ENVE Melee

[p nut]

Thanks, John! Sounds like just the bike I’m looking for.

[Baron Blubba]

Originally Posted by charliedid

Guessing you are not paying retail for that bike...

As a dealer for several very lovely bike makers, with friends who are dealers for almost every other bike brand that is not D2C, I don't pay retail for anything.

My reasons for ordering a Melee:

#42: I didn't pay full retail for it.

#1 - #something:

I don't believe that the Enve is the best pure road bike out there, in terms of speed. My 2023 Propel definitely feels faster.

The Melee, though, just feels great. I admire ENVE for not coming to the table with a thousand claims about stiffness-to-weight and aerodynamics and directional deflection and similar numbers that, in my experience, seem arbitrary in actual field testing.

- The bike is so smooth that there is, until you get used to it, almost a cognitive dissonance between what you are doing and what you are feeling --like riding tubeless or tubulars with low pressure and thinking 'do I have a flat? This is too comfortable!' Then you get used to it and it's just so much fun, and it feels like flying.

- Enve geometry, for me, is dialed. The bike just fits and disappears underneath me except for the times when I go from drops to hoods or vice-versa (or to/from some other hand position or standing to sitting) and think 'gosh darn, that feels nice.'

- The bike has ample clearance for 38mm tires. While this is bike will be, in its initial configuration, be my go-fast road bike, I might very well one day make it my go fast all-road bike. Now, lots of modern bikes currently claim that 35-38mm tire capacity. However, there's a difference between having room for wide tires and actually being an *excellent* all road bike. I think the Melee will be because...

- The handling. A poster above mentioned how it seems like Enve just copied the Dogma F's geo when designing the Melee. I'd agree that there are definitely similarities to how both bikes corner. The Dogma, for me, is remarkable in how it always feels so stable that even when you are diving into a corner or a sweeping curve at high speed, you still feel stable, almost as stable as if you were upright. This is an awesome quality for some people, but I find that this quality also makes the ride, for me, a lot less exciting. The Melee has a similar quality to the way it handles. You enter a corner and it's like the bike throws a grappling hook around the bend that pulls you through at exactly your desired angle. It's incredibly confident when it does this, even at speed, but it is still an exciting experience. The bike as a whole is a fun, peppy, flickable, exciting ride. With stability and true-tracking confidence when I want it...which would be when using it off road.
I actually think this might be a better light gravel bike than the Crux, if you are riding the type of gravel that you don't need anything wider than 38's for.
(That said, I've never ridden the Crux on gravel, have just played with one in the parking lot, so this is speculation.)

- I really like the way it looks. Modern, but still very much a bicycle in the traditional sense. I recently built up a top-spec '23 Madone for a friend and took it for a spin. Bike is *awesome*, but aesthetically, I like bikes that look like bikes, without the sharply angled sci-fi-space-age looking cuts and angles all over the place.

- I know that Enve is owned by Amersports, but I still like the idea of supporting a more US based independent brand than the usual suspects whose bikes I ride.

- My only negative feedback on this bike, and the same is true for the way I feel on my MOG, is that they feel a little long in the back while standing and leaning forward, like the tail of the bike trails a little bit behind the rest of it. It's a little disconcerting coming off of such tight feeling bikes as the TCR and new Propel, where everything feels 100% unified. When seated or standing with my weight more centered or rearward, that feeling diminishes significantly.

- Lots of people comment on how expensive this bike is, but I'd like to make the distinction between 'expensive' and 'costs a lot of money'. Yes, $5500 is a lot of money, even when you factor in the seatpost, stem, and handlebars that come with it, which are top notch and worth $1000 on their own. But compared to other bikes that are positioned similarly in the market, this is really not even scraping the 'expensive' end. An S-Works Tarmac SL8 frame is $5500, and that only includes the seatpost. A Dogma F frameset is a smidge under $7k. A Propel SL or TCR SL (seatmast included) is somewhere in the mid-$4000's. A Cannondale Lab71 frameset is $6k. It should be no surprise that frameset + chassis coming from a company known for selling wheels that cost in excess of $2500 would be priced similarly to all of the above. Quality wise, it's as good as any of those, and distinct enough from all of them to have a reason to exist.

