I remember saying to Jake – it must have been 3 years ago – that I wish someone would design a road bike that could handle mountain bike tires. A weird thought, I know, but I thought it would be the coolest thing; racy geometry that could haul butt on all types of surfaces. I just wanted to be able to turn down any road, trail or path and be able to rip it. Finally, somebody did design that bike. MMC started carrying them and I had the boys build one up for me last week. This is a brief story about it.
The bike comes as a frameset only and is made by a tiny company called Open Cycle, run by a couple of heavy hitters in the industry who wanted to do something small. They wanted to follow their folly and make bikes that they wanted to ride. Their first was the world’s lightest hardtail mountain bike. Their second design is this bike, the Unbeaten Path. It’s a drop bar bike for all roads.
When you get the frame, you have a lot of choices to make. You get to make those choices because they designed the frame to be built with a whole host of different components. 700c wheels with 40mm knobbies? Sure. 650b mountain bike wheels and tires? No problem. Brakes…mechanical or hydraulic disc? Drivetrain…10 or 11 speed? Mechanical or electronic? 2x or 1x? The list goes on.
I realized early on in the planning that the two most important items on a gravel or all-road bike for me are tires and gearing, and those choices must be dictated by how I intend to use the bike. For one, I wanted a bike for big dirt road climbs like Four Peaks, Humboldt and Ord, so I knew the gearing better be spot-on. I also know that many of the roads I want to explore aren’t always in great shape, so tire volume would be key.
Without going into the minutiae of how I ran gear inches on tons of gearing combinations, blah blah blah… let’s just have a look at the bike and I’ll give you my initial impressions after having put about 10 hours on it. If you want to know all of the specifics of the bike and the company itself, check them out here: open cycle.
First, the frame is super refined. And orange. And carbon. It’s got 4 sets of bottle cage bosses, where a road bike typically has two. That’s an indication this rig is made for adventure. For wheels, I just yanked my 27.5″ wheels off my mountain bike, a Scott Spark, and stuck them on here. They say the frame can handle up to 2.1″ mountain bike tires, but I’ve got a 2.25″ on the front and the 3T Luteus fork just swallows it up.
I went with an ENVE cockpit (that stem on there is a placeholder while I determine exact length) and the drops on those bars are the most comfortable I’ve ever ridden. My drivetrain is a killer hodgepodge of awesome. First, I wanted to go with a 1×11 partially for simplicity and partially for weight-savings but mainly, and this may sound weird to a lot of you, because I hate chain slap. I wanted a type 2 derailleur on there so my bike would be silent over the bumps. After having ridden without chain slap on my mountain bikes for years, I couldn’t stomach the thought of hearing it for hours on choppy dirt roads. But then I wanted Di2 electronic shifting. You can run the XTR Di2 rear derailleur via the road shifters, which will then give me the gear range I’ll need. Yep, that’s my MTB cassette on there. It’s a SRAM XX1 10-42 and even though Shimano says that derailleur will only handle up to a 40T, it works like a charm. Up front, I have the Force CX1 crank with a 44T narrow-wide chainring.
The brakes are Shimano hydraulic MTB brakes and also work with the road levers. I had some old XTR calipers so we slapped them on there…BAM. Best brakes ever. To round things out, the saddle is nothing special, just a Syncros we had laying around but it had ORANGE accents so there you go. Turns out, it’s a pretty nice little piece. I ride a carbon-railed one on my MTB and like it, but really didn’t think it would work on a lower, road-ish bike fit but it’s pretty good so far. And finally, THAT BAR TAPE. It’s hard to describe how bright that tape actually is; you just have to see it. Totally ridiculous and yet, every time I look down on a ride, it gives me a little extra charge to shred harder.
I’ll sum up my ride impressions with a ride I did last week. Rolling from the house on the road, it’s a road bike. Sure, the front tire looks suspiciously large and it sort of sounds like a monster truck going down the road, but it feels like a proper, stiff and maneuverable road bike. Next, I hit the dirt roads on the Yavapai reservation. Without reservation. I’ve ridden my road bikes on this particular stretch, but it takes work and concentration. Not on this beast; I wasn’t even picking lines in the gravel. I was sight-seeing and whistling Dixie. Just kidding, I can’t whistle.
After rolling through The Verdes and into Needle Rock Park, I hit the end of pavement…and this time kept going. I blasted up out of the cul-de-sac where we always turn around and rode the Forest Service Roads all the way to Brown’s Ranch. A nice workout and more sightseeing and not a soul around. Once at Brown’s, I wasn’t so sure about riding Hawksnest Trail on this bike, but pressed on anyway. I never should have worried… this thing (and a lot of cross/gravel bikes) is so much fun on our trails at McDowell and Brown’s. It turns better than my mountain bike, which is a cross country ripper.
After riding Hawksnest coast-to-coast, I popped out the west side of Brown’s and made my way down Pima to the dirt trail along Thompson Peak. As I was rolling down Pima Road, I chuckled at the good pace I had on the road, knowing the terrain I had just covered on the same bike. On the same ride! But it wasn’t over yet. To get back around the McDowells to Fountain Hills, I hit multi-use dirt paths, canal paths, cart paths (don’t tell) and found singletrack along major roads on my route.
It was a remarkable way to ride a bike and it reminded me of being a kid again. We didn’t have a bike for each surface we encountered; we rode the Schwinn Stingray everywhere we could and I was doing the same thing. You’re not going to ride gnarly technical trails on this but that’s the only thing I’d avoid. Further, I’ve got a second set of wheels for it – 700c road/cross – which just ups the versatility of the Unbeaten Path beyond anything out there.
New bike day is always a good day, but this one was super special for me. Now, when I leave the house on a ride, I rarely know where it will take me. Here’s to your next adventure and thanks for reading.
Brent
