Summary
- evolve is a young carbon brand from Xiamen founded by Tony Tong of Elitewheels and Mian Chan of Cybrei. The CIMA GR is its first gravel frameset, shown at the Italian Bike Festival in September 2026.
- Claimed frame weight 750 g in size M unpainted, fork 375 g. Clearance 700x50c. Threaded BSA bottom bracket, UDH hanger.
- evolve claims up to 17.28 W saved at 35 km/h and a stiffer bottom bracket, but its own posts disagree on what the stiffness figure is measured against.
- Frameset US$1,999 on the brand site, around €2,099 from a European dealer. No official complete bike.
- Lifetime frame warranty. No race results yet, no pre-owned market, and a distribution network still being built in Europe.
Who evolve is
The names behind evolve are better known than the brand. Tony Tong founded Elitewheels, the carbon wheel company that has spent more than 15 years selling direct and sponsoring Continental teams. Mian Chan runs Cybrei, a crankset maker. Together they set up evolve in Xiamen to build frames with the same approach: engineering figures first, marketing second, and prices well below the established brands.
The road bike came first. The CIMA, named after the Cima Coppi, is a 650 g frame that has been raced by Team Solution Tech NIPPO Rali and by the Italian Continental squad MG.K Vis. The CIMA GR is the gravel version, unveiled in Shanghai in the summer and shown to the European public at Misano, where Domenico Pozzovivo was on the stand talking about reliability.
Reliability is the right word to hold on to, because that is the open question with any new frame brand.
The frame
evolve uses Toray T1100 and T800 fibres with M40 high modulus carbon in the layup and a resin system it says was developed for the CIMA. The claimed weights are 750 g for a size M frame before paint and 375 g for the fork. Paint adds 55 to 90 g depending on the finish, so a real painted M frame sits around 820 to 855 g.
That is light for gravel. For reference, Factor quotes under 1,100 g for the raw Elara frame, though the Elara clears a much larger tyre. The CIMA GR is designed for a 700x50c or 29x2.0 tyre and evolve says it is optimised around 35 to 45 mm.
The practical choices are conservative in a good way. Threaded 68 mm BSA bottom bracket, SRAM UDH hanger, standard steel headset bearings, flat mount brakes, 12 mm thru axles. Routing is fully internal and takes 1x mechanical or electronic and 2x electronic only. Rider weight limit 109 kg.
Storage is a bag, not a hatch. The KREUZA internal tool bag is included with the frameset and sits inside the front triangle. The matching KREUZA Apex GR integrated bar comes in 18 width and stem combinations at 310 g.
The claims and what they rest on
evolve publishes two performance numbers.
The aero claim is up to 17.28 W saved at 35 km/h, from testing at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub, compared with what the brand calls leading gravel models. It does not name them. Without the comparison frames and the tyre setup the figure is hard to interpret, and 17 W is a large number for a frame alone.
The stiffness claim is 7.5% more at the bottom bracket and 1.2% more at the head tube. Here the brand's own material is inconsistent. The launch article says the baseline is another top tier gravel frame. The Misano post says the baseline is evolve's own CIMA road frame. Those are very different comparisons and only one of them can be right. We would ask evolve which before treating the figure as meaningful.
None of this makes the claims false. It makes them unverified, which is normal for a brand this young. The CIMA road frame passed the Zedler advanced test, which is a real third party benchmark and worth more than either marketing figure.
Geometry
Six sizes, XS to XL. The published chart for size M:
| Size M | |
|---|---|
| Stack | 556 mm |
| Reach | 384 mm |
| Head tube angle | 71 degrees |
| Chainstay | 425 mm |
| Bottom bracket drop | 80 mm |
| Wheelbase | 1,022 mm |
| Trail with a 40 mm tyre | 63 mm |
The head angle gets steeper as sizes grow, from 70.5 to 72 degrees, and the fork offset drops from 54 to 50 mm on the larger frames to keep handling consistent. Compared with the road CIMA the gravel frame has a slacker front and a deeper bottom bracket, which is exactly what you would expect.
Price and how to buy it
evolve sells the frameset direct at US$1,999 in two finishes, Sahara Nude and Sailfish Pearl, with a third limited edition of 30 units announced. Frame, fork, seatpost and small parts are included. A European dealer lists it at €2,099 and builds complete bikes with SRAM XPLR and Elitewheels wheels from roughly €5,000 to €7,000. evolve itself does not sell a complete CIMA GR.
The frame carries a limited lifetime warranty. What a lifetime warranty is worth depends on the company still being there to honour it, and on how easy the crash replacement process is from Europe. Ask the dealer, not the website.
Should you consider it
For a rider who builds their own bikes and wants a light gravel race frame at a third of the price of the big names, the CIMA GR is a serious option on paper. The specification is sensible and the founders have a track record with wheels.
For a rider who wants a bike with a service network, a resale value and independent test data, it is early. There is no second hand market yet and no results in major gravel races. Winspace went through the same phase a few years ago; our Winspace guide explains how that played out. The Seka ExAero article covers another engineering led Chinese frame brand at a similar stage. Our IBF 2026 roundup sets the CIMA GR against the other framesets shown at Misano.
Bikeroom does not currently stock evolve. The gravel category shows what €2,000 to €7,000 buys from brands with a track record, and the Factor collection includes the Ostro Gravel that the CIMA GR is implicitly compared with. If you want a second opinion on a young brand, talk to our concierge.
Sources: evolve, CIMA GR launch article, 4 August 2026; evolve at IBF 2026; PR Newswire, 7 September 2026; bici.pro, 24 July 2026.
