Cabal is a local brand, based out of Cape Town, and they’re obsessed with quality, customisation and value.

Their frames are made from the most premium Japanese Toray carbon fibre, and they also offer in-house their carbon wheels and cockpit components. In the tightly contested premium market, they offer tremendous value, especially when you compare like-for-like with the bigger brands.

But Cabal offers something that not many other bike brands can match: full customisation. It starts with the ordering process. You will first have a bike fit, where all your measurements are taken; that will determine your frame size, bar width, stem length, stacking, crank length, etc. – everything, basically. Most excitingly, you also get to fully custom design your paint scheme and technique with professionals, to truly set your dream bike apart – no two bikes will ever look the same. This is done by local artists and it’s world-class. Have a peek at Cabalbikes Instagram and you’ll get an idea of the insane level of detail and technical skill that can be achieved in this regard.

In the past, Cabal only offered road bikes. Their Aero 2 race bike was our Editor’s Choice in the 2024 Bike Buyer’s Guide. Project X is their first foray onto gravel roads and it’s a bike that draws heavily on that racing heritage. Project X, being a Cross Bike (Gravel / Aero Road Bike), is almost as fast as the Aero 2 and looks similar in profile, with a muscular down tube and dropped seat stays. The main difference is; the carbon composition that offers unmatched responsiveness and flexibility, adapting instantly to changing surfaces, and the extra tyre clearance.

Our test bike came with 38mm Vredestein Aventura tyres that rolled like a dream on tar and soaked up every bump. They were fast enough for the Friday morning group ride and squishy enough to allow for a very fast meander down a green belt.

It’s the kind of road bike more people should be riding, being competitive on both terrains, mastering the gravel and owning the road. The Project X takes it all in its stride. If you’re not an A-batch road racer, 38mm semi-slicks are probably the most versatile tyres you can have on your bike. If you want to ride rougher gravel, the frame will clear 42mm tyres, even 45mm depending on the tyre.

Riding at speeds of 40km/h and faster, the whole bike gave off that whirrr sound that you only get when everything is as aerodynamic as it can be. The SRAM Force AXS drivetrain shifted with millimetre precision, even when things got chonky, and the 40mm-deep Cabal wheels look great and rolled with a satisfying buzz. The in-house carbon cockpit is just as sleek – it’s a one-piece bar and stem combo with internal cable routing.

Make no mistake, this is an all-out race bike. It’s stiff where it needs to be stiff but it does offer some compliance and flexibility in the rough. It’s not the bike you’d take on an extended bikepacking tour through Southern Africa, but it’s definitely the bike you’d want to take to the start line for one of our faster gravel races like Race to the Sea or The Gallows.

On our scale, with pedals, the bike clocked in at 8,3kg. That’s light for an aero, disc-brake road bike, let alone one that can also handle gravel. There’s also the option of a cheaper but just-as-crip Rival AXS groupset, which lowers the price to R86 500. (This test bike, with Force AXS, retails for R97 000). Even though it could sound like a lot, but if you compare the spec with certain big-brand rivals – and when you throw in the all-custom model – having one bike for both terrains – it starts to sound like a bargain.

Ultimately, it’s an incredibly versatile and fast machine that might just replace two bikes in your garage. Two wheelsets, one with 28mm slicks and one with 42mm gravel tyres, would turn Project X into a bike you could use for the Cycle Tour and the Road to Desolation, and pretty much any other road/gravel event in between.

See the Cabal website for the full spec and all the details about how to build your dream gravel racer.

READ MORE ON: Cabal New bikes