Flyway: The Full Story
Flyway is Salsa’s performance carbon gravel bike. It’s the gravel bike you want to ride every day of the week: confident at race pace, comfortable at party pace, and capable of settling in for far-out adventures. Whether you’re lining up for an event or loading up to leave town for big miles, Flyway puts your gravel goals in reach.
1) Why did Salsa make the Flyway?
We made the Flyway to give riders a race-capable gravel bike that inspires confidence and speed and provides the feature set to tackle any race or adventure in today’s landscape of gravel events.
2) Who is the Flyway for?
The Flyway is for any gravel adventure seeker, whether you’re lining up at a local gravel event or loading up to get lost on the endless ribbons of gravel roads.
3) Where would someone ride the Flyway?
The Flyway is designed and built to thrive on the wide variety of gravel roads that are found in the US and beyond – from the champagne gravel of the mid-west, to the flint hills of eastern Kansas, to the technically demanding forest roads of Appalachia or the Pacific Northwest.
4) How does the Flyway fit within Salsa’s gravel line?
The Flyway is Salsa’s performance gravel bike, lighter and more agile than the Journeyer platform, and with more focus on a pure gravel experience than the adventure focused Cutthroat and Fargo platforms.
5) How is the Flyway different from the Warbird?
The Flyway is a more balanced, center-of-market gravel bike with features that complement both the race and adventure sides of the gravel landscape. Our standard carbon Flyway weighs within 100 grams of a Warbird frame in like size, yet it has more features: suspension fork compatibility, larger tire clearance, and on-bike cargo solutions.
By refining Flyway’s carbon layup and seatstay/chainstay shaping, we were also able to reduce vibration between the rear axle and rider by 20% and increase lateral stiffness by 3% compared to Warbird for a more comfortable, efficient ride.
6) How is the Flyway similar to the Warbird?
Like the Warbird, the Flyway was designed to inspire you, enhance your adventure, and thrive in any condition.
7) What is Class 5 VRS and how does it benefit me as a rider?
Class 5 VRS is Salsa’s heritage technology for isolating the rider from the vibrations and chatter of gravel roads. The seat stays are designed to flex outward when there’s input at the axel, which helps dampen the vibration that the rider feels in the saddle. This reduces fatigue to the rider and allows you to ride longer.
8) What is Flyway’s cargo capacity? Why doesn’t the Flyway have internal storage?
When developing the Flyway we wanted to prioritize hydration. The Flyway can fit 2 water bottles in the front triangle of all 6 sizes and 3 bottles in the front triangle of MD – XL. All frame sizes have multiple locations for mounting accessories or tool rolls, and direct frame bag mounts for full and half frame bag mounting. We publish frame bag guidelines on salsacycles.com
Internal storage solutions add weight and complexity to any bicycle frame, and with the thoughtful and robust on-bike storage solutions that Flyway has, adding an internal storage solution (door) would have reduced the total water bottle location options and ultimately decrease the hydration and cargo carrying capacity that the platform has. Because of the increased weight and desire to maximize cargo carrying capacity and solutions, we opted not to add an internal storage solution to the Flyway platform.
9) What is DLX carbon and why is it a benefit?
Salsa’s DLX carbon layup is a higher modulus layup than our standard frames. It means that the layup is more refined and uses lighter material, resulting in a lighter frame that is equally as stiff and strong as our standard frames. The Flyway DLX frame is approximately 150g lighter than the standard Flyway layup.
10) What size riders does the Flyway support? How do I know which bike fits me?
The Flyway can fit humans from 5’0” to 6’6”. The Flyway page on our website has human fit guidelines on the geometry chart for each size, but we recommend visiting your local bike shop to test ride the Flyway before settling on a size.
11) I ride through a lot of mud! Is Flyway’s tire clearance enough for me?
For muddy rides or race courses we recommend going with a 42mm – 45mm tires with a knobbier tread patter. This allows for adequate traction with enough frame clearance for the tire to shed the mud instead of packing up.
12) What are the benefits of internal headset routing? What if I don’t want everything routed internally?
There are small aero benefits to internal headset routing, but for Salsa, it’s more about keeping hoses and cables out of the way to freely mount front cargo, and also reducing the likelihood of paint abrasion due to hoses rubbing paint off while riding miles in adverse weather conditions.
There are variations in through headset routing and cockpit setups as well. The FSA CRII headset that comes spec on the Flyway is designed to be able to achieve different levels of cockpit integration, as seen across the Flyway model assortment. The FSA SRII stem paired with a handlebar with internal cable routing capabilities can be used to route cables fully hidden from the controls to the calipers, or cable can be routed semi-hidden using and integrated routing spacer and standard round-shaped stem.
13) What’s the best part about the Flyway?
The best part about Flyway is its stable yet responsive characteristics, its balance between race and adventure, and its thoughtful features that allow for a wide range of setups. It has a Wingspan broad enough to cover how we believe most gravel riders are best served.