Somewhere between the stable but often sluggish beast of burden world of touring and the highly strung, tightly focused realm of road performance, there exists a need for a drop bar bike that can grind out mile after mile of washboard gravel and still snap to attention when you stomp on the pedals. It needs to be fast, with geometry relaxed and composed enough to eat all that gravel without a twitch, but still sharp enough to carve turns on pavement with authority.