Fairlight Strael 4.0 review: Impossible to fault after more than 1500 kilometers

This may be a slightly more indulgent review than usual, so get ready. I spent a solid 18 months riding the old Fairlight Strael 3.0 and came to the conclusion that it was about as good as an off-the-peg steel bike could be, and well deserving of a place in our list of the best road bikes on the market today. I rode it on beautiful, long summer miles in dusty sunshine, and through the gloom of winter decked out in lights and mudguards, and sort of wondered where the brand could take the bike next.

The Strael 4.0 is now officially an all-road bike, according to Fairlight at least, but when it was announced, it struck me as an ideal opportunity for me to create what I think of as the platonic ideal of a road bike for year-round British riding. Fortunately for me, Fairlight was on board with the plan and allowed me a blank slate to build a Strael 4.0 frameset up as I liked for a review.

I’ll go into the build later, but the top line is that this new model is an improvement on the last, and fortunately without taking away any of what made the outgoing model so good, and so popular amongst my colleagues across the cycling media.

I’ve done over 1500km on it so far and, all being well, I’ll keep on with it and eventually bring you a long-term review as I did with the Fairlight Secan 2.5 gravel bike. Ultimately though, I think it’s close to perfect. In fact, it might even be perfect, once you take into account the fact that all bike design involves some degree of compromise.

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Design and aesthetics

If I showed you a photo of the Strael 4.0 next to the old 3.0 model, you’d be forgiven for thinking the only difference was paint. Maybe if you were particularly eagle-eyed, you might notice a different shape to the rear stays, but the silhouette (and therefore the vibe) is consistent between the two. Madly though, with the exception of the head tube, every single tube is different, all with the goal of reducing weight while maintaining enough strength to pass ISO fatigue testing.

How this has been achieved has a lot to do with ‘butting profiles’, which for those of you who aren't fluent in ferric means the internal thicknesses of the steel tubes. Usually tubing manufacturers (Reynolds in this case, but also the likes of Columbus, Dedacciai et. al.) make off-the-peg butting profiles for each of their tube sets (these being the various numbers for Reynolds – 853, 725, 531 etc., where the larger the number the stronger the steel – and named tubes for Columbus, like Life, Zona, and Spirit).

In order to strip weight from the new Strael, Fairlight worked with Reynolds to create totally new butting profiles, adding thickness at the tube junctions for increased strength and allowing thickness to be removed from the longer centre sections, resulting in overall weight reduction. This was no doubt made easier by Fairlight being Reynolds biggest customer, but it shows what can be achieved with a mutually beneficial relationship.

The main triangle tube shapes are externally the same, with new internal profiles, but the stays (both seat and chain) are new all over. The greater tyre clearance requirements – officially 39mm, but with a bit of space, up from 36mm – required some new shaping. From the side they still appear wonderfully straight, and attaching at the same height as the top tube only helps the aesthetics in my eyes, but from the rear you can see how they’ve been sculpted to allow more room for rubber, and are never closer than 41mm to account for modern, wider carbon rim shapes.

The final bit of gram shaving I want to point out happens at the bottom bracket. As with the old model it still uses a BSA threaded shell (praise the Lord), but unlike the old model, which utilised a model with threads pre-cut before welding, the Strael 4.0 is fabricated with a blank shell devoid of threads. After welding the whole frame is then placed into a lathe, centred around the BB, and excess material is machined out from the central portion of the shell and threads cut behind in one move. This takes half an hour per frame, but results in a 67g saving.

If you want a really deep dive, then I implore you to have a pore over Fairlight's design notes that goes with each of its models, not just the Strael; meticulous doesn’t quite cover it. All in all this marginal gains approach to gram shaving of 282 grams in the frame, from a base that was already svelte by steel road bike standards. You could probably go lighter, but for an all-road bike that ISO certification is important in my eyes.

