With only around 150 bikes in existence, you'll be forgiven for not having heard of the Catalan bike brand, Guava. I'll admit that I hadn't until earlier this year, when an introduction led to an opportunity to ride the Guava Spot for a weekend in Girona.
The Spot is Guava's only model and is available in a handful of spec levels, which, as you'd expect, come at varying price points.
Alongside it, the brand also sells clothing and a select few components. It sells via its website and two stores situated in Barcelona and Girona respectively, the latter of which is just a few yards from The Church of Santa Maria, or Girona Cathedral, perhaps better known as the filming location of Game of Thrones' Great Sept of Baelor.
The brand is owned and run by just two men, and in a small-world coincidence, it came to be after one of them attended a frame-building workshop with the sadly-now-closed Bicycle Academy in Frome, England, just 10 miles from Cyclingnews HQ.
Interestingly, the brand is funded by footballing legend Andrés Iniesta through the Spaniard's investment firm, Never Say Never Ventures.
As the title of this review suggests, the Spot is a gravel bike, designed with a reasonable amount of tyre clearance, a fairly safe geometry, and a spec package that looks like excellent value for money.
The bike I tested was the Guava Spot GRX Carbon model, priced at €4.299,00 / £3,999.00, with a one-piece cockpit, carbon wheels, and a 12-speed GRX mechanical groupset coupled with a Deore 10-51 cassette. For clarity, that 'carbon' nomenclature refers to the wheel spec. All options come with the same carbon fibre frame.
The base model with mechanical GRX, a two-piece bar and stem, and alloy wheels is priced at just €3.699,00 / £2,950.00, while the top-tier model with Force AXS, carbon wheels and the one-piece cockpit is €5.299,00 / £4,950.00.
I used the bike for the two-day gravel stage race, Santa Vall, and despite it being priced at a third of some of the bikes alongside it, some of which feature in our guide to the best gravel bikes on the market, it held its own incredibly well, as I'll get into below.
Design and specifications
As touched on above, the bike's design and geometry are fairly safe, but in the areas that matter - at least in my opinion - the bike is progressive and forward-thinking enough to be interesting.
The best way I can describe the bike, and indeed the brand behind it, is 'playful'. In a literal sense, the bike is dotted with playful slogans such as 'Let's Get Lost' and 'Freedom Machine'. But more than that, the geometry is designed to create a fun and forgiving bike for big adventures and singletrack trails.
In my size XL frame, the 621mm stack and 395mm reach are in line with that of a Specialized Diverge, albeit squarely between a 56 and 58cm frame size on that bike. Something racier like a Trek Checkmate is longer and lower, but as already mentioned, that's not the Spot's primary intention.
The frame can easily clear 45mm tyres on 700c rims at the rear, wider with 650b, and wider at the front too, which is on trend with the current move toward wider gravel tyres being faster.
The dropped drive-side chainstay enables this without limiting the chainring size too much, and my model cleared a 40-tooth 1x chainring without any hiccups.
I initially winced at the lack of a chain guide and braze-on mount for a front derailleur, but despite 200+ kilometres of gravel racing, I didn't suffer a single chain drop, so my fears were misplaced.
There isn't a two-by model available but if you wanted to add a front mech, the round seat tube is compatible with band-on derailleurs, so there's no limitation there either.
Up front, I had Guava's proprietary one-piece cockpit fitted, and I appreciated the small aero benefit this would have brought, given my competitive endeavours.
This cockpit transitions from a squared-off stem to a small round section on either side, which then sweeps up and deepens into slightly ovalised tops on either side, before curving down into a compact drop.
Another proprietary feature of the Spot is the down tube storage compartment complete with a clever latch.
Storage in the down tube is hardly unique, but the approach to locking the door is one where brands have yet to settle on a standardised solution.
Guava's approach uses a magnetic latch from German brand Fidlock, which simply pushes into place, locking with a click that's more satisfying than an Ikea soft-close kitchen cabinet. A video from the brand showing how easy it is to use can be seen here.
The tool roll inside was enough to comfortably store a tube, a multi-tool, tyre levers and a few spare plugs, and could easily have taken more had I wanted.
The door to this storage housed one of the bike's three bottle cage mounts, which were complemented by additional mounting bolts on the top tube, as well as mounts at the front and rear for full-length mudguards.
My bike also came specced with a pair of 28mm-deep carbon wheels from Volte, complete with a 25mm internal rim bed. These are usually specced on the Force AXS model, while the Shimano GRX Carbon model is generally specced with Hunt CGR40 wheels, but they weren't available at the time.
