The ENVE MOG Gravel Bike: Ready to Race — or Get Rowdy

It’s an undisputed fact that underbiking is fun. Hitting dirt roads on my road bike or dipping into singletrack on my gravel bike makes me feel like I’m getting away with something. And that’s always a good time.

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ENVE MOG key specs

• Carbon bike with in-frame storage
• Tire clearance: up to 50mm
• Dropper-post compatible
• Price: $5,500 as a chassis-only, including the frame, fork, headset, stem, handlebar, and seatpost. Customize the build through your local ENVE dealer.
• Buy from Competitive Cyclist or any ENVE dealers

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For the past five years, I’ve scratched that underbiking itch with a 20mm suspension fork on a Specialized Diverge. And yeah — a touch of suspension smooths out those washboards and soaks up many of the smaller hits, which means you can really send it on the descents. But suspension — even a scant 20mm — is heavy. And I started wondering if it was really extra squish that I needed in order to take the fun way home once in a while… or something else. 

Sizing up the MOG

Enter the MOG. ENVE is intentionally evasive about what “MOG” stands for. Likewise, this beautifully stiff, lightweight, versatile and just plain fun bike evades easy categorization.

Weighing less than 18 pounds, the MOG is very light for a gravel bike, though that’s as you’d expect from a carbon wheel and component maker like ENVE. Its geometry is pretty middle-of-the-road — it’s not an aero gravel race bike like the 3T Exploro Primo, nor is it a drop-bar mountain bike frame like the Salsa Cutthroat.

The ENVE MOG is tuned for 40 to 50mm tires on 700c wheels; there’s no flip chip or 650b option available. (A quick reminder: 650b wheels let you run wider tires for more squish and compliance; 700c wheels are faster but also less forgiving.) Specced with ENVE G23 wheels, the MOG jumps out from under you the second you put down the power, which, combined with its in-route cables for aero gains, makes me think race bike — but then there’s the 27.2mm round seat tube that enables an optional (but essential, in my opinion) 40mm G-series dropper post that pushes the MOG right back into the “underbiking is fun” category. Factor in the plethora of on-frame fender/storage/rack-mount options, and you could load the MOG up for a week of bikepacking. Heck, you could jump in a sporty gravel race, and then strap on your overnight kit and bikepack home. Why not?

The only problem I’ve run into with category-defying bikes like the MOG in the past is that they sometimes sacrifice functionality for versatility. So for my first test ride, I did it all: I pushed the pace on paved roads, cruised across some chunky, washboard-y gravel, and finished with a short but intense loop through some of Vermont’s rooty and rocky singletrack. I didn’t have much daylight to kill for that first ride, but after an hour and 15 minutes, I came back feeling like my ride priorities — make it fast, make it fun, and let’s take the long way home — aligned nicely with those of the design team at ENVE.

Since that first test ride back in November, I’ve put about 1,200 more miles on the MOG, pinning it down chunky class IV descents (In Vermont, class IV roads are unmaintained); hitting all the best gravel routes with friends; and, most recently, swapping out its semi-knobbies for a pair of 40mm slicks for three days on mostly paved roads in the Chattanooga area. 

While my window for riding singletrack on the MOG was short — I started testing in November, just as trails were icing over for the winter, and although it’s May now, my local MTB trails aren’t yet open — the Tennessee trip further underscored the inspiration for the MOG: the stiff, race-oriented Melee from 2022, ENVE’s first mass-market road bike (or mass-market bike of any kind). Sure, the MOG wasn’t as fast as my road bike on those smooth Tennessee roads. But I never felt like it was dragging. And my road bike couldn’t have handled a tenth of the chunky gravel we encountered in Cherokee National Forest.

From components to custom frames

A longtime wheels and components manufacturer, ENVE first dipped a toe into the frame business in 2020, “after the bottom started dropping out of the carbon wheel aftermarket in 2018,” according to VP of product and consumer experience at ENVE, Jake Pantone. Already experts in producing carbon tubing and forks for many custom frame builders, among them Independent Fabrication and Parlee, it wasn’t a huge leap for Pantone and his team at ENVE to produce their first frame, a custom-made road frame made entirely in Ogden, Utah. 

“We didn’t do a ton of volume but we wanted to enter the frame market in a unique fashion and to bring something of value that didn’t really exist,” Pantone says. “Custom road bikes are usually made of titanium or steel. We brought aerodynamic lines and wind-tunnel testing into the equation to offer a US-made custom carbon aero road bike.”

That custom road bike laid the foundation for the Melee, which in turn, morphed into the MOG. (The Fray, ENVE’s newest bike, is an endurance road bike that sits somewhere between the two, but perhaps a bit closer to the Melee.)

