Gravelbike

It’s the nuance of ride, feel, and cleanly integrated design that culminates in a truly fantastic bike. We’d prefer to wrench our pedals to the cranks, swing a leg over the top tube, and get a sense of that elusive feel of the bike. The URS will fit a 700c x 45mm tire and comes specced with tubeless-ready 40mm WTB Raddler tires. If you’d rather look at the racier cousin of the gravel bike, and you believe that ‘cross is indeed ‘boss’, check out our roundup of the best cyclo-cross bikes. The frame itself is clean with all the lines making for a relatively futuristic look until you get to the cockpit, where you are met with a tiered drop bar. In our experience, it’s a flickable, confidence-inspiring ride no matter the terrain.

gravel bike

Drop bar parts are slightly harder to come by- If you tour in remote regions outside of the developed world, you will have a harder time finding replacement parts if something breaks. The reason is that most of the components you find at department stores and small bikes shops in the developing world are made for flat giant mountain bar mountain bikes. Examples of some components that will not be compatible are brake levers, some front derailleurs, and shifters. Of course, with globalization these days it is becoming easier and easier to find any parts that you may need. You can usually have parts shipped in if they are not available locally.

I am happy to work with you to build a complete bike with your choice of parts. We don’t sell snowboards, we don’t sell kayaks and we don’t sell tents. We only sell bikes – you might even say bikes are our life. Because this utter fanaticism for our product makes us the best at what we do – We live to create cyclists.

Both allow massive 2.4-inch tire clearance, and both have that snug-cockpit type fit and spritely handling from the shorter wheelbase. Yet, the overall wheelbase is long, yielding flex and comfort on longer rides. Examine the seat stays, and you’ll see the thin rods flatten out around the wheels, effectively damping rough shingle. My personal is a 3T Exploro, and I’ve ridden it with confidence around the world.

The active suspension takes the form of suspension forks, stems and seatposts or pivoted flex that uses a damper. These systems will all use a damper and pivot points to absorb impacts and vibrations. Active systems usually offer a more isolating experience as they have more travel and can better manage the direction of absorption. giant ROAD BIKES BMC might be late to the gravel scene but its new URS, short for UnReStricted, is a thoroughly progressive bike that is at the forefront of gravel technology. In our experience, the frame sizes up quite big, with a medium coming with a 579mm stack and 385mm reach – which is actually about the same as the Wilier Jena.