The Factor Elara is as racy as it gets: How does the fastest gravel bike in the wind tunnel perform in the real world?

When I first spotted the new Factor Elara at The Traka this year, it left me quite taken aback. Road bike design in recent years has gone rather wild, with the likes of the now relatively conservative Ridley Noah giving way to the likes of the Colnago Y1Rs and Factor’s own ONE, but gravel bikes, even gravel race bikes, until very recently had remained ‘normal’, for want of a better word.

Enter the Elara, then, with that whopping fork clearly derived from the design principles of the Factor ONE. Our own wind tunnel testing concludes that it is the fastest gravel bike out there, at least of those that we've managed to lay our hands on, and having given it a thorough run out on everything from fast, flat, well graded gravel to what can be best described as ‘adventurous terrain’, I’m happy to report that chimes with my own experiences.

It is, like the ONE, an unapologetically race-oriented machine, with no concessions to non-race utility, but unlike the ONE it’s actually a lot easier to see it in use as a training machine if speed and performance on the rough stuff is your goal. It’s not necessarily the right bike for me, but I have very much enjoyed riding it.

Design and aesthetics

I have a feeling that if the ONE hadn’t paved the way already then the Elara would have received a much more frosty reception in the visual department. The front end is certainly arresting, but hold your thumb over that front end for a second and tell me it doesn’t look like a pretty standard gravel bike everywhere else.

I have actually really warmed to the aesthetics of it, in a way I haven’t with the ONE. I think the fact that gravel is free for the most part from the clutches of the UCI (not to suggest that this bike is illegal in any way - it isn’t) I’m happier to see machines that are very much non-traditional. The fork, with its gaping maw, looks evil in this raw carbon finish, and while it’s slightly at odds with the svelte build of the rest of the frame I think it balances out well once you slot in the massive Black Inc. Sixty Four Gravel wheels and some 50+mm rubber.

I do need to address the tyre clearance claims early on though. Factor claims a 57mm clearance, something which I decided to put to the test early on by fitting a set of 2.25” Maxxis Aspens. The rear swallowed this fine, and the stiffness is sufficient that it wouldn’t have caused me any worry, but the fork, while wide enough, wasn’t tall enough to cope with a tyre that measured 57.6mm on my calipers.

Factor says it’s all based around the Continental Dubnital (or Race King, as it was during development), and while a 57mm Dubnital might fit (I don’t have one to hand so cannot check), the fact a 57mm Maxxis doesn’t leads me to conclude that 57mm isn’t a true clearance for the bike. You'll get a 55 in, but you’ll have so little room for mud buildup I suggest you just run 50s as it comes and leave it at that, unless you swap to something very low profile like a Schwalbe G-One RS Pro.

I’ll delve into the geometry a little more in depth later, but as well as being the most aero gravel bike we’ve tested it’s also the most aggressive in terms of geometry. The designers wanted to keep that back end as short as possible, which they have achieved to their credit with a 423mm chainstay; quite something with the ability to cram a 57mm tyre in at the back. This, combined with a 72.3º head angle and a correspondingly steep 74.5º seat tube angle make it the most aggressively angled gravel machine I’ve personally come across. This, as you might expect, lends it quite a sporty handling.

Rather unusually, it retains the ability to run 2x, something very much against the grain. Factor says this is because it doesn’t want to limit its riders to one or other system, but I cannot remember the last time I saw anyone racing gravel on a 2x and I can’t help but feel this is something of a redundant feature. If you want to use it as a road bike, or an all-road bike perhaps, then I will admit I prefer 2x gearing, but it will limit your tyre capacity, which will then hamstring you on the proper gravel for which this bike was designed.

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Given we know already that it is more aero than any other gravel bike I shan’t over egg the pudding. It’s clearly designed with aerodynamics in mind, with the fork being the most obvious example, and it’s worked. The fork, interestingly, was a late addition, added after full carbon prototypes had already been produced for wind tunnel validation and we saw these in testing in the real world, too. During testing with a more normal fork the designers crammed a fork from the ONE into the frame to see how it would affect the aero, found it was measurably faster, and had to redesign the front end to accommodate. It is, I am told, a different fork entirely to the ONE, despite looking the same. The latter has a bayonet fastening for one thing, but the lowers are different, designed to be optimal at the slightly slower gravel speeds.

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Despite a fork that a child could easily play Hot Wheels on, the whole bike weighs not very much. My size 56 with SRAM Force tipped the scales at 8.76kg, with a single bottle cage, but no pedals; which was exactly the same as the Fara GR4 I tested just before it, which had the same tyres, too. In terms of spec you can have Force like me, Red if you’re feeling particularly flush, or the new Campagnolo Record. Sorry, Shimano, nothing here for you.

As is often a gold star in the Factor copy book, you can spec the Elara pretty well at point of sale. Two seatpost setback options (0mm or 20mm) are outdone by three crank lengths, and these both pale in comparison to the 21 cockpit options, spanning 36cmx80mm up to 40cmx140mm. 36 x 140 is about as aggressive as you’d probably want to go unless you’re going very much outside the norm, but the steerer is round so you're not completely restricted and aftermarket options may work.

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Geometry

The Elara is about as aggressive as gravel bikes get from a geometry point of view. It’s not miles more so than the likes of the new Specialized Crux, but overlaying the two on Bikeinsights.com (a great site for sure) we can see that the Elara is steeper in the head tube and seat tube by 0.8º and 0.5º respectively. It’s 2mm shorter in the chainstays, 2mm lower in the bottom bracket, has a 4mm shorter wheelbase and a 7mm longer reach. It has a 3.6mm lower trail figure in the fork, too. These are all modest numbers in comparative terms but I back the Cyclingnews audience to understand the impact the aggregation of modest changes can make.

Now, I haven’t ridden the latest Crux, so for a little more context I also ran the numbers versus the Fara GR4, which I sent back a couple of days before the Factor arrived at the office. I very much enjoyed the GR4, but compared to the Elara the numbers are very different. The Elara is 1.1º steeper in the head tube, 0.8º in the seat tube, 10mm lower in stack, 2mm longer in reach, and a 19mm longer wheelbase that is primarily derived from a 4mm greater fork rake and the slacker head tube. Happily, to confirm the numbers do actually mean something, I can say they feel like very different bikes.

My colleague, Josh, is a vocal proponent of the fact the Crux would make a great do-everything machine with a set of road wheels. In theory I don’t doubt it, and in theory the Elara would be an even better candidate, with geometry a hair closer to road bikes and a superior aero package. I object to this on geometry grounds more than anything else; gravel bikes may be able to hack it on the road with the right tyres in terms of just going fast enough, but they don’t feel like a road bike. Looking at the difference, just visually, between the Elara and Factor’s Ostro VAM road bike it’s clear to see they’ll feel noticeably different on the tarmac. However, later on I’ll slap some road wheels in the Elara and report back as to whether my preconceptions have been shattered, as everyone loves a bit of low level tension in a bike review.

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Performance

If you want the full deep dive into the aero numbers then I implore you to read Josh’s run down of our wind tunnel testing. The short version is that The Elara is the fastest gravel bike we tested as a bike only, and with the margins of error it could lay claim to being the fastest with a rider, too. It’s rapid, but with a rider it’s basically indistinguishable from the Crux and the Wilier Rave. Taking into account the fact it has much larger tyres, the fact that it’s only 10.45 watts more draggy as a bike only than the old Look Blade, a WorldTour level road race bike, is really quite impressive.

