Vitus Venon Evo

Thanks to some neat features, this all-road bike is both versatile and slick

- PAUL NORMAN

Vitus has overhauled its bike lineup in recent years, and with the release of the Venon Evo it says its portfolio is complete for now. The new bike plugs a gap between its ZX-1 Evo and Vitesse Evo race bikes and its Substance gravel bike. That’s a space traditionally filled by an endurance bike, but Jodie Shann, senior product manager at Vitus and the man who led development of the Venon Evo, says his team saw that the traditional endurance bike category was changing, with larger tyre clearance a key feature.

‘At the same time, a new performance gravel category was emerging driven by gravel racing in the US, and the two categories were merging, with bikes offering similar geometry. The Venon Evo looks to have dual personalities, covering the performance gravel category while still being competent on the road, so we’ve labelled it an all-road bike,’ says Shann.

Vitus has put its money where its mouth is too, offering both road and gravel builds.

Don’t judge a book… 

At first glance you’d be forgiven for pegging the Venon Evo as an aero bike. After all, there’s an integrated front end and aero bars from Vitus’s component arm Prime. Shann even says that its CFD modelling shows the Venon Evo’s front end to be more aero than the brand’s ZX-1 aero bike thanks to refinements to the head tube shape and a shallower top tube.