Brother Cycles' Mr Wooden is a retro rejection of gravel bike convention - BikeRadar

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Do-it-all bike features canti brakes, 650b wheels and skinny steel

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Published: February 1, 2023 at 12:51 pm

The Brother Cycles Mr Wooden is a new all-purpose bike designed to tackle anything from audaxes to gravel riding, or loaded off-road touring.

The steel bike forgoes disc brakes in favour of cantilever brakes and uses 650b wheels. It also has a plethora of mounts to adapt the bike to your needs.

The frame can be pre-ordered for £699 and is expected to be available from April.

A steel fusion of the past and present

The Mr Wooden is far removed from the current generation of gravel bikes.

Brother Cycles

Brother Cycles says it developed the Mr Wooden when many of its customers requested a rim-braked all-terrain drop-bar bike after its popular Kepler model was updated with disc brakes.

Constructed from double-butted 4130 chromoly steel, Brother claims this provides the perfect balance of performance and durability. It also says there’s an ED (electrophoretic deposition) coating under the paint to protect against corrosion.

Brother claims a 2kg frame weight in a size medium and 1.1kg for the fork with an uncut steerer tube – about average for a 4130 steel frame.

The new bike is designed around a 650b wheelset, with clearance for up to 50mm gravel bike tyres. The frame uses quick-release dropouts and a 27.2mm seatpost diameter.

The Mr Wooden uses cantilever brakes. Brother says speccing rim brakes enables it to use lighter-weight tubing compared to the heavier tubes required to resist the forces of disc brakes. This results in a more comfortable, flexible and fast ride feel.

The fork has been designed with a lower trail figure than is typical for a bike of this style. This quickens handling, improving ride feel when fitted with a heavier load up-front.

Mechanics will be happy to learn the bike uses a 68mm threaded bottom bracket and a good ol’ straight 1 1/8in headset.

There’s space for three bottle cages on all sizes, with two mounts in the main triangle and one on the underside of the down tube. It can also accept front and rear racks, as well as mudguards.

Oscar Huckle is a technical writer at BikeRadar. He has been an avid cyclist since his teenage years, initially catching the road cycling bug and riding for a local club. He’s since been indoctrinated into gravel riding and more recently has taken to the dark art of mountain biking. His favourite rides are epic road or gravel routes, and he has also caught the bikepacking bug hard after completing the King Alfred’s Way. Oscar has close to a decade of cycling industry experience, initially working in a variety of roles at Evans Cycles before joining Carbon Bike Repair. He is particularly fond of workshop tool exotica and is a proponent of Campagnolo groupsets. Oscar prefers lightweight road and gravel frames with simple tube shapes, rather than the latest trend for aerodynamics and full integration. He is obsessed with keeping up to date with all the latest tech, is fixated with the smallest details and is known for his unique opinions.