Wilier Jena Ultegra

The Wilier Jena is a versatile gravel bike that's fast and reactive when you want to go out for a blast and fully capable of taking you on an off-road bikepacking adventure.

• Pros: Versatile, comfortable, great frame
• Cons: Some people won't be into the roadie gear ratios

The Jena – pronounced more like 'yay-na', if you want to do it the Wilier way – is a zippy bike for bombing along on gravel and other broken tracks. It's responsive, has a riding position that's towards the sportier end of the spectrum, and is stable enough to help you hold your line when the road surface is doing its best to send you off at a tangent. It's also a really comfortable setup.

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The Jena is a bike that lets you get into quite an aggressive riding position to wind up the speed. If you compare the stack and reach, they're not a million miles from those of something like Wilier's Cento1NDR endurance road bike. Wilier describes it as a 'racing-comfort' geometry, and that seems a reasonable enough description.

Bear in mind, though, that the Jena comes fitted with a Ritchey Comp ErgoMax handlebar. If you've not committed the entire Ritchey catalogue to memory – tch! – let me tell you that the 6061 alloy ErgoMax bar bends upwards 10mm from the clamping point, giving you a more upright riding position than you'd otherwise have.

There's actually a lot going on with the ErgoMax bar, so allow me to get sidetracked here for a sec. The tops sweep 5 degrees back towards you from the centre, while the drops flare outwards 12 degrees. Wilier specs the 42cm version of this bar on the large sized Jena with that flare meaning that the outer to outer width is 50.3cm.

The net result is that the Jena's riding position isn't as upright as something like the Specialized Diverge that we reviewed recently.

The frame geometry is quite aggressive – fairly similar to that of the Kinesis G2, for example – with the extra rise from the ErgoMax handlebar bringing the front end up that little bit higher.

I'd say it's a riding position that strikes a balance between comfort and performance. That's how it feels when you're hammering along on rolling tracks.

Get down on the drops and you can really build up the speed quickly, with the 40mm-wide tyres and steady steering meaning that bumps and holes are handled calmly rather than sending you ditch-ward.

The extra handlebar width makes a big difference to the bike's overall behaviour, especially when things get technical. Control is just that much easier. I found myself using the drops much more than the hoods on tricky terrain.

The Jena is a really comfortable bike. The geometry isn't so aggressive that it puts a huge amount of strain on your back or neck as you ride, and Wilier reckons that the flattened seatstays help to absorb vibrations. The slim (27.2mm diameter) Ritchey Comp aluminium seatpost definitely does. The kinked and sloping top tube means you'll almost certainly have plenty of that seatpost extending out of the frame, allowing a degree of movement over the rough stuff.

More important than any of that, though, are the tyres. Our Jena came built up with 40mm-wide 700C Mavic Yksion Elite Allroad XLs on Mavic Allroad wheels. With these wheels you'll be able to fit tyres up to 44mm. If you opt for 650B wheels you could go with a maximum tyre width of 48mm.

The Wilier Jena Ultegra with 700C wheels hasn't been available in the UK, but it will be from the end of this month, at the same price as the Ultegra (mechanical) build with Miche 966 650B wheels and 47mm Vittoria Terreno Zero tyres. The cheaper Shimano 105 version also comes with a choice of either 700C or 650B wheels/tyres.

> The 650B alternative: are smaller wheels the right choice for you? 

The Yksion Elite Allroad XL tyres aren't the quickest rolling on tarmac but they're not especially slow either. They provide good grip on gravel and rocky tracks, and even hold their own on any earthy sections that come your way. Get out of the saddle to muscle the bike up a steep, muddy trail and you're asking for the back tyre to slip because it's not toothy enough to dig deep, but that's not really fair; these aren't designed for mountain biking. As an all-round option for various different surfaces, they have a lot to offer.

Both the wheels and tyres are Mavic UST so you can add some sealant and run them tubeless if you like. One of the biggest advantages for riding on gravel and other rough surfaces is that you can drop the pressure for increased comfort without the danger of pinch-flatting an inner tube.

The saddle is listed as a Selle San Marco Squadra Startup on Wilier's website but our review bike was fitted with a Selle Italia Boost X3 with alloy rails and a cutaway centre. It's not a high-end saddle but the shell offers enough flex to take the edge off bigger hits and there's a decent depth of padding – enough that the little lumps and bumps on uneven road surfaces aren't going to leave you tender. We all know that saddles are a matter of taste but I can't see this one making too many enemies.

The Jena's is a distinctive-looking carbon frame with a kinked, sloping top tube that provides a generous amount of standover clearance – so you can dab a foot down easily enough without any unwelcome consequences – and a down tube with a Kamm tail profile that's intended to reduce drag. Gravel and aerodynamics? Well, it's A Thing.

The 3T Exploro gravel bike, for example, is all about the aero, and DT Swiss has just released its GRC 1400 Spline wheels with 42mm-deep wind-cheating rims. I have no data to back it up but I can't help feeling that the Jena's down tube is more of a gesture than anything else – a visual connection to the brand's road bikes rather than offering a significant performance benefit – because the aero theme isn't continued elsewhere.

You could divide the gravel scene into those who blast the tracks and trails for a couple of hours and bikepackers who want to load up and head off on an overnight (or longer) adventure. The Jena has both covered. The frame and fork come with eyelets for mudguards and you get rack mounts too. If you don't want to fit a lowrider carrier to the fork, you can bolt two bottle holders on there instead.

As mentioned above, you can use tyres up to 48mm wide if you opt for a Jena with 650B wheels – or have a spare pair in the garage – so this is a pretty versatile bike for all kinds of rough riding.

Build options

As well as the two Shimano Ultegra builds, with 650B or 700C wheels (at the same price), Wilier offers the Jena with SRAM Rival 1x components (the front derailleur mount is removable if you want to run a single chainring setup) for £2,949.99. A Shimano 105 build in 650B and 700C variants and a Shimano Ultegra Di2 (electronic shifting) model will be added soon, although prices have yet to be announced for those.

Ultegra is high-end stuff, Shimano's second tier road groupset tucked in just behind Dura-Ace. I won't go into the details here but it's excellent, and that includes the hydraulic disc brakes that are easy to control precisely. It would be good to see the Shimano Ultegra RX800 rear derailleur on this bike with its clutch mechanism to reduce chain movement, but I can't say that I had any issues with the standard clutchless version fitted here – a bit of chain slap over bumpy terrain, but that's it.

For the 2020 model year there will be bikes specced with the new Shimano GRX groupset.

> Read our Shimano Ultegra review here

All of the double chainset Jenas are fitted with 50/34-tooth chainrings and 11-30 cassettes. That gearing is the kind of thing that you'll get on a lot of endurance road bikes and it works for me. I like to go out and hit the rolling, mostly well-packed gravel tracks around my way as hard as I can for an hour or two. Or three or more. As a rule, I'm not riding super-steep trails and the most I'm usually carrying is a small backpack.

Depending on the riding you do, you might want smaller ratios than that, especially for heavy loads. A lot of people might prefer something like an 11-32 cassette while others would prefer a complete step change. If that's you, the SRAM Rival 1x build comes with a 38-tooth chainring and an 11-42 cassette. The flip-side, of course, is that you'll run out of gears sooner on the descents.

You pretty much know that your components are going to age faster on a gravel bike than on a road bike. Stones ping up from the surface and cause scratches, mud and dust quickly gets into the drivetrain... you know the sort of thing. For that reason, I'd be as happy going for Shimano 105 as Ultegra and spending the difference on sweets, but that's just me.

Value

The Vielo V+1 UDG Rival Edition road plus bike that we reviewed recently was priced £3,499 with a SRAM Rival 1x groupset (Rival is SRAM's third tier road groupset) and DT Swiss CR 1600 wheels, while the £3,349 Ibis Hakka MX was equipped with Rival 1x too, along with Stan's Grail aluminium tubeless wheels.

The Orbea Terra M21-D 19 came with a SRAM Force groupset – a step higher than Rival in SRAM's hierarchy – and Fulcrum Racing 500 DB wheels for £3,199.

Moving over to Shimano, the last Ultegra gravel bike we reviewed was the J.Guillem Atalaya Gravel at £4,794.14, although that's quite a different bike with a titanium frame.

The Trek Checkpoint SL 6 came with a Shimano Ultegra groupset and Bontrager Paradigm Comp wheels and is priced £3,400, but reviewer Dave Arthur found it to offer a decidedly underwhelming ride.

In that kind of company, the Jena's price looks about average for what you're getting.

> Buyer's Guide: 22 of the best gravel and adventure bikes

The Wilier Jena offers you a lot of options. If you want to hit gravel tracks fast, it's quick and responsive with a riding position that suits; if you want to head off bikepacking, it has various eyelets to help you out; if you want wide tyres, you can go up to 48mm with 650B wheels; if you want to use it for commuting on the road, all you need to do is swap to some more tarmac-friendly rubber and maybe fit a rear rack... There's no such thing as a bike that can do everything well, but the Jena is a versatile choice.

Overall, it's a reactive bike that you can easily adapt for different types of riding. You'll have a lot of fun here.

Verdict

Versatile gravel/adventure bike built around an exceptionally good frameset