Shand Leveret

The Shand Leveret is a beautiful handbuilt steel frame drop-bar bike designed for commuting, touring and even a spot of light adventuring. It comes with the added bonus of a maintenance-free Shimano Alfine hub gear and Gates Carbon Drive belt drivetrain. But while it's a little faster than expected, it's also just a little firmer than anticipated, too.

On first, second and third viewing the Shand Leveret is a beauty. You could go around the bike with a magnifying glass and find no blip or disappointment; every detail is like the brushstroke of a larger masterpiece. However, the thing about testing bikes that look perfect is they raise your expectations perhaps too high. The real beauty of a bicycle has to show itself on the road, and this is where things can get a bit surprising.

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Shands have been used to circumnavigate the world countless times by the brand's hardy and dynamic fanbase. With that and the Leveret's steel frame in mind, I was expecting a cosseting ride, but the Leveret is actually quite a firm old girl. Although we may be known as soft southerners here in Surrey, we actually have to put up with some pretty appalling road surfaces and the Leveret let me know all about them more than I expected. Potholes and broken roads are particularly clearly transmitted to the rider.

The flip side is that this stiffness also provides a fairly enthusiastic ride experience. Internal gears don't tend to lend themselves to exciting times, but here the Shimano Alfine hub doesn't drag on the Leveret's performance to any great degree. Sprinting is better than expected, and despite the slight penalties you face with the nature of the drivetrain, this is one of the better hub-geared bikes I've used on climbs. All that said, though, high-speed cruising on the flat is undoubtedly the Leveret's forté.

Overall control is impressively secure, too. The Leveret is not a super-fast, reactive bike, but handling is assured. For travelling at pace where you can plan your movements ahead of time, it's perfect. It's also particularly well planted when cornering and descending.

The riding position is good, with a relatively high front end giving a good view of the road ahead, and it means even those with the creakiest of backs should be able to get on the drops if they fancy it.

Frame

The Leveret is a limited edition model and looks stunning with the beautifully Tig-welded svelte and round-profile chromoly tubing used.

There is internal cable routing, the S-bend stays are delightful, and a modular rear hanger allows for a future upgrade to a thru-axle derailleur setup. In truth, it all gets a bit busy at the rear drops, but in amongst everything there are also mounts for racks and mudguards.

The fork is a full carbon offering rather than steel – which might explain at least the front end's less forgiving qualities – but it's also a high quality affair with tapered steerer, lowrider rack mounts and mudguard eyelets.

Everything is finished in a perfect coat of what Shand calls 'lightning metallic grey', which is a bit like a funky glam gunmetal.

How Shand can offer a fully built, handmade steel frame with Alfine hub gear for £2k might come as a mystery, but there's another detail that needs to be mentioned: the Leveret isn't made by Shand's bike builders in Scotland but constructed in Taiwan. That might take the lustre off the notion of this bike, but it shouldn't affect it in any practical way: Taiwanese bike builders are some of the best in the business.

In terms of fit, I tested a large model with a 576mm effective top tube length. That's normally bang on the money for me, but to get perfectly comfortable I had to swap out the 100mm stem for 120mm. So if you're between sizes, it's worth knowing the bikes comes up just a tad short in length.

Meanwhile, the all-up weight of almost 12kg sounds like plenty, although you do have to take into account the Alfine hub.

Drivetrain

I mentioned high-speed cruising being the Leveret's strong suit and that's chiefly because the combination of Alfine hub gear, 22-tooth sprocket and 50-tooth Gates Carbon Drive belt crankset is quite highly geared. Personally, I'd prefer more options at the lower end of the range, whereas at the top end there's more than enough capacity.

