Poseidon Redwood Review

 The Poseidon Redwood is an interesting bike. Just under $1,000, yet it offers all the main things you want in an adventure bikepacking bike. Lots of mounts, clearance for fat tires, drop bars, and a decent component spec to start. My girlfriend was looking for a first bike - something that would work for bikepacking, gentle mountain biking, and commuting around town. The options were a cheap hardtail, a hybrid, a used gravel bike, or - this.

Before we get into the bike itself, I have to say, the market segment of this bike is very interesting. It's not marketed at beginner cyclists. It's marketed at experienced cyclists that want to get their friends into adventure biking - their friends who balk at the idea of spending more than a grand on a bike to get started. Or maybe it's marketed at experienced cyclists that want a cheap beater for bikepacking, instead of worrying about a nice carbon bike? I'm not entirely sure - it's a weird rig.

Weird, interesting - these aren't words you usually hear to describe something Good. The sub-$1,000 price point already has you suspicious, and I'm two paragraphs deep and I haven't said anything positive yet. The internet is full of semi-paid reviews of this bike (they're a tech savvy social media driven company), and most of them will gush about how it's so great that you can get a cheap adventure bike thanks to Poseidon. Those reviews cover the good: tire clearance, price, acceptable component spec, price, drop bars, price. They also mostly get into the bad: components are kinda bad, quite weighty. But they don't get into the weird, which is why I want to write this review.

Mixed Messages

Posiedon's description starts strong:

Gravel, Single-Track, Bikepacking it does it all.

We're looking at a bike that's solidly aimed at the Salsa Fargo, Salsa Cutthroat, Surly Ghost Grappler, Kona Sutra LTD, Soma Jawbone, etc - drop bar mountain bikes that are intended to go on adventures. The wheelbase (1021mm on XXS, 1053.7mm on XL) support this, as do the cargo mounts - basically everything you'd want, including up to 70lb on the alloy fork and three bottle cage mounts inside the frame on larger sizes.

But the rest of the geometry seems to be giving mixed messages on intent. The head tube angle wavers around 71 degrees - comparable to a Salsa Cutthroat V1 and Soma Jawbone. The V2 Cutthroat slacked out to 69 degrees, which is shared by the Fargo, and the Kona and Ghost Grappler sit at 69.5 degrees. The steeper head tube angle is more suitable for a faster race gravel experience and less capable for the singletrack mountain bike experience. I'd personally like to see a slacker head tube angle here - you've already got some toe overlap issues with the 27.5x2.35 setup, and moving to a 29er setup will only exacerbate that.

They don't publish a stack spec on the website, but geometrygeeks.com has figures - for a large (56cm frame), you're looking at a reach of 391mm and a stack of 577mm. Compare to the Jawbone (379mm / 623mm), Cutthroat V2 (385mm / 619mm), Ghost Grapper (444mm / 641mm), or Kona (395mm / 609mm) - the reach/stack figures are much more aggressive. The steep head tube angle accentuates this, as additional spacers and a riser stem don't do much to improve the situation. We're again looking at a more "race gravel" and much less "adventure bikepacking" bike. New cyclists won't be happy with this aggressive goemetry, and the first change I made to the bike was a 45 degree riser stem - the best we could do, given that the fork was cut somewhat short. 

The bike specs 46cm wide handlebars for every size, from XXS to XL. 46cm on an XXS is "extra damn wide, holy shit" while 46cm on an XL is "typical handlebar size." Another somewhat odd choice, but this one at least is understandable from a finance perspective - only need to order one kind of handlebar! This choice definitely pushes the bike more towards "mountain biking" side of gravel than "race.
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The seat tube is a 30.9mm diameter. This is another somewhat odd choice for the rest of the bike - the wider diameter does allow for more dropper post selection, but the bike itself isn't routed for internal dropper posts - and most externally routed droppers these days are the 27.2mm size, typical for gravel bikes which usually aren't internally routed. The 30.9mm wider diameter results in a stiffer and less comfortable post, which is an odd choice for an adventure bikepacking bike. Fortunately, I had a Syntace P6 HiFlex seatpost I could throw in there, which helped quite a bit.

They advertise three bottle cages in the frame triangle on the Large size, which they deliver. However, they're a bit oddly placed and spaced - the second boss on the downtube is placed very close to the top tube, and you'd have a hard time putting a small bottle in there. Meanwhile, the first boss on the downtube is close to it - you can't really run a full size bottle with anything on the higher boss. The seat tube boss is placed low, which does give lots of space for a half frame bag - but a better design would be to raise the seat tube boss and provide adequate space for two full bottles on the downtube. Youve' got three cages, technically, but only two practically.

The stock saddle is extremely narrow - a good fit for my sit bones, but few others. This is a decent complement for an aggressive forward position, but a bad fit for most cyclists, particularly beginners. Fortunately I had an old Selle Anatomica X1 I could throw on, which saved the day.

The stock wheelset is 650b and is quite heavy, but seems sturdy enough. The stock tire is a 2.35" Kenda Kadre, which is a decently knobby and heavy tire. This is definitely more of a mountain bikiing choice.

I do give big kudos for stocking 170mm crank arms on all sizes - most people are running cranks that are too long, and shorter cranks are a boon for comfort, reducing pedal strikes, and making fit generally easier. But... the shorter cranks means you push the seatpost up to componensate, which makes the stack and reach figures more aggressive than they already seem.

The {Best,Worst} of All Worlds

The overall result here is weird - the bike doesn't feel like it's trying to strike a balance between "gravel racing" or "adventure biking" or "mountain biking" so much as it picks random elements from each category and slaps them together. You've got a steep head tube angle paired with fat tires. A long, slow, stable wheelbase paired with a rather aggressive stack/reach posture. Narrow racing saddle and a thick stiff seatpost. These contrasts

The downside of the cheapness is that the quality seems pretty poor. The welds on the frame are bad, but the welding job on the fork is atrocious - it's the ugliest bike component I have ever laid eyes on. There are almost no close up photos of the fork on the website, and it's for good reason. The bike seems sturdy enough, which is the important bit, especially for the price and intended use.

Now, the benefit here is that the bike is cheap - and some of the weird choices are component spec, which you can easily change. The HiFlex seatpost, tall riser stem, and leather saddle were immediate upgrades that made a huge difference, and my girlfriend loves the way the bike feels and rides. More upgrades down the line will help hone in on what exactly she wants the bike to be, which is a fantastic starting point frame.

Verdict

This bike isn't what I'd recommend to a beginner. The stock setup is just too weird for a beginner cyclist to be comfortable and enjoy it. The bike works much better with an experienced cyclist to customize and alter it, and I think it works great for that purpose.

At the $1,000 price point, it's hard to find any competitors. There are quite a few flat bar bikes that can make a competitive choice for a bikepacking adventure bike. There are plenty of hardtail mountain bikes in the price range that will be much better for mountain biking and bikepacking. But if you really want drop bars and tire clearance, this is pretty much the only game in town until you're spending significantly more money.