Spotted: New Factor Ostro Gravel prototype and wide-stance fork

I’m not sure what it says about me or the race, but as I sat watching the live stream of Santa Vall gravel this morning, I repeatedly caught myself doom scrolling through the distraction device rather than actually watching the race. Be it attentional fragmentation, hyper-stimulation, whatever reason my brain now craves the dopamine hit, but in this case, it might actually have paid off.

As I scrolled the nothingness, none of which I can actually remember now a mere ten minutes later, a reel or a story popped up from David Millar.

Is that a new Ostro Gravel?

That is a new Ostro Gravel!

WTF are those wheels?

Feck, they’re like 65 mm deep.

The gratification is immediate with this one. As I dug deeper, first through Millar’s Instagram stories from the Santa Vall start line, then Romain Bardet’s feed, and that of Factor Racing, I soon realised this isn’t just a new Ostro Gravel (OG), but clearly still a prototype that Bardet and Magnus Bak Klaris are testing.

Romain Bardet shows off the new fork during recon.

Right at the end of a reel posted by Factor yesterday is a quick shot of Bardet standing astride his new OG (above) with a fork that looks almost identical to the wide-stance fork on the new Factor One (don’t call it radical) aero road bike.

It's quite the update, compared to the old, or existing, model.

The old/current Ostro Gravel model, versus ...... the new prototype with rider Magnus Bak Klaris pre-race in Girona.

A story Millar posted from the start line shows Bardet and Bak Klaris on the front row and both aboard the new OG – but without that wide-stance fork. Still, the most notable updates are up front and are clearly designed to improve the aero efficiency of the platform.

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