As an indicator of what I mean, let's compare the Leveret's gearing with some 1x equivalent options. For example, The Light Blue Robinson V2 Rival 1X with its 42-tooth chainset and an 11-36t cassette – which Stu tested recently and said was fine if you live somewhere flat – has a lowest gear of 31.7 gear inches, compared to 32.5 on the Shand. And if you go for something more mainstream, such as a Specialized Diverge Comp E5 with its 1x system comprising a 40t chainset and 11-42t cassette, you get a full two ratios (at 25.9 and 29.4 gear inches) lower than anything on the Shand, and four ratios lower than the Shand's second lowest.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying: the gearing available with Shimano hub gears, along with the extra weight they introduce at the rear wheel, means they can feel a bit hard going in comparison to good 1x setups.

> Is single-chainset simplicity best?

The Alfine hub itself is a marked step up on Shimano's cheaper Nexus model, though, and offers reliable swapping between ratios even under load and at a standstill – great for traffic light late-brakers. Shand has wisely opted to pair the hub with an old-school-style bar-end shifter, which I find is the best option for direct, trouble-free hub gear changes.

Components

Braking is courtesy of TRP Hylex hydraulic discs. I'd opt for the equivalent Shimano discs instead if I could, as these feel just a little underwhelming, especially when trying to come down from great speed. They're not terrible, just not as good as Shimanos. The flat-bar version of the Leveret does come with Shimano RS600 levers and Tiagra-level callipers.

Did I say you could get a flat-bar version of the Leveret? Absolutely. Shand can knock you up one of those no problem. However, our test bike came fitted with a short reach alloy drop bar with a fun 12-degree flare. It offers plenty of good positions and comfort is further enhanced by very comfy bar tape with highly-noticeable reflective material visible through the holes.

As I said, I swapped out the supplied 100mm alloy stem for a slightly longer one, but that original item was a very standard bit of unbranded kit. And I'm also not a huge fan of the unbranded saddle, which didn't do much to promote comfort. Like the frame, it was a tad firm for my liking.

Wheels and tyres

When it comes to the spec sheet, the Leveret's wheels are something of a treat. Built by the folk at Shand themselves, these feature tubeless-ready anodised alloy rims on the Alfine hub at the back and unbranded hub at the front. They're not super-light, but they do look tough and the thru-axle hubs mean everything stays nice and stiff.

The Schwalbe G-One Allround tyres are also excellent and come with tan sidewalls and Raceguard puncture protection and are tubeless ready, too. You might want to take advantage of that tubeless ability as removing the real wheel to fix a puncture at the roadside is a bit of a faff with the hub gear. Also, despite being 35mm, the Schwalbe's don't have as much success damping problems under tread as I'd expected. To be honest, if the bike was mine to keep, I'd be tempted to whack on a set of skinnier slicks just to see what the Leveret could do with the proverbial gloves off.

Finally, Shand supplies the Leveret with a smart set of aluminium SKS mudguards, which look great but didn't half rattle. In the end, I took them off so as to not distract me from the rest of the bike.

Value

I mentioned The Light Blue Robinson V2 earlier, which matches the Shand in a number of ways, not least by having a steel frame – Reynolds 725 in this case – and comes with a SRAM Rival 1x11 drivetrain for £2,024.99. The Ribble CGR SRAM Apex 1x is another Reynolds 725 wonder with a 1x setup for £1,549.

> Buyer’s Guide: 22 of the best commuting bikes

If you'd like a Shand but don't think the Leveret is quite for you, you could always go for the legendary made-in-Scotland Stooshie, although it'll cost you north of £3,000.

> Buyer’s Guide: 8 of the best urban commuters

And finally, while the Leveret seems good value in that company, it doesn't get close to touching my favourite handmade-in-Taiwan steel bike, the Goldhawk Rodax with 1x drivetrain – yours for £1,400.

Conclusion

I had hoped the Shand Leveret's ride would be as good as its looks, but in reality that was always going to be a big ask. It's a really beautiful bike and it's certainly not short of high-speed ability. But with comfort not being stellar, and weight and drivetrain not helping to maximise the frame's decent power delivery, it has to be classed as a fine ride, but not the finest.

Verdict

Beautiful looking handbuilt steel frame with Alfine hub but a firmer ride than expected