Spotted: A New Prototype Factor Gravel Bike at Unbound Gravel

The bike might not have a name, it might not have a release date, and Factor might not be able to share any details on the bike quite yet, but they did let us at Velo get a close look at their prototype gravel bike that will be raced at Unbound Gravel and throughout the summer.

The bike, which was first spotted at the Traka last month, is back in action over the weekend with riders like Romain Bardet and Haley Smith throwing a leg over the bike.

The one we photographed will not be raced, but it is not far from a field that the Factor riders will be using to take on the 200 miles of Flint Hill gravel. Here is what we know from getting some time with it:

Factor kept things as tight and steep as they could, while adding abundant clearance

While Factor did not give away many details, they did share that, as with their other bikes, the priority of the new gravel bike was to retain tight handling with a steep head tube and seat tube angles, plus keeping the chainstays short to create really tight handling.

Those characteristics traditionally haven’t played well with big tire clearance. The Ostro Gravel, the pre-existing flagship Factor gravel bike, only had 45mm of tire clearance in the front and rear, for instance.

This new bike tries to have its cake and eat it too with chainstays under 425mm, a visibly steep head tube and seat tube, and at least 2.2 inches of tire clearance, as the bike pictured has 2.2-inch Continental Dubnitals tires providing the rubber. To make this viable, Factor has opted to have wide bottom bracket spacing, a fork offset of 50+mm, and a bit longer reach to offer just enough toe clearance to prevent some toe overlap, although for smaller sizes, this seems to be a potential issue.

Borrowing design language from the Factor One

The obvious standout trait of the prototype is the fork. The bike has a very pronounced, wide fork with the legs extended forward to create a more vertical fork that looks highly unconventional. It makes the bike appear to have almost a negative offset, even though the fork actually has a pretty normal 50mm of fork rake.

The fork is similar to the fork design on the Factor One, which also splayed the legs of the fork wide to help retain consistent airflow around the front wheel and tire, a key point in the overall aerodynamics of the system. When everything else is essentially “downstream,” the leading edge that hits clear air is incredibly important, regardless of the speed the rider is going.

Strangely enough, even though the bike has massive clearance on the side of the tires, the vertical clearance is fairly tight.

Other key details of the Factor prototype