The PERFECT Gravel Bike For The Job? NEW Factor Aluto First Ride Review

I'm here at Girona World Series Gravel to do a gravel race and I've got a brand new gravel bike

to do it on. Now it's a factor and you might be thinking why am I not on an Austro gravel and to

sort of talk us through the new bike and how it's different to the Austro gravel we found David Miller

how about that? Yeah Jamie this is a bit different to the Austro gravel in the sense that what we've

noticed with Factor and the constant evolution of gravel in the last few years is that there's not

one bike to do everything. The Ostro gravel we'd really designed as a pure race machine, a direct

descendant of the Ostro van, which is a pure racing road bike. Yet we've seen we wanted to

create a bike that was a little bit more of a generalist rather than a specialist. And so the

Aluto, what we've done is we've basically created a bike that sticks to the racing DNA of Factor

but we broaden its range of abilities. We've given it more tire clearance so you can go as

optimized for 45 front and rear yeah you can put 47 front and rear even up to 52 on the front i

actually raced unbound on my prototype with 48 running hearse front and back and i have no

problems whatsoever there's a few other little things we've done in the sense of the head tube

it's tiny i mean 0.3 degrees slacker okay so not much but it's just a little bit to kind of give it

a slightly slacker a little bit more responsive counterintuitive it feels more responsive but

That's due to the layup of the tubing, but also the fact that it's kept its short chain stays at the back

which is the same as the Ostro Gravel, to keep the wheelbase quite tight. We've lowered the bottom bracket slightly, so you've got a lower center of gravity

So hopefully that will help me out on the descent. Wait till you see it. For technical stuff, this bike's incredible

Then we've lifted the stack at the front and the head tube as well, so you're a little bit raised up, I think about 5 mils up to a centimeter, depending on the size

yep and one of the most interesting things is and i didn't kind of learn this until i came to factor

and understood a bit more about how they make bikes the tubes are what it's incredible the fact

that you've got we're taking this from the ostrovam with this sort of flattening here gives you a

little bit more give and the round seat tube 27.2 means that if you wanted to go nuts you could put

a dropper post in there but it just means it's a lot more practical so not many bikes at the moment

come with standard standard round seat tubes well we really wanted this bike to be i mean i don want to use the word standard but kind of standard in a way because that gives you so much more access to doing different things with it But I can tell you this bike is just nuts because the moment I got on my prototype I been riding the Ostro Gravel for two years

and immediately I noticed the difference. It's just so much lighter at the front end

It feels, the Ostro Gravel is very much, as I said, very linked to a road bike

But this bike, you get on it, and it's more akin to almost a mountain bike or a cyclocross bike, but still super fast

But you can just do anything. and it just puts a big smile on your face. Hopefully by the end of this as well

Yeah. We'll see. Yeah, no, it does. I did Unbound and I definitely was not smiling, but it helps me slightly

There is one other change I noticed. We've got some integrated frame storage here

Oh yeah, that did slip my mind. So this is... I've got some gels hiding in mine

So what's the thoughts with the downstube storage? This one, I've just..

We realise there's a lot more going on with Gravel. We've actually taken across..

It came from the Slick. It was designed for a triathlon bike where we were looking to help triathletes where they need lots of storage and want to stay aero

But once we created the system, we put it on the Monza, which is a kind of everyday race bike where we know that people want to carry storage

And then in gravel, I mean, if you go and look around, everybody's just carrying stuff

I mean, you have to. You've got to carry so much stuff. So it just seemed natural to put it on this bike as well

So forgive me for asking, because Factor's always been a really race-orientated brand

and some of its recent bike releases, the Monza and now the Aluto

haven't been quite so race-orientated as previous bikes. Is this a new heading for Factor

No, I suppose this is what we've got to get across. They're still pure race bikes. It's a different racer

So our engineering team, what they do is, when they're starting to design a bike, they choose the racer and they choose the type of racing

Now, in the past, it's been only the very elite pinnacle racing, World Tour, kind of an even Austro Gravel

the likes of the world's best gravel races. But that's not the majority of races

So for the Monza, it's very much for the vast majority of people who just want to go and race for fun

and also have to train on the same bike, and it has to be utilitarian. This is a pure race bike

We always design race bikes and never not will, but we just are perhaps just opening up slightly now

to different types of races and different types of races. So basically what you're saying is today when I'm racing around

I can't blame the bike you cannot blame your bike no I be interested afterwards to hear what you say because this is only you the second person in the world to race in this bike so there we go it uh it gonna be exciting to

see and what can you tell me about the course is it uh it's hard oh boy all the gravel events

around here are bonkers now i think this is a uci gravel once they might have not gone as gone as

absolutely uh just mind-bendingly wrong as the gravel earth series can sometimes do around here

but I think it's going to be fun because you go straight up here it's hard but I don't think it's going to be

super technical I've seen there's a big climb at the start yeah it all separated out

pretty quickly but like I said we discussed this yesterday you either hit out really hard

get humiliated get dropped find your group or you start really slow

feel like Superman and then find your group I think what might happen is I might start slow

and continue slow but we'll see we'll find out well thank you very much

and yeah see you in a few hours We'll be right back

Thank you

Well, that was absolutely savage

I think I was out there for nearly five hours. At least the last 30k were easier than the first 30k

It was just up, down, up, down. I think Girona has some lovely gravel

And then it got that as well No it was there was some really pretty gravel and some absolutely savage gravel as well some of the climbs just went on and on and on you go around a corner

and there'd just be another one and then you'd go around another corner and there'd be another one

and then you'd descend and I've never seen so many broken collarbones in one place

but hey I had a good time so that is the main thing and actually I'm very glad that I was on

the Aluto and not the Austro gravel because honestly I would take every bit of trail stack

bottom BB drop as as they've got going and actually I think that this is probably the gravel bike for

95% of people I think that yeah the people at the very front of today's race maybe they were

going fast enough to benefit from the aero characteristics of the Austro gravel but for me

I really enjoyed having the down tube storage, putting some gels and spares and stuff in there

so I had more space in my pocket for those all-important gels

And yeah, like I said, the slightly more relaxed position was absolutely essential today

I do think, though, they could probably do another one that goes in between this and the Lando

so I think Factor is basically a really good brand if you want a specialist tool for a specific job

and not many brands do that a lot of brands are sort of reducing their SKUs they're reducing

amalgamating lots of different models into one and Factor seem to be doing well the opposite really

so I can't remember all the prices and colors now so I'm going to pop them on the screen for you

so that you get all of them without me absolutely making a hash of all the names and stuff

I used the SRAM Force XS Explore model, and I think the only change that I might have made is making the most of the Aluto's tyre clearance

and going at least a bit bigger on the front because there was some really rocky descents

Oh, and maybe I'd have changed the 40-40 chainring as well. I think Factor maybe over-anticipated how strong I was

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