This is also borne out on the road; it’s wicked fast. Part of this is, I’m sure, down to the superior aerodynamics, but on that front it’s not necessarily faster than the Crux or Rave. It feels fast though, and I think that comes down to a combination of stiffness and geometry. That really tight, snappy rear end and steep front make it feel like a road bike when you’re off-road, and while the rear end is actually pretty comfy in relative terms, the front end is very stiff indeed, meaning you get plenty of feedback that makes you feel like you’re hammering along. On flat sections it’s sensational, and the systemic stiffness from the frame, wheels and cockpit means it gobbles up sprints with only the tyres protesting every now and then.

One thing I did notice was that the very short back end had a tendency to leave the ground when really going hard over dried out shallow puddle craters. Not to the point I’d have to back off, but enough to pick slightly different lines sometimes or lean into it and get a little airtime for the whole bike (a very little, this isn’t Red Bull Rampage). It’s something I notice sometimes when doing hill sprints on very tight road bikes, but not something I've ever come across in a gravel bike.

Josh criticised the ONE for being too stiff in the front end, something I also knocked the Incolor SSR for, and while it’s hard to compare those to the Elara the front end stiffness here is moderated to a great degree by the 50mm tyre in the fork. I needed to dial the tyre pressures in more than usual here, and I estimate I was 5-7psi less than I’d normally run, but once it was all on-song it wasn’t an uncomfortable place to ride. It’s less comfy than the Fara GR4, and if I was personally doing a 7hr gravel event I think I’d be erring on the side of comfort, but if you want something that feels razor sharp and don’t mind a bit of fatigue at the end of the day you’ll be alright. In an ideal world I think I would run the tyre pressures lower still, but in order to do that comfortably where I live I’d need tyre inserts.

That tight geometry pays dividends in twisty sections, and it actually puts me more in mind of an old school cyclocross bike in many ways, except without the unstable high bottom bracket. It’s beautifully nimble, with a bottom bracket that’s low enough to not make it feel unbalanced. Like a cx bike it’s also a little twitchy when the going gets slippy, something gravel bikes with longer, more stable geometry don’t suffer with. If you’re happy playing fast and loose sometimes when things get slick then you’ll be absolutely fine, and it’s actually quite a lot of fun if you know what to expect, but it’s a different experience to many other gravel bikes in this regard.

Descending is exhilarating, again as a result of the geometry. It’s not necessarily what I’d call confidence inspiring, but if you’re already confident it’s very rewarding. The cockpit is a lovely place to lock into in the drops to slam down a gulley, and while it is a little twitchy it’s stable enough until you get to steep MTB-lite trails. For gravel racing courses it’ll be absolutely golden, which is what it was designed for after all.

In much the same way as I found the Ridley Noah to be a surprisingly good climber, I had the same experience here, though to say ‘surprisingly’ good is perhaps doing it a disservice. The steeper seat tube and position that’s more over the front of the bike mean rear end traction on steeper stuff is great as you can stay seated for longer. It also means there’s more traction on the front tyre in cornering, and if you get your tyres pressures right it’s really very good here, too.

While it’s a very good performer, I was actually struck by how un-extreme it felt in many situations. It looks wild, but I think I’d rather have this as a general use gravel bike than the Factor Aluto; it’s more capable on rough ground and so in my view is better as a gravel bike, it’s faster, and it feels less of an impediment on road, meaning it makes a better surrogate road bike if you must do that, but more importantly for me it makes the transition phases of a gravel ride that must be spent on tarmac feel engaging still, which is a huge bonus.

While I haven't had the opportunity to test the wheels independently they're certainly on-trend and bang up to date. Having smashed them about on some extremely rocky descents I can attest that they're pretty sure-footed, and considering the giant size of the forks in which they sit I didn't find them too blustery in crosswinds either. They're also the fastest wheels as per our latest wind tunnel test of gravel wheels, so it's very hard to fault them from a performance standpoint. We did use the Elara as the test rig, so there is the caveat that they may will have been designed in tandem with the frame, but still... fast wheels.

The Factor Elara as a road bike

Can you use an aero gravel bike as a road bike, freeing you from the burden of owning a beautiful racy road bike and allowing you the pleasure of constantly swapping wheels? You can, obviously. But should you?

Well, I slapped on a set of the Only SRAM wheels I had at my disposal, a pair of Zipp 202NSW climbing wheels (sub-optimal in terms of vibes I think it's fair to say) making the poor Elara look like it's skipped leg day in the gym. In an ideal world I'd have fit a set of 42mm road tyres to them from the latest crop, something I'm told Romain Bardet does with his Elara, but time is of the essence so 30mm GP5000s will have to do.

Does it work? Well, as with all good results the answer is a bit of yes and no. It feels fine, though perhaps a little low slung on such comparatively skinny tyres. It handles absolutely fine and you really do feel in many respects (especially along the flat and non-technical riding) that you could just be on an aero road bike, especially looking down at that fork crown. Sprints, too, are a delight. It's so stiff for a gravel bike that it just eats up high wattage efforts with ease, but isn't so stiff that its hugely uncomfortable on tarmac either.

The main drawbacks come in terms of handling. Having hopped back onto the Elara after a wonderful road ride aboard the new Look 795 Blade RS, a bike with a gorgeously sharp front end, riding the Elara on the road still feels really quite slack. The rear end helps keep things snappy but it still feels in many respects like being on a (admittedly very fast) endurance bike with quite leisurely geometry. This will afflict all gravel bikes used as road bikes in my view, and in fairness the Factor is the best of the bunch on the tarmac, but don't kid yourself that you'll be getting a proper road bike experience just by swapping the wheels.

Forget the 2x, but with 42mm slicks on it would be a pretty sensational all-road machine, able to stay fast and still get up to mischief.

Value

With SRAM Red the Elara is a full £1,400 (or $2,000) cheaper than an S-Works Crux, but £1,850 (or $1,500) dearer than a similarly equipped non-S-Works machine. In the guise I tested, with SRAM Force, it’s not really comparing like with like. The Elara with Force is basically the same as with Red, just with a different groupset, whereas the Force tier Crux has worse wheels to drop the price further still.

Comparing framesets the Factor is more expensive by £650 (or $800), but you get a cockpit here, so they’re roughly equivalent. My feeling is that the S-Works Crux is a little overpriced, but the standard Crux, in Red tier at least, is a slightly more compelling offering than the Elara, but there isn’t a great deal in it, and considering the options you can spec on the Elara vs the Crux it might actually tip the balance in favour of the Elara.

In this tier, with a Force groupset, it's a a slightly harder value proposition. You do get the superior aerodynamics, and you do get the fastest wheels, but is it $1,500 better than the Fara GR4, which weighs the same though has (presumably) worse aerodynamics, or $1k better than the Argon18 Anti Matter, that comes with a dedicated frame bag and a similar weight? I think if you're actually entering a series of gravel events and trying to do well in them then it might be, I'm less convinced, and I think most of that price differential is all in the wheels.

Verdict

If you want a gravel race bike then this absolutely has to be up for consideration. It is certainly not as fit for fast adventuring as the likes of the Fara GR4 in my view, but as a single minded machine it fulfils the brief exceptionally well without being so specialised in its purpose that it alienates a great proportion of the user base, as I suspect is the case with the ONE. It's actually a hell of a lot of fun to ride on the proviso you like your handling extremely sharp, and if ever there was a case for a gravel bike to be used also as a road bike it's probably this one, though I remain unconvinced on geometry grounds.

I do think if you aren't actually racing gravel, and are just after a gravel bike to smash about on very fast, then the Crux or GR4 might be a better generalist, depending on your choice of geometry. Comfort is a factor here, and over rough ground fatigue sets in earlier than with other machines, and if you're targeting particularly rough courses and you really want to max that tyre capacity out then you may want to look to something like the new Canyon Grail that can actually take a 57mm tyre in the front.