg it's never going to be a lightning-quick hill climber, but it makes surprisingly good work of scaling all but the steepest ascents. It's on the way back down that the steel frame and carbon fork gain back any time lost – not just because the woeful brakes mean it's near-impossible to stop or slow with any authority, but because it's stable at high speed and nicely balanced.

There are mudguard mounts so you can easily transform it into a daily workhorse for commuting, but the lack of rack mounts does mean you'll need to invest in bikepacking bags if you wanted to carry any luggage for an overnighter.

It's easy to think that a disc brake-equipped road bike is the only choice if you want a road bike with wide tyres. If you don't want disc brakes, and there are valid reasons for sticking with conventional rim brakes, then tyre width can be limited, but the Mr Pink accepts up to 32mm wide tyres. Judging by the generous clearance, you might even be able to go a little wider.

That means there's plenty of clearance with the 28mm tyres fitted and space for mudguards too, but there's nothing to stop you fitting a treaded tyre if you want a bike setup capable of tackling more than just smooth tarmac. There are some good 32mm gravel and adventure tyres that would open up the terrain the Mr Pink is able to tackle.

This is, after all, a bike that won the 2013 Gravel World Championships, so it juggles that road bike pedigree with off-road capability. The gravel bike market might have rapidly matured with 40mm tyres now becoming standard, but if you want a road bike with the ability to tackle off-road adventuring, the Mr Pink is an appealing choice.

Equipment choices

You can buy the frameset for £999, or Ison, the UK distributor, sells the complete bike we have here for £1,899.99 (contact Ison for where to buy).

Shimano's 105 mechanical drivetrain provides the backbone of the build. It offers smooth and quiet shifting, as we've become used to from the Japanese company's solid mid-range offering.

Genetic-branded finishing kit also works well and includes the nicely shaped aluminium handlebar, stem, seatpost and saddle, which has a nicely padded shape.

The Halo Evaura wheels are cheap but a decent weight (1,573g), but while strong they're not as compliant as more expensive wheels. I swapped to some higher-spec wheels just out of curiosity and the ride quality improved noticeably.

Where the component choice comes unstuck is in the brake department. To provide the necessary tyre clearance, longer reach brake callipers are necessary. Dia-Compe's BRS 101 cold forged alloy dual pivot brakes offer a 43-57mm drop, but are the biggest disappointment of the package. The one-piece brake blocks find very little purchase on the aluminium rims, and have a very wooden feel that doesn't give great reassurance when descending at high speed. Upgrading to better quality brake blocks might remedy the issue.

With a few upgrades – the brakes for definite and possibly the wheels – the Mr Pink becomes a more compelling package, but it doesn't really come together as well as it could and lacks that lustre that many good steel road bikes typically offer.

Rivals

Steel is an expensive choice because very few companies work with it these days, so if value for money is top of your list then mainstream aluminium is a smarter choice. If you want steel then your choices are largely limited to smaller brands, some of which, at this price, give the All-City Mr Pink some tough competition.

Though built around disc brakes, the new Fairlight Cycles Strael comes with a Shimano 105 build and Mavic Aksium wheels for £1,849, a bike that in a higher spec for £2,439 got a top review from Stu.

Sticking with the disc brake choice, the Genesis Equilibrium Disc 30 costs £1,999 and gets you a full Shimano Ultegra groupset with hydro disc brakes and 28mm Clement Strada tyres on Fulcrum Racing Sport wheels. The Equilibrium is a popular and well-proven frameset, with enhanced versatility over the Mr Pink, and there's no getting away from the fact that Ultegra trumps 105 in the specification game.

> Buyer's Guide: The best steel road bikes

If you're in the market for a steel road bike without disc brakes and want a British-built frame, the Enigma Elite HSS is an excellent choice. It's one of the best steel frames I've ridden, but admittedly it's a lot more money – the frameset is nearly the same price as the complete Mr Pink bike.

Conclusion

The Mr Pink is a really nice riding bike, but the frame and fork could certainly benefit from a few equipment changes to bring out the best.

Its versatility is a wonderful appeal; you could use it just on the road or mix up the terrain with a change of tyre, and fit mudguards for winter or year-round riding. The lack of rack mounts will be missed by some, but the proliferation of bikepacking bags offers an easy solution for luggage concerns.

Verdict

Nice riding steel road bike, but lacks smoothness and the brakes need upgrading