OPEN Complete bike offerings released

Before we get to the complete bikes, let's take a quick look at the new gravel groupset released by SRAM at Force level. We like it a lot, as it borrows many of the new features of the new Red XPLR AXS that was released last year, in particular:

• Transmission rear derailleur, which is very easy to set up, shifts very precisely and is rock solid. You may have seen some videos of people putting their bike on the ground and jumping on their Transmission rear derailleur. We don't recommend it, but it is possible!

• 13-speed cassette, so you never lack range again and don't have to sacrifice precision. Force comes with the same 10-46T cassette range as Red. If you want even bigger, then you can always spec the Eagle Transmission mountain bike rear derailleur and cassette. Since it's all AXS, it all communicates flawlessly and you can control the mountain bike RD with your dropbar shifters.

• Overhauled brakes, which traditionally was one area where many felt Shimano was ahead. The new Red and Force brakes are a major step forward and designed around one-finger braking. We really like it here at OPEN.

What all of this adds up to in the end is that the Red XPLR groups is almost 250g lighter, but Force XPLR is around 1,400 €/$ less expensive. 

We're happy to tell you that we will offer both Red XPLR AXS and Force XPLR AXS groups from now on with all our UDH-compatible frames. This is how it will work.

For a bike company, there are two and a half ways to offer your products:

1) As a complete bike. This used to be the exception, but in the past decades this has become the default for the industry, with 99% of bikes being sold this way. It has some benefits for the bike brand (more margin on a complete bike than on just the frameset), the dealer (less assembly work for small and overworked shops) and the customer (quick availability).

But there are also drawbacks. High-end dealers prefer to do their own assembly rather than rely on the assembly of the few huge companies that do this for almost all of the brands (very few brands assemble their own bikes). So they need to disassemble the bike and then reassemble it, taking more time instead of less. For the customer, a complete bike means less choice to pick certain components - even a different crank length can be an issue (and if your shop is nice and swaps the crank for you, it has now become an inventory issue for them).

We have done some complete bikes in the past, during and after the COVID upheaval when parts were hard to source and offering complete bikes gave our dealers and customers the best chance to get an OPEN up and running in a reasonable timeframe. But we're happy those days are over because we prefer to do it differently.

2) As a frameset. This is how the bike world used to work and how we still usually do it. This gives complete freedom to the rider and their bike shop to build the bike exactly the way they like them. It also makes it easy to accommodate custom paint (which we love) and gives the bike shop the opportunity to do the full assembly from scratch. However, the drawback is that a dealer spends a lot of time on procuring parts, the customer may be bogged down by decision paralysis and the time from order to first ride may be considerable.  

2.5) As kits. Here we offer the same framesets as for option 2, but we also give you the chance to choose from several drivetrain kits and wheel kits to turn that frameset into a complete bike. We don't offer too many options (no decision stress), just the stuff that Andy or I like the best. 

The first advantage of working this way for customers and dealers is that we basically have "complete yet unassembled" bikes in stock, so delivery is fast. It also works for us, as we can more quickly adjust stock if something turns out to be more or less popular than forecasted. 

Because the kits are unassembled, you can choose to put a short crank on a large frame or vice versa. You're also free to splurge on the drivetrain and economize on the wheels. Or vice versa. Or go overboard on both counts (that's Andy for you :-). 

At the same time, the bike shop can efficiently do the final assembly to their standards. They also may not mind as much if you swap out a few more parts, since they are not yet assembled. Of course, if you order a frameset with drivetrain and wheel kits directly from the web-store, we take care of the assembly so you always get a fully-assembled complete bike.

The parts kits are an option in addition to our "traditional" frameset offer, so it doesn't limit you in any way. You can still piece out each and every part, go for Shimano, try DT Swiss wheels or opt for Ultradinamico tires. And we will continue to give you advice on which parts make the most sense for you, like we have always done (just because we like it).

We're diving into the new kit project with two groupsets and two wheelsets:

Groupset kits: 

SRAM Red XPLR AXS 1x13: the no-holds barred gravel group

SRAM Force XPLR AXS 1x13: offers most of the performance of the Red XPLR at a great price

Wheel kits: 

Zipp 303 XPLR SW: Wide, deep and fast, at a very competitive sub-1500g weight (quite amazing given their size)

Zipp 303 XPLR S: Its more economical sibling at 1610g

The above applies to web-store sales worldwide.

For bikes purchased at dealers, if you're in Europe or elsewhere except North America, you also get all the above options. For bikes purchased at North American dealers, the drivetrain kits are the same butwe will offer my personal favorite wheel - the brand-new HED Stillwater G50 - instead of the Zipps.  The Stillwater is also a deep, wide gravel-specific wheelset and as with every HED wheelset, these are made in Minnesota. 

All wheelsets come with 45mm wide Schwalbe G-One RS PRO tubeless ready tires.

There are two important details: