BMC URS-01 Two

Lex Albrecht avec son nouveau vélo BMC : Le URS 01 Twoé  

 

Due partly to a bicycle supply shortage caused indirectly by the pandemic, for the first time in two years, Lex Albrecht finally celebrated New Bike Day at Cycles Tecnhnique bike shop in Montreal, Québec.  "It was worth the wait, it's probably been around a decade since I've had this much anticipation and excitement about getting a brand new bike."  

Lex's BMC is a URS-01 Two, BMC's all-new gravel bike:

 

BMC is known for its exceptional road bikes and innovative engineering.  But you may have asked yourself, "Does BMC make a gravel bike?" The answer is now Yes.  The BMC gravel bike is called URS, prounoucned "err-z". The URS blends slightly relaxed road geometry with mountain bike versatility.  Lex says: "The oad bike-like geometry is important to me, because I've ridden over 100,000 km on a road bike - that's what I'm used to and that's what I love.  Don't make me change a great thing!" 

The 70 degree head tube angle is 1.3 off of what the BMC Timemachine Road bike features, meaning the gravel bike's reach is slightly longer than a road bike.  The far reach is made up for by a short stem, similar to what is found on most mountain bikes.  "I'm no Swiss engineer, but I'm told that mountain bike inspiration from this short stem is partly why off-road the URS will handle so well in off road conditions"

 

Lex's URS is mounted with SRAM's Mullet Drive Train.  SRAM coined this term referring to road compontents on the front (SRAM Force AXS shifters) and mountain bike components in the back (SRAM AXS X01). The AXS shifting system is wireless, and the shifterse communicate with the derailleurs by Bluetooth signal. The 1x set-up at the crank is complimented by a 12-speed 10-52 cassette.  "Even on the road I choose bigger gears in the back whenever I can.  I race with a 28, and have wished for 32s.  I've coveted cassesttes with a dinnerplate sized gearing in the back, and I've finally got one on the URS gravel bike.  This is going to bring me far off of the beaten path and that's where the most fun happens..."

 

Micro Travel Technology (MTT) offers 15mm of dampening rear suspension, and riders can chooses to switch out the fork for a suspension fork.  The factory installed fork can accept tires of up to 45mm measured width.  The URS gravel bike comes with WTB Radler 40mm gravel bike tires that feature ample tread.

 

The BMC URS 01 Two also features a thoughtful and ruggedly stylish rubberized coating on the front fork tips to protect the frame during untimely tube changes in the back country.  Various mounts prove that the engineers who designed the bike really did think of everything.  The bike features a port for hub dynamo cable routing (that's for a light generator that's powered can be powered in the front hub of a special wheel set-up), mount for a screw-in bento box on the top-tub, ports for various groupset switches (for riders who prefer to run mechancial shifting, or Shimano for example), a discretely integrated rear fender mounting bolt, and a place to mount a third water bottle or flat kit cage.  

As is the case with all of BMC's bikes blessed with the 01 nomenclature, all of the cabling is internally routed, making for a clean, slick look - and less parts to get caught on branches or sticks in fields or while cycling through single track forest trails.

 

"I'll admit it here, and I will probably admit again in the future that I didn't believe in gravel bikes when they first hit the market.  I thought they were a marketing gimmick from the bike industry, because I've ridden many gravel roads - some of them pretty gnarly - on my road bike.  My bike survived, I had fun, and I just didn't get what the point of having something "more" was."

Lex says that the most epic gravel ride she did was in the summer of 2020 when she did a 10-day trip to the northern region of Abitibi on her motorcycle, bike in tow on the 2x2 Cycles rack.  The mining roads she found herself on after breaking her toe during a minor motorcycle accident were navigatable on a road bike: Sena #AdventureSeeker - Riding Connected on a motorcycle and bicycle trip to Abitibi, Québec. Day 2 - YouTube

 

If you're asking "Where can I buy a BMC bike?" visit https://www.bmc-switzerland.com/ where you can find a local retailer.  Lex's BMC URS 01 Two comes from Cycles Technique bike store in the St. Henri neighbourhood of Montreal, Canada.