By For 25 years, my cycling life was a Venn diagram with an empty bubble in the middle.
I’d line up on a ’cross bike at a 70-mile race in central Pennsylvania called Iron Cross that was 30 percent pavement, 40 percent gravel, and 30 percent “seriously?” surface. Miles in, I’d be rock climbing (literally, bike in hand) and then remounting, only to white-knuckle my way down a steep, rocky ribbon of singletrack, hoping those 33mm-wide tires maintained traction—and I maintained control. I could have ridden a mountain bike, of course. But that’s a lot of bike to drag up the 7,000-plus feet of climbs.
Or I’d take my road bike to a ride like the Deerfield Dirt-Road Randonnee (D2R2) in western Massachusetts. The bike’s steep geometry and lean, 25mm tires would be ripping fast on hardpack—but leave me chanting Hail Marys down some 16 percent, moondust-covered grade, my butt nearly buzzing the skinny rear tire.
Such was my cycling life, trying in vain to find the perfect companion for my mixed-terrain adventures.
So last March when I lined up at a New Jersey event called Riding Dirty, I thought, Here we go again. My road bike was out of commission, and I’d borrowed the Open U.P.P.E.R. to take on this 70-mile spring classic. There were dirt roads, but a bike with 28s could have handled them just fine. Riding this gravel bike with fat 38s felt like bringing a machete to whittling camp. I resigned myself to being overbiked (read: slow) for the day.
That resignation turned to elation as I rocketed up the first, paved climb. Wow, this bike climbs quickly, I thought, marveling at how the U.P.P.E.R. punched forward with no hint of the sluggish hesitation some gravel bikes can have. I even found myself scanning the leaves of the roadside trees, checking for tailwinds (there were none).
When we came off the climb and down the first steep descent on a twisty, crumbling, half-paved road, I smiled and swept through it, barely touching the brakes.
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That was when I knew that after 25 years of riding bikes, I had found the missing piece of my Venn diagram, that sweet spot where fast and nimble overlaps with steady and confidence-inspiring.
It was the best drop-bar bike I’d ever ridden, and I was never letting it go.
It’s as if all those years, across the Atlantic in the Netherlands, Open co-creator and Cervélo cofounder Gerard Vroomen had been hearing my prayers for a bike that could handle dirt, gravel, and rough roads, yet still be fast and fun to ride on all the pavement in between. But actually, he was just filling a Venn diagram of his own.
Vroomen always loved doing long, mixed-surface rides on the dirt forest roads, quiet country lanes, and bike paths surrounding his home. But when he rode these routes on his road bike, he’d flat. When he rode his ’cross bike, he wished for the quicker feel of his road bike. Forget about riding his mountain bike—that wouldn’t even be fun.
His “aha” moment happened when wheel innovator Steve Hed invited Vroomen to Minnesota for the 2013 Almanzo 100, a gravel race over hardscrabble dirt that turns to peanut butter in the rain. Hed told Vroomen to bring a bike that could take the biggest tires possible. “So I brought my Cervélo RS [classics bike], and we squeezed 35mms on there,” Vroomen says. Hed had actually rigged his own bike to accept 650b wheels with mountain bike tires—an idea that intrigued Vroomen, but also presented a problem. “It’s hard to get a bike to handle like a road bike if you keep putting bigger tires on it, because at some point the chainstays need to be longer for tire clearance, and the fork needs to be longer,” he says. That would slow down the bike’s handling. “Once you design a bike to be sluggish, the human can’t overcome that,” he says.
The Disrupter Behind the U.P.P.E.R.
Before he started Open in 2012, Gerard Vroomen was best known for pioneering aero bikes as the cofounder of Cervélo. He’s also the genius behind distinctive-looking (okay, some may have said “ugly”) bikes from 3T, like the aero-gravel mashup Exploro. “I don’t design for aesthetic,” says Vroomen. “I design for simplicity, and I think simplicity is beautiful. I also think people get used to things. At first most of the population thought the [Cervélo] R3 was ugly. A year later nobody thought that.”
Vroomen has always liked small, detailed designs. “There are lots of these things in the U.P./U.P.P.E.R. Like the fork and how you mount the brakes.” Open’s U-Turn fork skips an adapter and mounts the disc brake caliper directly to the fork leg, boosting braking stiffness and shaving weight to a feathery 370 grams.