Looking forward to having one of my own. Already ordered the custom paint, which to me is basically the same thing as giving a bike a ring...and almost as expensive, too.

[Clean39T]

Here’s mine in 60cm - finally done!

Red AXS w Med-Cage RD and Force 10-36, plus 35/48 PM.
EMVE 4.5C on CK R45D Ceramic hubs w ENVE 29mm tires.
Integrated 120x42 ENVE bar/stem from an ENVE Custom Road.
ENVE bar tape, cages, and seatpost.
Fizik Argo 00 Adaptive saddle.

Drop is right about 10.5cm w it slammed.

Hopefully will get in a shakedown later today and a real ride tomorrow AM.

This was picked up as a placeholder for the Argo RM-3 I’ve ordered, but who knows, may stick around longer if I love it.

[ducati2]

Nice to know you are healed up enough to ride that kind of drop again. A couple of local shops had these in stock. I thought the aesthetic was elegant and beautiful. Just like yours.

[Andy sti]

Has there been a seat post fix? I have 2 friends that got rid of theirs due to that and 1 also had some BB quality issues.

[Clean39T]

Originally Posted by Andy sti

Has there been a seat post fix? I have 2 friends that got rid of theirs due to that and 1 also had some BB quality issues.

T47 BB was just as expected - not sure what kind of issues to look for.. and I guess I'll see with the seatpost. It's a 5mm head bolt and seems like the same mechanism as any other internal wedge type holder.

[Clean39T]

Well.. first ride was a short one. Before I could even get out the door I found a crack in the seatpost head - I bought the setback one secondhand but fortunately have recourse on it.. and more fortunately, had the zero setback one to swap in. What can I say - the bike feels planted, efficient, and fast - soaks up everything and boogies quite well. Tomorrow AM should get a longer one in to really feel it out......

[p nut]

Clean39T - sorry to hear about the seatpost. What’s the weight come in at?

[Clean39T]

Originally Posted by p nut

Clean39T - sorry to hear about the seatpost. What’s the weight come in at?

Haven’t weighed it yet - feels light - I’ll guess mid-7kg range..

[quattro]

Originally Posted by Baron Blubba

- My only negative feedback on this bike, and the same is true for the way I feel on my MOG, is that they feel a little long in the back while standing and leaning forward, like the tail of the bike trails a little bit behind the rest of it. It's a little disconcerting coming off of such tight feeling bikes as the TCR and new Propel, where everything feels 100% unified. When seated or standing with my weight more centered or rearward, that feeling diminishes significantly.

Don’t mean to hijack this thread, but would you mind sharing more about your MOG, I have one on order, interested in your thoughts.
Thanks!
quattro

[Baron Blubba]

My only other long term gravel bikes are Giant Revolts (last two generations) and the aluminum warhorse/tank/unstoppable trundler Toughroad GX 0.
I really liked the Revolts, just a blast to ride all over the place, but was curious what another top notch gravel bike would feel like. My current Revolt is built up with Ekar and Enve G23’s w/Boken 40 tires (these are awesome) and a Cadex cockpit—super light, did it up exactly how I wanted it. The MoG is on Enve AG25s (the lesser of Enve’s gravel offerings), Vittoria Terreno Dry 38 tires, Ekar drivetrain, Enve cockpit. So very similar builds.
I vastly prefer the MoG.
The current Revolt feels much more road-bike than its predecessor, but the MoG flat out feels, in terms of geometry and handling and just how it feels to sit on and ride, like a road race bike. Only soooo much smoother and less fast, both of which are largely due to those 38mm tires (which measure wider). With 28mm tires, this would still be an incredibly smooth ride, and I suspect be almost indistinguishable from a pure performance road bike…especially if you were to extend the stem by 10mm.
The bike feels smaller than other gravel and endurance bikes, not in a cramped sense but in a reactive sense, where you feel close to the ground and you don’t feel like the rear wheel is always lagging behind the front when zipping around or going over/off obstacles and edges. It’s very playful, and very controllable—I become a more confident rider on this than on my other all road/gravel bikes.

