Factor reckons that gravel racing is evolving at a very rapid pace, and to a degree, the brand is correct. Road bike aero technologies, like deep-section rims and slippery tube shapes, are finding their way onto many modern gravel bikes in the pursuit of podiums, but with its new Elara, the brand has turned that all up to 11 and tailored it especially to gravel.
Take a look at the bike being built above, courtesy of road.cc and off.road.cc contributor Tom Weijand
In fact, the Elara takes a very similar form to Factor’s well-known One road bike. Up front, there’s a wide, aerodynamic fork with tons of clearance; there are deep, slim tubes to help air slide over them along with a hourglass-shaped head tube, and its Black Inc wheels are as deep as it gets. But where it strays from its road bike inspiration is in its tyres, as 57mm rubber finds a home aboard the Elara.
Factor claims that the Elara breaks the norm for gravel bikes, as it deviates from the adventure and endurance flavour. Rather, it’s all about agility, precision and immediate handling, which apparently combine to bring composure at race speeds. With a longer reach, reduced trail and a lower bottom bracket, the brand suggests that the Elara rewards ‘aggressive positions and decisive inputs’. But those geometry cues have also been designed to compensate for any effects the large tyres might have.
To put those geometry notes into numbers, a 56 frame boasts a 407mm reach, a 275mm bottom bracket height, a steep 72.3-degree head tube angle and, impressively, a 423mm chainstay.
That chainstay is where things get interesting, too, as Stuart Munro, Factor’s Design Engineer, states, “nobody’s managed to keep a proper short rear-centre on a 2x gravel bike with 57s” and that “2x was never negotiable; we didn’t want to force a drivetrain choice just to fit a tyre”. So yes, this bike can run 1x or 2x drivetrains.
That super short chainstay was achieved thanks to that lower bottom bracket. We’re told that this results in the same rear centre dimension relative to the rider’s centre of gravity as Factor’s Ostro Gravel.
But why fat tyres? We’re seeing them arise on gravel race bikes everywhere, but they’ve been included on the Elara following feedback from the brand’s top riders. According to Magnus Bak, the extra tyre volume isn’t about comfort, rather, it’s about holding speed.
Moving on to the wheels, these are Black Inc’s Sixty Four gravel racing wheels. They don a 30mm internal rim width that can accommodate up to 57mm, or 2.2″ tyres. Though they’re not just about fat tyres, as, of course, aerodynamics is also a big part of their game, so yep, they’re incredibly deep – 64mm deep, in fact. They also rotate on Ceramicspeed bearings, shaving watts wherever possible.
With a heft of aero features on the bike comes an aero bar. The Black Inc Aero Gravel Bar AB07 takes an aero-road ‘logic’ but applies it to top-level gravel racing. It features a one-piece design that’s been designed especially for the Elara. There’s a flat top section for those aero gains, but the geometry of the drops has been tweaked for ‘higher-speed off-road use’. That means that it’s sorted with a -17-degree flared drop, which encourages a more relaxed riding position over technical terrain, says Factor. Of course, there’s integrated cable routing, too. It’s then available in 40, 38, and 36cm widths, and with effective stem lengths of 80mm to 130mm.
If Factor’s new take on a gravel race bike sounds something like your flavour, expect to spend a minimum of £9,499 for the Elara + BI46 model equipped with Campagnolo’s Record 1×13 drivetrain. If you’re feeling incredibly flush, prices max out at £10,999 for the Elara + BI64 with SRAM’s Red XPLR.
