Enve MOG gravel bike review: Yeah, it’s good

It’s hella expensive, but also one of the best-performing gravel bikes I’ve ridden.

When Enve first jumped into the complete bike market in 2021, I was among the skeptics who wondered how a major wheel/rim and cockpit component brand – not to mention a major supplier to countless custom builders – would navigate such a substantial transition.

Enve’s initial Custom Road was interesting, and though it was a solid option for the right buyer (particularly one that actually needed custom geometry), I didn’t think it moved the needle. The subsequent Melee and Fray models received plenty of accolades, but it still pigeonholed Enve as a bike brand mostly for paved surfaces. This MOG gravel bike, though? It unquestionably occupies the premium end of the pricing spectrum, especially for the gravel market, but hot damn, is this thing fantastic – just do yourself a favor and skip the Enve tires.

• Pros: Ultra-smooth ride quality, remarkably lively feel, lightweight, solid handling with dedicated size-specific fork rakes, excellent tire clearance, lots of mounts, handy built-in storage, clean and tidy aesthetics, lots of options.

• Cons: Fully internal (instead of just hidden) cable routing, storage compartment latch is a little fiddly, weirdly slow tires, slacker-than-expected seat tube angle could cause some fit issues, expensive.

• The takeaway: Enve kinda knocked it out of the park with this one.

FYI, I still don’t know what a “mog” is.

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Building blocks

Enve’s Custom Road may not be a world-beater on paper, but its ability to combine a fully custom geometry with the look of a modern production aero carbon road racer certainly held some appeal when it launched almost four years ago. The fact those frames are actually manufactured at Enve’s headquarters in Ogden, Utah, certainly doesn’t hurt (Enve’s other frames are made overseas).

Enve didn’t shine a light on this at the time, but developing the Custom Road came with a nice additional benefit. Enve builds each of those frames from nine separately molded parts, which can then be joined together in any number of configurations. That’s how Enve can offer custom geometry, but it’s also how the company was able to accelerate the development of later models. After all, if those nine pieces can be arranged into a road (or all-road) bike, why not a gravel bike? That the MOG bears so much visual similarity to the Custom Road (as well as the Melee and Fray) is probably at least partially the result of an intentionally common industrial design language, but it’s also not hard to see how the lineage of the MOG can be traced back directly to the Custom Road’s mix-and-match construction.

The family resemblance within Enve’s range of frames is strong.

Visual similarities aside, Enve doesn’t bill the MOG as an aero gravel bike by any means. Instead, the MOG is more about capability and versatility.

First off, tire clearance is impressively generous for a bike that’s also intended to be speedy. In 1x guise, the MOG is rated for 700c tires up to 50 mm-wide, and if you prefer to run a front derailleur, you can still cram a 700x47 mm tire in there. Fenders – and the MOG does include hidden mounts front and rear – will restrict that figure a bit further. Although you’re certainly welcome to do so, Enve doesn’t recommend the use of 650b wheel-and-tire setups on the MOG, if for no other reason than it doesn’t see any performance advantage in doing so.

This is the tightest pinch point on the MOG, and there’s still plenty of space.

There’s a generous allotment of mounts, including for three bottle cages (with one under the down tube), a top tube feed bag, three-pack cargo fittings on the fork blades, and the aforementioned front and rear fenders. Enve even says you can run a rear rack on the MOG, though it’s fairly specific about which ones it thinks are ok. Not wanting to be left behind by its rivals, MOG gets internal storage inside the down tube, courtesy of a removable hatch held in place by a small slider-type toggle. An internal bag help you organize your stuff, and small straps also work with typical foam liners to keep hoses and housings tucked up tightly against the inside the down tube to prevent rattling.

Speaking of control lines, Enve has provided quite a bit of flexibility in what sort of groupsets you can install on a MOG. Wireless electronic setups are easy, of course, as are wiredless ones from Shimano. But the MOG frameset will also accommodate fully mechanical 1x and 2x drivetrains (as long as the front derailleur doesn’t require a frame-mounted housing stop), and the rear dropout is UDH-compatible if you want a run a mullet.

Enve has incorporated a fair bit of groupset flexibility on the MOG, including a UDH-compatible rear dropout.

There are provisions for an internally routed dropper post, too. Enve would obviously prefer you go with its own inverted G-Series post (should you actually be able to source one, that is, seeing as how they seem to be in short supply), but anything with a round 27.2 mm-diameter shaft will do.

Despite the clear potential for rough-terrain rowdiness (the down tube armoring is rather stout), Enve has also positioned the MOG to be a go-fast gravel bike if you want it to be.

The 950 g claimed frame weight (medium size, without paint or hardware) may not be as feathery as a Specialized S-Works Crux, but it’s still on the lighter side of things, particularly given the integrated storage. Handling is tuned to be on the sportier side with trail dimensions in the low-to-mid 60s across the six-size range – even with 35 mm rubber – while the slightly offset seat tube allow for surprisingly short 420 mm chainstays across the board despite the impressive tire clearances. Three different fork rakes are used for just six frame sizes, which helps maintain those intended handling characteristics and front-center dimensions without having to resort to anything goofy with head tube angle.

The six frame sizes use three different fork rakes.

Stack and reach dimensions are somewhat on the lower and longer side of things, respectively, but neither is outrageously so. Reach tracks within a few millimeters of the Crux for comparable sizes, for example, while stack on the MOG is just a smidgeon taller. That’s probably just as well since the front end of the MOG is built around Enve’s In-Route headset routing system. Although it’s possible to run a non-Enve stem, doing so yields a somewhat visually clunky result, and Enve’s stems only go down to 80 mm. You can get one as long as 130 mm if you’ve got a particularly high ape index, and Enve also makes its In-Route stems with a +12° rise if you prefer a taller grip height.

Down below, the 73-77 mm (depending on size) bottom bracket drops promote a sense of high-speed stability, but otherwise, the MOG is one of a shrinking number of gravel bikes that would probably serve pretty well as a ‘cross racer.

Enve doesn’t sell complete MOGs. Instead, it offers it as a “chassis”, including the frame, fork, headset, stem, handlebar, and seatpost (all of which you can thankfully at least customize for sizing) for the unquestionably premium sum of US$5,500 / £5,500 / €5,000 / AU$10,000. That’s about 10% higher than a Specialized S-Works Crux frameset, although Enve also includes its own carbon fiber bar and stem so it ends up about even. The MOG is also available as a more traditional frame and fork without the ancillary bits for US$3,750 (pricing for other regions is TBC). Either way, where you go from there is up to you.

Enve loaned to me a complete flagship build outfitted with a SRAM Red AXS/XX SL Eagle AXS Transmission 1x12 wireless electronic “mullet” groupset and a full complement of Enve’s own carbon fiber goodies. Included in the spec sheet were a set of G23 gravel wheels wrapped with Enve’s new 45 mm-wide Hex tubeless tires, its In-Route flared gravel bar and molded stem, and a two-bolt seatpost topped with a made-for-Enve Selle Italia Boost SLR saddle.

Some may lament the fact Enve doesn’t feature a one-piece bar-and-stem combo on the MOG, but that would be a bridge too far in my opinion.

Total weight for the premium package came out to an impressively light 7.88 kg (17.37 lb) without pedals or accessories.

Just out for a MOG

Some bikes leave an impression almost immediately, and the MOG certainly fits into that category as two things came to mind barely minutes after hitting the dirt.