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Hardware aside there are a few geometry tweaks. The Strael 3.0 handled beautifully but did have a relatively high bottom bracket, but this has been dropped 4mm for the 4.0 and makes things feel a little more sure-footed. The chainstays are a full millimeter longer to allow for bigger tyres, and the fork is brand new too to match the tyre capacity.

All the good stuff in terms of mounts, modularity and adaptability remains and has been iterated. The dropouts at the rear are modular to allow for all manner of setups, both mechanical and electronic. Dynamo routing is internal through the frame and the fork, the hose clips on the downtube are now CNC machined for security and longevity, and even the bottom bracket cable/hose guides are setup specific so there are no redundant slots – a SRAM electronic setup has a single hose guide and dynamo cable loop, whereas a 2x mechanical setup from shimano has a brake hose, a dynamo loop, and two channels for the front and rear derailleur cables. It’s all incredibly well thought out.

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There are no top tube bosses (no bother for me as I think they tend to be quite ugly) but there are mounts for two bottles in the main triangle, and one under the downtube as before, along with the same mudguard and pannier mounts, which I have already made use of.

From a design point of view this really is the gold standard that I judge other bikes by, but aesthetically, especially in this all-black version (aided and abetted by a litany of black parts it must be said), it’s a truly beautiful bike. It tends to live in the kitchen and I do find myself just looking at it absentmindedly without noticing. It looks great, and it will look great in 30 years time I promise you that.

The build

Fairlight offers a load of stock builds, but on this rare occasion, I took the opportunity to build up a bike from a frameset as I wanted it. The reasons for this are twofold: The first is that it makes for a slightly more interesting and unique review bike, and gives a flavour of what’s possible if you go your own way, and the second is that I loved the previous model so much there’s a strong chance I’ll end up buying this after its long-term tenure is up.

The inspiration for this goes back to the days of peak Rapha in 2012. I lapped up the Rapha Continental films, but also got quite obsessed with the bikes that were made by various independent builders specifically for the Continental. Fortuitously and to my great excitement I happened upon one, the one actually – an Ira Ryan with baby pink hubs – on an audax recently so I can just show you what I was aiming for.

Given that it’s now an all-road bike I started with the tyres. I wanted a bike that I could leave, unchanged, year round, so I opted for 35c Continental GP5000 AS TR tyres. The size will still (just) fit with my favoured Kenesis Fend-Off mudguards, the grip is superb, and the extra cush is a delight when smashing about backlanes with broken surfaces in search of adventure. The reflective side panels help in winter too I’d imagine, but we haven’t got there yet.

I paired these with Hunt’s new Limitless 34_34 wheels. These are shallower than I’d ride normally, but having spent a lot of time using deep, very stiff race wheels on the old version I think something shallower and more responsive suits the bike a lot better, especially given it has little in the way of aero aspirations. Plus, when I’m home in Cornwall, the winter crosswinds can be brutal as storms lash in off the Atlantic.

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I am a die hard 2x evangelist, and so it had to be Shimano. I’ll concede that SRAM now has better braking and is more user-friendly, but Shimano has the lead on shifting for me. I initially had an 11-30 block at the back, but I revised this to 11-34 when I felt a touch overgeared, partially I think to do with the increased radius of the rear wheel with blogger tyres from how it felt with 28mm rubber fitted. Ultegra is amazing, and much as Dura-Ace is better, I also think it’s perhaps too much for a bike that is quite… sensible, for want of a better word.

Thomson stuff is stiff and quite unforgiving on the wrong bike as I have found to my cost in the past, but as well as for aesthetic reasons I thought the 35c rubber and frame compliance would cope with it well enough. Atop the seatpost initially went a beautiful Berk saddle, kindly donated by my colleague, Tom, but it wasn’t the right shape for my tush so I reverted to the ol’ faithful Selle Italia SLR Superflow. It’s never let me down, and if I had enough of them I’d run it on every bike I test.

