The carbon Salsa Warbird gravel race bike has been around for a long time. And it looks like Salsa are mostly sticking with the ‘don’t mess with what works‘ strategy again this year. So the frame itself doesn’t get any real changes, just some new rather calm paint schemes. But the bike does feature a completely new fork promising more comfort from more carbon.
Plus… Salsa also gives the bike some new complete builds, lowering the cost of entry with 2 lower-cost options that’ll save you about 10% while getting the latest mechanical GRX drivetrains… 1 inch carbon fork
This still-v4 carbon Warbird has been around unchanged since the end of 2018. That’s literally since before any real dedicated gravel groupsets existed. So those first gravel bikes were built with road compact groups. And the frame itself still isn’t changing. It seems like Salsa really made some solid design decisions way back then – this bike already had 700x45mm tire clearance, solid geometry with a gravel suspension-corrected fork, built-in comfort, and mounts for everything… back before it was cool.
But Salsa did figure out they could make it a bit better by boosting front-end comfort to match the unique slender, outward-flexing Class 5 VRS (Vibration Reduction System) seatstays.
So, the new 2025 Salsa Warbird gets a new full-carbon Waxwing Deluxe 2.0 fork.
I have to say from the side, the new fork looks exactly like the original Waxwing fork. The comfort improvements come down to an optimized design, now with a new full carbon construction, plus likely some refined material layup hidden inside the legs, too. It is most likely also lighter, since the previous fork – surprisingly enough – still had an aluminum steerer tube. But Salsa doesn’t call out any weight change.
All in all, that sounds reasonable to support Salsa’s claim that it’s “10% more compliant” than the previous Waxwing.
The updated 2025 Salsa Warbird carbon gravel race bike is now offered in four complete build specs and 4 colors, while the old specs still carry over – some at reduced prices. Of note, the frameset option also carries over for the same $2200 price, but it now upgrades to the full carbon Waxwing Deluxe 2.0 fork, too!
The top tier gets you a $7000 gravel race-ready Warbird C Force AXS Wide 2×12 spec’d with carbon WTB CZRi25 wheels and Terravail Cannonball tires. Then, one more wireless electronic build goes for a wide mullet setup with the $5300 Warbird C Rival GX AXS 1×12 with alloy WTB Speedterra i25 wheels and the same tires.
The real money savings come with the $4000 Warbird C GRX 820 2×12 which will save you $500 off last year’s Shimano GRX 820 build, or even $600 off the previous 810 build.
And then, the $3000 Warbird C GRX 610 1×12 brings $300 of savings while upgrading from last year’s 11sp 600 to the latest Shimano GRX 610 12-speed and a wider 10-51T cassette.
Get them all now from your local Salsa dealer bikeshop.
Cory Benson is the EU Tech Editor of Bikerumor.com.
Cory has been writing about mountain bikes, enduro, cyclocross, all-road, gravel bikes & bikepacking for over 25 years, even before the industry created some of these names. Prior to Bikerumor, Cory was a practicing Architect specializing in environmental sustainability, has designed bike shops & bike components, and worked as a bike shop mechanic.
Based in the Czech Republic for 15+ years, he is a technical mountain biker, adventurous gravel rider, and short & medium-haul bikepacker. Cory travels extensively across Europe riding bikes, meeting with key European product developers, industry experts & tastemakers for an in-depth review of what’s new, and what’s coming next.
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Although the new colors and builds are nice, I was really hoping for a frame update this year. The frame has been the same since 2018 and certainly works a treat. However, I would like to see them update this with UDH and more tire clearance. With so many people going as wide as 50mm and some running mountain bike tires the 45mm max seems like a bit of a miss. In the end, it’s still a great bike. I’ll be holding on to my current Warbird until they update the frame to more modern standards.
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Yeah I’m sure this is the last year for version 4. By next spring the new force and maybe rival groups will be out in transmission flavor.
I’m pretty sure the fork has been the Waxwing v2 and full carbon for the lifetime of the v4 Warbird. My wife got the frame and fork option in 2019 and the fork was full carbon then. Perhaps some of the more affordable complete builds had a lower spec fork?
Also, only the medium and larger sizes have 3 bottle mounts inside the main triangle.
Like the other commenters, I’m surprised this update didn’t feature UDH compatibility.
I’m confused about the fork update. My Warbird from 2021 has a full carbon fork….
I have the original 2018 frameset built up. It has a full carbon fork.
Somehow between then and now, they quietly dropped the carbon steerer on the high end models and frameset. WHY?
The Warbird is fantastic, but Salsa should be ashamed of shipping their flagship racer with an aluminum steerer all these years.
Glad they fixed the sttertube, and the bike really doesn’t need much, but considering the market asks for 50mm tires now, this is a pretty half-assed update. I’ll keep my original.
I wonder who thought shooting a purple bike on a purple background would look good?
PressFit BB86 bottom bracket I stopped reading at this point.
The Salsa brand has been on fire lately! This Warbird still sets a very high water mark for the gravel category. Full suspension bikes are awesome and sold out. E-bikes also excellent performance, great value, and also also sold out. Big ups Salsa!
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