Using prototypes to dial in fork rakes

The MOG, the Melee and the Fray all benefit greatly from ENVE’s ability to make infinite numbers of molds and prototypes in-house. In creating the MOG, Pantone and his team made a handful of custom frame prototypes, pairing them with several different headset inserts so they could play with fork offsets. The geometry they landed on isn’t that aggressive, but Pantone’s team fine-tuned the trail and geometry around 700c, and, critically, offer three different fork rakes across six sizes. Most brands offer one, maybe two fork rakes. 

Size	49	52	54	56	58	60
Reach	367	378	389	397	405	415
Stack	520	543	565	587	605	630
Top Tube	511	534	554	571	588	611
Fork Rake	57	57	55	55	53	53
Seat Tube Length (c to top)	439	459	480	500	518	540
Max Saddle Rail Height (w/ 400mm post)	764	784	805	825	843	865
Max Saddle Height (w/ ENVE SLR Saddle)	800	820	841	861	879	901
Seat Tube Angle	74.5	74	73.75	73.5	73.2	72.75
Head Tube Angle	71	71	71.25	71.25	71.5	71.5
Head Tube Length	92	117	140	163	183	209
BB Drop	77	77	75	75	73	73
Chainstay Length	420	420	420	420	420	420
Wheel Base	993	1012	1027	1042	1053	1071
Front Center	580	599	613	629	639	657
Rear Center	412.9	412.9	413.2	413.2	413.6	413.6
BB Height (50mm tire)	289	289	291	291	293	293
Standover (50mm tire)	714	734	756	776	796	819
Trail (50mm tire)	65.5	65.6	66	66	66.4	66.4

Would I be able to immediately identify a bike with a poorly fitted fork rake on a test ride? Truthfully, no. I’m not an expert in fork rakes. But because ENVE already has a dedicated fork mold and inserts that allow them to swap out forks and rakes in a modular way, they can afford to offer that customization — so why not?

That could be why the MOG feels playful, yet planted when you’re in the saddle. Who knows; maybe it’s the fork rake, maybe it’s the fairly rigid rear triangle paired with those stiff G23 wheels, maybe it’s the 40mm dropper post, maybe it’s the featherlight frame — but this bike is fun and fast. 

And while ENVE decided to stick with some of its pricklier point-of-sale choices from the MOG’s initial launch — namely, that you can’t actually buy it as a complete bike without going a la carte through your local shop — the MOG converted me from the kind of “smoother-is-faster” thinking that lured me into buying a gravel bike with front suspension to a “nimbler-is-faster” mindset. This bike is quick without being twitchy, and when you lower the dropper, it helps you get out of your own way on the chunky, technical stuff, whether you’re hopping up onto rocks or picking your line down a ragged trail. And, as Mohorič proved so spectacularly in Milan-San Remo, a dropper unlocks new levels of insanity for those addicted to free speed.

The MOG starts at $5,500 for the chassis only (frame, fork, headset, stem, handlebar, and seatpost). That makes it one of the priciest gravel bikes on the market. But even a year from its initial launch, it continues to be a standout choice across the gravel bike market for riders looking to do a little of everything, and to do it quickly and well. 

As for me, I’m counting down the days until the trails open around here so I can keep dropping my seat and letting ‘er rip. Because as it turns out, Enve’s desired geometry — a race-ready rig that’s willing to get rowdy — is mine, too. And I see a lot of taking the fun way home in my future.

Pros and Cons of the ENVE MOG gravel bike

Pros

• Lightweight, stiff frame that feels fast on paved and gravel surfaces
• Dropper-post option to make singletrack more fun
• Cargo bay storage in downtube, plus plenty of fender and frame-mount options
• Internally routed cables for aero gains
• Middle-of-the-road geometry is comfortable for long days on the bike

Cons

• The internally routed cables are a pain to work on. Also, you have to remove the brake calipers (to get enough slack) in order to remove the handlebars and pack the MOG in a standard bike travel bag
• You can’t buy a complete bike, and the frame is among the pricier options out there

Bottom Line

The ENVE MOG is one of the fastest and most fun gravel bikes I’ve ridden in quite some time. My favorite out-the-back-door ride packs 1,800 feet of climbing into less than 15 miles of road, gravel, and some really rough double-track. It’s about as much fun as you can have on a gravel bike without wishing you had your mountain bike, and the MOG handles it like a pro — but I’ve also laid down some new PRs (both uphill and down) without hardly trying. 

If you’re looking for a single-quiver bike that’s at home on the smooth and the rough stuff and you still want to go fast, the MOG may be your bike.