I also swapped to 45mm Schwalbe G One RX Pro tyres away from the 45mm WTB Riddler tyres provided.
Performance
Despite its intentions not being aimed at gravel racing, Guava does sponsor a couple of gravel racing privateer athletes, including former Astana-Premier Tech rider, Ben Perry.
Given my weekend in Girona coincided with the two-day pro gravel stage race, Santa Vall, I decided to put the bike to the ultimate test. Full gas racing for close to 200km, including fast dusty gravel, steep rocky descents, even steeper climbs, technical singletrack, a couple of river crossings, and a whole load of everything else in between.
I had an issue on day one with a slipping seatpost, but a trip to the Guava store and a replacement post later, day two went away without a hitch, and overall I came away from the race really impressed with the Guava Spot.
It held its own well against bikes three times the price, and the only area where I felt the bike was slower than those around me was on slightly uphill road / smooth gravel sections, but I put that more down to the more relaxed riding position and well-treaded (read: slower rolling) Schwalbe tyres than anything wrong with the bike.
I would often make up any lost time once the trail pointed downhill though.
The bike's relaxed geometry, paired with the responsive cockpit and wide grippy tyres was a great combination for confidence-inspiring handling, even despite having the brakes set up euro-style and me being used to riding 'moto style' UK brakes.
I became so confident on the descents that I was happy to let wheels go to save energy, knowing I'd make back the position moments later.
On steep climbs, the geometry put me in a fairly well-planted position. On the really steep stuff – 15% and more – I think the YT Szepter still sets the benchmark with its steep seat tube, but the Spot coped well, and traction was a non-issue, albeit aided by the dry conditions.
I didn't spend much time on the tops because of the relentless demands of racing, but when climbing, that was my natural hand position and the little indentation on either side of the stem made for a really secure and comfortable connection.
With that said, as I type this on Monday night having raced Saturday and Sunday, my hands are still pretty sore, with small blisters at the base of both index fingers.
If I were being picky, I'd ask for a slightly more compliant handlebar for the rougher roads, especially given the bike's all-day-adventure intentions, but in reality, I think most of my issues stem from the rubber on the GRX hoods which are notoriously dense and ill-suited to the shape of my hands.
The gear range provided by the Shimano GRX 610 groupset is incredible though. With the 40T chainring and the 10-51T cassette, no hill was too steep and no descent too fast.
Shimano's groupsets are known for their unwavering performance and there was no difference here. Being mechanical, the shifting is slightly less crisp and premium than more modern electronic alternatives, but for the price, you'd be hard-pressed to complain.
Similarly, there's a small but tangible difference in ride quality between a frame at this price point and something two- or three times the price. It didn't offer that 'magic carpet ride' type of smoothness, but I certainly didn't feel beaten up.
Besides the measurable differences such as weight, aerodynamics and stiffness, such subtle differences only become noticeable when riding two bikes back to back anyway.
The fun - and functionality - offered by the Guava Spot is still every bit as real as what you get with competitors.
Value
It's hard to argue with the value on offer with the Guava Spot. On paper, €4.299,00 / £3,999.00 is a great price for a carbon frame, carbon wheels and a one-piece cockpit, and although most competitors' bikes at a similar pricepoint boast the electronic shifting of SRAM Rival, rarely do they get carbon wheels.
It is beatable though. At the time of writing, the Cube C:62 Race is one such example worth checking out at £3,499.00. Although I've not ridden it to be able to compare the two bikes' performance.
Verdict
I think if you're reading this review, there's a good chance you're looking for something more unique than a Cube, a Specialized or a Trek.
Particularly if you're based in Catalunya, Guava's attraction goes beyond the value for money, the spec, and the clever Fidlock downtube storage door. Perhaps even beyond the bike entirely.
All of those are selling points in their own right, but to my mind, Guava's key USP is that it is a small - albeit growing - business, so if you pick up the phone with a question or an issue, or you go into one of its stores, you're likely to be served by one of the brand's founders.
I won't pretend that two days of racing is enough for a full, long-term review, even if the test was quite a severe one, but it's more than enough riding to get a real feel for how the bike performs, and the Spot is a good, fun, do-all-things-well sort of bike that meets modern trends head-on. If you buy into the brand's story and order yourself a Spot, you won't be disappointed.
Sure, it's not a crazy-progressive aero racer like the Ridley Astr RS or the Trek Checkmate SLR. It's not got the tyre clearance and vibration-damping fork of the Lauf Seigla. It's not a hyper-lightweight piece of engineering magic like the S-Works Crux, but crucially, it's less than half the price of those bikes while offering just as much fun.
