Winter Bikes: Dave William’s Kuota K-Allroad

Former British champion Dave Williams has swapped his aluminium winter bike for a Kuota K-Allroad carbon one in camo urban colours and disc brakes … we quiz him about it.

Winter Bikes: Dave William’s Kuota K-Allroad

The head of DHW Agencies, Dave Williams, who has ridden as a professional here and abroad, and is still racing from time to time, has had a change of winter bike. To keep the legs turning over in the winter, when the weather is horrible and wet, he has a full carbon ‘gravel’ bike with mudguards.

It is technically suitable for all types of terrain: road and off-road, for racing or just for cycle touring. The most striking feature is it’s ‘marmite’ nonconformist urban soul: the camouflage livery is eye-catching and it represents a real break in tradition with respect to the classic bike on the road.

Casual in the appearance, yet sophisticated and technically advance, the bike has many winter appealing features. It can accommodate tyres up to 35 mm wide, slick or tacky for maximum comfort on every terrain.

Other features make this bike a highly technological and modern machine, such as the 142 mm E-thru axle with 12 mm diameter, with an adjustable quick release or to be used with a Torx key. The K-Allroad adopts modern flat mount disc brake calipers too. The technical specs are those of a top range bike with a stealth 27.2 mm seat post clamp, high modulus carbon frame with a weight of 1100 g in size M, metal parts and paint included. The bottom bracket is a standard 386 and the headset fits a tapered 1 1/8” to 1.5” head tube.

When I visited Kuota UK’s headquarters, I noticed a few of these bikes dotted round the warehouse, Dylan, Madeleine and the boss Dave all have one with mudguards on them. Why I asked Dave Williams? What is so special that everyone there is using one of these as their winter bikes? In one word, ‘practical’ is how Dave describes it.

“A lot of our customers picked up on the fact the bike can take mudguards and I was riding an aluminium winter bike and thought ‘why’ when I can fit mudguards to one of these” Dave explained. “Primarily, being a carbon frame, it’s really comfortable to ride and the disc brakes are a big advantage in the winter”.

“It’s a very practical bike because not only can it take mudguards, has disc brakes as well and is also a very a comfortable bike to ride, but another practical consideration is it has really good clearances so in the winter, we may get adventurous and go riding on tow paths etc and I can run 28mm or wider tyres which make it even more comfortable to ride.”

The bike is Di2 electronic compatible but Dave is sticking to the ‘old skool’ mechanical groupset for now. Asked about the camo paint job, Dave describes it as being ‘marmite like’ but adds that it has proven popular with customers and Kuota have three of their line up with a camo variation as their paint job.

Finally, as a rider from the 80s and 90s, I asked the former British champion how he was getting on with the disc brakes? “Discs are great” he replied. “I have a race bike which has rim brakes and on a dry day on a typical circuit, rim brakes are fine and come with a weight advantage.”

“But in the winter in particular, the disc brakes are brilliant under braking. The bike has a through axel system which gives great wheel stability too. The force you can apply when braking is considerable and the E-thru axle axels help stablise the wheel under heavy breaking”.

And the feel of the braking with discs I asked finally? “With the hydraulic braking system, you can apply as much or as little force as you like so you can modulate them to your own taste in braking. I have them set up with similar bite points as my road bike as I like a bit of feel with my brakes, progressive braking, and this gives me that.”

Overall, Dave and the other riders on the Kuota K-Allroad really like their new winter bikes and the diddy one used by Madds at DHW was really light as well and that is not something we expect from a winter bike!