While sightings first surfaced at the Traka gravel race in May, we got our first real look at a Factor One-inspired gravel bike at Unbound later in the same month, ridden by former WorldTour pro Romain Bardet and some of his teammates. I wouldn’t say I was shocked so much as I was surprised, as I was told just a few weeks earlier that the company was capping its gravel bike offering at three distinct models – at the time that comprised the Ostro Gravel, Aluto and recently released Sarana.
Unbeknownst to me, however, Factor was already cooking up a radical new aero gravel machine designed to replace the Ostro Gravel. Dubbed the Elara, it came to fruition as an idea floated by the brand's athletes – Magnus Bak Klaris and Romain Bardet, both of whom were instrumental in bringing it to life. Magnus, a self-confessed cycling tech obsessive and PhD candidate, asked the design team for an aero gravel bike solution that could accommodate 57mm-wide tyres, as he felt this was the future of gravel racing and could potentially make him faster.