Very positive tactile feels filtering through the touch points and frame, combined with that gung ho reactiveness to pedaling efforts and body language inputs, make it a fun (FUN!!!) and addictive ride.

I’ve taken it on a fastish road 6 person group ride (30 miles, 21.5mph, negligible elevation) and we hung in there fine, taking plenty of good pulls. But on my road bike, this is a ride where I don’t break a sweat, on on the MoG it was a solid effort!

On gravel, even with the lesser wheels, it feels a lot faster than my Revolt and I’ve already set several pr’s on some big time gravel climbs (1-3 miles). More importantly…man, is it fun to ride!

I appreciate how Enve made a bike that is a pure gravel race bike, but can also be a pure longlonglong adventure bike, with oodles of mounts and a nifty downtube storage compartment. Because if the geo agrees with you, why not have an adventure/bike packing bike that gives you a little bit of a speed boost?

So…there ya go. I like it.

[quattro]

Originally Posted by Baron Blubba

My only other long term gravel bikes are Giant Revolts (last two generations) and the aluminum warhorse/tank/unstoppable trundler Toughroad GX 0.
I really liked the Revolts, just a blast to ride all over the place, but was curious what another top notch gravel bike would feel like. My current Revolt is built up with Ekar and Enve G23’s w/Boken 40 tires (these are awesome) and a Cadex cockpit—super light, did it up exactly how I wanted it. The MoG is on Enve AG25s (the lesser of Enve’s gravel offerings), Vittoria Terreno Dry 38 tires, Ekar drivetrain, Enve cockpit. So very similar builds.
I vastly prefer the MoG.
The current Revolt feels much more road-bike than its predecessor, but the MoG flat out feels, in terms of geometry and handling and just how it feels to sit on and ride, like a road race bike. Only soooo much smoother and less fast, both of which are largely due to those 38mm tires (which measure wider). With 28mm tires, this would still be an incredibly smooth ride, and I suspect be almost indistinguishable from a pure performance road bike…especially if you were to extend the stem by 10mm.
The bike feels smaller than other gravel and endurance bikes, not in a cramped sense but in a reactive sense, where you feel close to the ground and you don’t feel like the rear wheel is always lagging behind the front when zipping around or going over/off obstacles and edges. It’s very playful, and very controllable—I become a more confident rider on this than on my other all road/gravel bikes.

Very positive tactile feels filtering through the touch points and frame, combined with that gung ho reactiveness to pedaling efforts and body language inputs, make it a fun (FUN!!!) and addictive ride.

I’ve taken it on a fastish road 6 person group ride (30 miles, 21.5mph, negligible elevation) and we hung in there fine, taking plenty of good pulls. But on my road bike, this is a ride where I don’t break a sweat, on on the MoG it was a solid effort!

On gravel, even with the lesser wheels, it feels a lot faster than my Revolt and I’ve already set several pr’s on some big time gravel climbs (1-3 miles). More importantly…man, is it fun to ride!

I appreciate how Enve made a bike that is a pure gravel race bike, but can also be a pure longlonglong adventure bike, with oodles of mounts and a nifty downtube storage compartment. Because if the geo agrees with you, why not have an adventure/bike packing bike that gives you a little bit of a speed boost?

So…there ya go. I like it.

Thank you for your details review, sounds like a fun bike on both the road and gravel. Looking forward to getting one built up!

[Tychom]

Originally Posted by Clean39T

Here’s mine in 60cm - finally done!

The Melee certainly seems to be one of the nicer looking XL/XXL/60-61cm framesets out there.

I was looking at the latest Soloist and Defy and the front ends look distinctly over-sized and bulky in comparison to the Enve.

[Baron Blubba]

Tychum, have you seen the new Defy that was released a few days ago? Muuuuch nicer up front than the last version, and mire unified front to back as well. I think the Bikeradar reviewer rides a size XL if you want to see what one looks like.

[Tychom]

Yeah, Warren Rossiter is generally gonna be on a 60ish/XL frame when he reviews, always useful reviews for that alone to check out how those frames look. In the first look vid the host mentions though he's on a size large, so I might still be waiting on further photos of an XL.

I saw the new '24 release on the Escape Collective site the other day and do agree it looks much nicer overall compared to the previous model.