Opening up adventures through exploration
By Robert Thorpe, Writer at KaRisma & Editor at Pedalnorth.com
It’s something that lives deep within us – that need to explore our surroundings and ourselves. Remember when you were a kid and one bike did it all. That fast, racing bike easily became an off-road adventure bike, as you rode along the woodland trails and then turned the wheel towards the off-piste avenue of trees and dips and twists and turns, as it became a cross-county mountain bike or trail bike. The only adaptation was the removal of the mudguards, allowing you to ride harder and faster, without them bending as your flying feet caught them!
The most successful bike brands and designers have always recognised this feeling of freedom and exhilaration, creating bikes that enable you to renew that bond with nature, opening up new adventures through exploration on 2-wheels, in a more modern, more comfortable and performance-orientated manner – but, with that age-old sense of childhood reborn. Yes, inside, we’re all just kids wanting to feel the wind in our hair and on our face, as we head along the tracks and trails that litter the landscape. Now though, we ride on one of the most well-engineered and performance orientated gravel bikes in the world, made here in Italy, by craftsmen who are dedicated to bringing gravel biking dreams into reality!
A global community of gravel biking
Since gravel biking first exploded onto the scene, 3T have been at the forefront of this sport. Their bikes, from the first 3T Exploro Team, to the very latest 3T Primo aerodynamic bike, which changed gravel riding and racing forever, with its unmatched aerodynamics and speed, on or off road; 3T remain at the head of the pack, succeeding in races and events around the world such as: The Gralloch, The Dirty Reiver, The Traka in Girona, Spain, and the Unbound Gravel in Emporia, Kansas, USA.
These days, their home in Italy has become a mecca for the global community of gravel biking, as gravel riders from around the world head to the Strade Bianche in Tuscany, and to the Tuscany Trail multi-day gravel adventure, where the famed white gravel roads line the landscape like ribbons, awaiting those with an adventurous spirit and a gravel bike capable of tackling the dusty tracks in comfort. Thankfully, all 3T bikes are borne in such landscapes; it’s where our engineers created the 3T Extrema Italia, designed for the harshest adventures and toughest landscapes such as the epic gravel bike trails that join together the majestic mountain valleys of the Italian Dolomites.
Set yourself free - with 3T gravel bikes
Elsewhere in the world, 3T gravel bikes have become a common feature, such as on the famed Rocacorba climb in the hills of northern Spain and Girona. It’s a place where the global gravel biking community flock to, for the seemingly endless gravel bike trails; and, it’s a place where our 3T Racemax Italia can be unleashed and let loose. The 3T Racemax Italia is designed to be the best gravel race machine in the world; produced with the 3T proprietary filament winding and RTM technology, the Racemax Italia frameset is the fastest with 700c 35-46mm WAM tires and combines the best possible handling and reactiveness in a gravel race bike.
It’s also compatible with an aero yet dropper/suspension seatpost and it can fit up to 700x57c tires. It was created for gravel’s most demanding riders and racers – and for places such as Girona, where the gravel biking seems to be an endless dream, filled with adventure!
Ultimately, wherever we live, and wherever we ride, and however old we are; inside, we are all still that small kid who simply wants to ride! What they do at 3T Bikes is to help these dreams to become reality, by creating some of the world’s best gravel bikes, and allowing everyone to set themselves free!
Check out the latest gravel bikes from 3T at our retail partners in the south of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