I spent weeks (this really isn’t an exaggeration) trying to find The Perfect Handlebar™. Naturally, what I wanted didn’t exist, but at least here I am not bound to an integrated cockpit. I wanted something 38cm wide, with a slim, round profile all over, a relatively roomy curve without going for a full classic drop shape, and a long section to the bottom of the drops; this is where I like to hang out most. What I landed on was a set of ControlTech One FL0 Round bars, paired with the brand’s Terminator extender plugs that add a short length to the end of the drops.

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All this was then wrapped in Brooks leather bar tape, which, although expensive, is beautiful if you aren’t going to touch it again for ages. It’s a nightmare to wrap though, but I’m hoping it’ll wear in rather than wear out. In an ideal world I'd also have a Black Brooks Swallow leather saddle, but one can't have it all.

To round out a sensible build a K-Edge out front mount holds my Wahoo Roam V3, and slung underneath is the mighty Exposure Strada front light. While the guards and lights are an autumnal addition I think it’s key to the bike’s identity; it’s a year round machine. The final cherry on top – to the point it's literally something small and red atop the rear mudguard – is a custom 3D printed mount for my Exposure Boost-R rear light from Jaggers at 3bits.cc. I like to run a big Carradice bag at times which usually obscures the rear light, so this was an extremely neat and secure solution to a niche problem.

My own build aside, what this really highlights to me is what a joy building up a ‘normal’ bike is. One of the great delights in cycling is swapping parts; a lighter seatpost here, a narrower set of bars there. In a world of increasing integration, even at the mid-range and entry level, this is becoming harder and more expensive to achieve and with a narrower range of parts. Yes, it’s less aero to do it this way, but from a bike ownership point of view the Strael knocks most modern bikes into a cocked hat.

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Performance

I’m afraid I don’t buy into the ‘steel is real’ fantasy. Steel is a material like any other, and it’s what you do with it that matters. Carbon bikes are light and incredibly stiff because they are designed to be so, and it would be possible to make a super stiff steel bike but it would be extremely heavy. The Strael 4.0 has been designed to be light, and that results in a ride feel that is wonderfully pliant. This is what steel fetishists love, but it’s more an accidental function of not making a bike that weighs the same as a battleship rather than an end goal in and of itself.

Comfort is sometimes used as a dirty word in cycling, and while the Strael 4.0 is comfortable (both due to the properties of the frame and the 35c tyres) it’s not in a puddingly, lolloping way. It’s serene, composed, and swapping from a carbon race bike to this on the same roads is a little the difference between trying to read a book on the tube at rush hour or listening to the audiobook in noise-cancelling headphones while a chauffeur delivers you to your destination. The tube is quicker, the words the same, but they’re very different experiences.

For an all-day ride, I can’t think of any bike I’d rather reach for. Comfort is a factor, but the handling characteristics make sure it never feels dull. The lower bottom bracket has improved things in terms of stability, and while I felt I was sitting on a bike with the old one, by comparison this one feels more like you’re in the bike.

Cornering is sure-footed and precise, and with big tyres like these you can hammer descents on some pretty filthy tarmac before you need to think about backing off. A 73.5 degree head angle is half a degree steeper and still the right side of being too steep.

The 300g or so weight saving has resulted in a frame that is slightly less stiff than the outgoing model. It’s not anything to be concerned about really, and it’s stood up well enough to some max-effort sprints both on the flat and on sharp, punchy climbs, but out on the road if you yank the bars from side to side – something you’d never really do unless you were trying to see how stiff a frame was – you can feel the frame springing under torsional loading.

It’s not a problem, more of a result of the material and a focus on low weight, and is something that both the Strael 3.0 and Secan 2.5 had in common. Just be aware of it and you’ll be grand - I had one rare incidence of a scary speed wobble on the old model, imparted by a large unexpected bump on a descent, but that was quite a freak occurrence. And something that hasn’t happened again on the old model or this one thus far, and in truth I think it could have happened with a fair few other bikes too.

