All pictures are by the talented Mr Stefan Hähnel who also has more great pictures here.

It’s snowing lightly, but you don’t feel cold.  Excitement and joy are everywhere you look.  You’re on the old path that was used to deliver mail between Berlin and Hamburg.  With you, two of your crew mates, smiling ear to ear as the mud flies everywhere and the bikes are getting progressively heavier by the sticky earth.

It’s Saturday in early February and winter is still not coming.  Instead of temperatures well below freezing the weather is just cold, hoovering around the 2-4 degrees with loads of very grey days and the occasional beautiful sky.  To balance a hellish week of 12-14 hours days on the computer, you plan a nice all-roads adventure starting from the central train station in Berlin and ending in the train station in the town of Brandenburg an Der Havel – some 90 km West.  Riding West in the morning, in Northern Germany or maybe elsewhere, means that you’re riding against the wind, but since the ride will take you deep in the forest, you’re not too bothered.

As you leave the city and get into the woods, the asphalt turns to nicely dry and packed gravel.  The wheels spin as fast here as they did the previous 10km leading to this forest highway.  Soon, the so called Reichgravel turns into much rougher and very wild path, if you can call it a path given the amount of fallen trees criss crossing the way.  Here you get the first flat tire which just, as the whole crew decide, does not make sense.

The three bikes are prime examples of the new bike segment baring the term Gravel Bikes.  The term is silly so you prefer to think about your steed and those of your two mates as all-road bikes.  When you finally get out of the mud and into the street, realising that the train you should be taking leaves in less than an hour and the distance to the train station is around 22km, all three bikes ride at 30km/h without a problem on the road.  The same is true when you’re deep in the forest riding the forest paths that are somehow identified on the map as “forest roads”.  The three bikes have zero problems traversing deep Brandenburg sand and are certainly complaining a lot less than the riders do when the path turns to puddle.

So we establish, these bikes  can take on any kind of road.  The three bikes are prime examples of how much fun can be had on two wheels.  They also represent exactly the three options on the market.  One of the bikes is the beautiful Open UP.  This carbon bike is loaded with a SRAM 1×11 setup, hydraulic breaks, fairly light components and 2.1 inch WTB Nano tires on 650B DT Swiss rims.  The next example is a locally made steel bike, from cicli bonanno, with roughly the same group set, but a more “rando” setup with generator hub, lights and plenty of space for full fenders.  This one is also rocking a set of 650B hoops, with WTB Ranger 2.0 rubber.  The last bike represents the versatility of titanium and is made by Seven.  It was originally setup as 700c with 44mm Compass tires, but recently it has been converted to 650B with Terrene Elwood tires.  Ironically, these tires look at beefy as the 2.1 inch WTBs since they are mounted on the very wide Velocity Blunt SS rims.  This is also the non-tubeless wheel set which is the only one to get a flat tire, in the middle of the forest, so go figure.  This steed is also setup with a full Campagnolo group with a rather traditional 50/34 cranks and 11-32 cassette.

All three steeds perform beautifully.  The mud collected can always be washed off and the clothes thrown to the washer.  There will be another weekend in 7 days where these road bikes, all rad, all fun, will take you on the next adventure.  That’s what they are for.