For Vroomen, new designs always have the same origin. “I’m riding a bike, and something annoys me,” he says. (Like all the flats he got riding his road bike on forest roads, which led to the U.P.) While Open added the U-Turn fork and developed a lighter U.P. layup that shaves 70 grams off for the New U.P., released in late 2017, there haven’t been any major updates to the U.P.P.E.R. “Nothing annoys me on that bike.”—Gloria Liu
That’s where the notion for the Open was born. In designing the bike, Vroomen targeted road bike geometry and positioning, with clearance for big tires that could handle rough terrain. He dropped the drive-side chainstay, which made room for a 50-tooth chainring and massive tires while keeping the chainstays shorter than on most ’cross bikes (though longer than on, say, an aero road bike) for snappy handling. The bike also had a steeper head-tube angle and less trail (the distance between where a line would hit the ground if you drew it through the head tube, and where the tire contacts the ground behind it) than most gravel bikes, contributing to a quick, agile feel, too.
[Want to fly up hills? Climb! gives you the workouts and mental strategies to conquer your nearest peak.]
When the Open U.P., which stands for “unbeaten path,” launched in 2015, it was the first gravel bike that could fit 650b x 2.1-inch-wide mountain bike tires (as well as 700c x 40mm tires). Yet reviewers at Bicycling raved that it still had the quick, efficient feel of a road bike. In 2017, Vroomen released the U.P.P.E.R., which used a new carbon layup to cut 220 grams from the U.P. frame (a medium U.P.P.E.R. frame is a claimed 880 grams).
Open did not invent the all-road or gravel bike category, of course. But Open made a bike that was faster, racier, more fun to ride, and less overbuilt than most gravel bikes—on all surfaces. Other gravel bike makers are now following in their wake.
So, I bought the U.P.P.E.R. And with the right tire and wheel setup, this bike has proven to be the perfect sidekick for pretty much every gravel event.
Two hundred thirteen miles of sandy roads and snowmobile trails across Michigan? Bring it. I’ve got three bottle cages and top tube mounts for a bolt-on bento box FTW (well, second place, but I’ll take it!). Events like Iron Cross? Been there, won that on the U.P.P.E.R. last year. The fat tires and spacious clearance let me monster-truck down a rock-strewn ribbon of trail and through a boggy hollow, mud spraying, like a two-wheeled Moses parting the Red Sea. Sixteen miles of flowy mountain bike singletrack at Rebecca’s Private Idaho? Just try to wipe the smile off my face as I rail bermed turns, motor through hub-deep stream crossings, and pop over rocks without a brake-tap of hesitation. The longer and harder the event, the more I appreciate the U.P.P.E.R.: Because I’m not aching from absorbing road chatter, I’ve got energy to keep the hammer down. Yet I could still race ’cross on it: Pro racer Geoff Kabush won a silver medal at 2018 Canadian Cyclocross Championships on his Open U.P.
3 Ways Vroomen Runs the U.P.P.E.R.
1 / If your ride combines asphalt with gravel or dirt:
CHOOSE AN OVERSIZED ROAD TIRE / “A 30 to 35mm tire will be fast and more comfortable on the paved roads, with enough cushion and grip on easy to moderate off-road routes. Combine it with a wide rim for even more volume. A great example is the 3T Discus C45 Wide wheels [Vroomen is a co-owner of 3T] with a Pirelli Cinturato tire. The wheel is wide and aero while the tire has a real road profile, but the 32mm version bulges out to 36mm on the C45 rim.”
2 / For rougher roads:
ADD A TREAD PATTERN / “Switch to a Schwalbe G-One Allround [Open cofounder Andy Kessler’s favorite tire] to keep most of the on-road prowess combined with wicked off-road grip. It comes in a 40mm version and makes even slippery mountain paths a joy to explore. On sharp gravel, the small knobs of the G-One Allround lift the tire up just enough to reduce the risk of flatting.”
3 / For the most extreme setup:
GO HUGE! / “Change to 650b with mountain bike tires. The ENVE G-27 is a great wheelset. The WTB Ranger 2.0" is not the widest tire that fits, but it gives you tons of mud clearance. The WTB Venture 1.9" has a milder profile, making it useful on tough trails but also on faster sections.”—G.L.
But the times when I most appreciate the U.P.P.E.R. are all those days in between the events, when I’m rolling out of my garage. The only bike that it hasn’t replaced in my stable is my full-suspension mountain bike, for the rocky, technical trails around my home. For any other ride, I choose the U.P.P.E.R., because whether I’m cruising in a paceline on pavement, grinding up rutted gravel roads, or bunnyhopping small logs on the tamer singletrack that snakes around our local parkway, it’s the right bike. It allows me to legitimately enjoy every ugly road and every beautiful road and every beautifully ugly road.