Once you know the feeling of the frame and how it moves underneath you you can account for it, but it’s the trade-off that comes with making a lightweight, ‘springy’ steel frame. While it can take a pannier rack I’d be wary of loading it up with a full touring load - I tried bikepacking with the Secan 2.5 and a Tailfin rear rack and you need a bit of weight on the front of the bike (bars or forks, or both) to balance the loads.

Now, it may sound like I’m describing a wet noodle but that’s not the case. It’s never going to compete with something like the Pinarello Dogma F for stiffness but you’re not comparing apples and oranges. It’s plenty stiff enough for even very hard riding if that takes your fancy, and I’ve got PR’s on some local sprints and short, punchy climbs aboard it.

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Climbing has certainly not been hindered by removing just shy of 300g from the frame, and I’d happily ride it even in the high mountains. Yes, if you’re eyeing up something like the Marmotte then a lower weight may be a priority and you should be looking at the best lightweight bikes perhaps, but if you’re only going to go on holiday to Mallorca once a year then I’d not fret; prioritise the riding you do the other 51 weeks of the year. In fact I’ve even got a PR up several of my local climbs aboard it. Would I have gone faster on a carbon race bike? Probably, but that’s besides the point.

It handles beautifully, it’s comfortable enough to ride for 12 hours and far beyond, but I think the real party piece comes in terms of the adaptability it offers. If you want a bike you can commute on and still have a joyous Sunday club ride on then it absolutely fits that bill, whether you’re a pannier user or a cycling backpack kind of person. I’ve ridden to the office countless times and I feel a lot less beat up than when I’m dropping a WorldTour race bike off let me tell you. If you want a classic, summer best road bike then it can absolutely be that too with the right build.

The old version had all this, but now the Strael has what I like to think of as ‘mischief factor’. In my view, all-road bikes that are optimised for the road, as is the case here, are brilliant. You can spend most of your time on tarmac but that dirt diversion is now just about possible, enjoyable even. It was the same feeling I had with the Standert Pfadfinder, though that was more fun set up primarily as a gravel bike for strategic under-biking. Realistically, if you need bigger tyres than 40mm you’re looking at a gravel bike, but as long as the gravel is smooth there isn’t much a 40c tyre can’t handle.

All in all there isn’t much I wouldn’t be happy sending the Strael 4.0 over.

Value

What you get for the money here is quite amazing. Just from a frameset point of view, at £1,499 it’s nearly £500 cheaper than the Standert Pfadfinder, a bike that positions itself in a similar light: Steel, and all-road capable. The Fairlight is not only better to ride despite very similar geometries, but it’s more versatile, with more mounts, dynamo routing, and the ability to run any groupset you can think of.

Looking at the full builds they’re all well appointed and pretty sensible, but you can also specify your stem length, bar width, tyres, wheels, dynamo lighting, crank length all at the point of sale.

More than that, Fairlight seems to go out of its way to make the customer experience better. Bike fitters will rejoice in the fact there is a regular and tall version of each frame size (no mean feat for a smaller brand) and the brand new prototype 48cm option will be a boon to smaller riders. It even has framebag templates available free of charge on its website should you want to commission a custom one for your next ultra-race.

Fairlight ownership has become a bit of a meme in the cycling industry – the list of bike journos, mechanics, and those 'in the industry' who own one is comic – but I think as well as the bike itself being bloody great to ride and live with, this is also down to the value on offer. Plus, as it's steel it'll last for ages if you look after it.

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Verdict

I have had the great privilege of testing some sensational bikes in my time here. The Pinarello Dogma F is probably my pick for the most complete all-round race bike, but when it comes to the world beyond the WorldTour that most of us actually exist in, the Fairlight Strael 4.0 is so close to perfect I’m just going to go ahead and call it as such; It's a perfect bike.

It’s a joy to ride, corners brilliantly, it’s smooth as silk, I could ride it all day and all night if my legs would let me. It’s versatile enough to try its hand at anything from commuting to ultra-racing, but still manages to somehow excel at being a stonker of a summer go-fast bike and a dependable, reliable winter steed too, all while looking gorgeous and not being nearly as expensive as similar options.

I love it.

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