The XPLR collection - according to Sram, the letter abbreviation is pronounced with the English word Explorer - reaches deep into the mountain bike's bag of tricks to breathe even more fun potential into the gravel bike.

The first trick is the groupset. The 10-44 cassette is particularly eye-catching. There is a choice of three price categories - the Red, Force and Rival groupsets for connoisseurs - and all offer the innovative AXS wireless shifting system.

The next big hit for off-road riding fun is the Rudy gravel suspension fork. This comes from Rock Shox, offers 30 or 40 millimetres of suspension travel and can cope with tires up to 50 millimetres wide. A small mudguard can be fitted to the fork bridge for a crisp look and the suspension and damping technology is inspired by mountain bike forks.

With the Rock Shox Reverb AXS XPLR - with a diameter of 27.2 millimetres - the new collection also offers a dropper post. The dropper seatpost offers a stroke of 50 or 75 millimetres and is operated wirelessly via the AXS connection. As a special feature, a spring function can be activated on the AXS controller on the handlebars, which uses an air cushion to protect your back and backside from the peaks of rough gravel tracks.

To literally round off the gravel fireworks, Zipp is sending a gravel-specific wheelset into the race. This adopts the Moto technology from the mountain bike wheelsets, which is intended to provide vibration damping and riding comfort by means of a single-walled rim construction.

sram.com