Thank you for the information, that all sounds pretty good to me.

3T warranty replaced my white Exploro with the new Exploro FM. Great customer service.

Thought I would share the good experience and a few more pics:

New bike with the Stans 650b wheels and 2.1in knobbies:

Telluride

Telluride


Black Bear

What was the issue for the warranty replacement?

Cracking around the seatpost. The new retention clamp fixes the issue.

Good thing you got your replacement before showing these photos :-)

Great photos, I might have check Telluride out. I've been near there but haven't ever ridden around there.

<squints> 44T chainring?

Nice ride.

Yep. 44t wolf tooth.

Ditched the road bike. No regrets.
https://imgur.com/a/hHpWw9i

Have you raced cross on this thing yet? I have been looking for a commuter/gravel/adventure/cross bike. In my mind a cross bike that can mount racks and plenty of bottles.

Did you race cross on it?

Looking to sell anytime soon?

This thing was excellent for Saturday.

I wanted to do my usual Saturday morning spirited road ride, but a friend was organizing a gravel ride in the same area at noon. Not enough time for swapping bikes. No problem! After 30 miles (and most of the big efforts) of the road ride, a couple guys decided to split off for home, and their route went within six miles of where the gravel ride started. So I cruised along with them for fifteen miles, did my solo six, and was just in time.

A couple others wanted to join me, but they didn't have time to switch to their gravel bikes. :(

I got this Factor ViSTA last week. So far, it feels amazing. I don't think there is a more aero gravel/all-road bike on the market right now.

Damn. Looks nice. What clearance do you have?

early rumors where like 35/36 might be tops clearance wise.

The tires pictured are 38 Gravelking SKs that measure 40mm on those Black Inc wheels. I raced that setup at Texas Chainring this weekend, and it was plenty of clearance. In a muddy race, I would use 32s and I think it would be fine for even Landrun style mud.

My previous bike was a 3T Exploro, and on it i very rarely raced or trained on anything wider than a true 40mm tire.

nice.. clearance looks about as tight as I would go though... good to see it fits a little larger then many of the early reviewers stated. I will be trying 650x47 real soon.. I can do 50 in the front with 650B

Why’d you switch from the Exploro? How does the Factor compare so far?

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Matt

A few reasons. To be fully transparent, the 3T and the Factor are both the result of team sponsorship. The Exploro excited us for a bunch of reasons. Lots of tire clearance. A focus on aero (which we knew was going to be a big deal in gravel). An option to run huge 650b tires.

The Exploro does lots of things well, but we felt like as pure gravel racers, the ViSTA was the best gravel racing bike. The truth is, we didn't need something that could kind of do double duty as a mountain bike. I never once mounted 650bs. I also had frequent chain drops on the Exploro, and the chain would get wedged deep between the crank bolts and BB. Based on the courses i race, I'm not willing to go 1x, so this was a big deal.

With the Factor, it takes the things we love about the exploro and adds an additional layer of polish to them. The Exploro was aero, but the Factor refined that aero idea even more. We knew how much tire clearance we needed, and we have it with the Factor, but without the dropped chain stay (which causes chain suck in muddy conditions) and without bb386 (which I believe was what limited the space between chainring bolts and the frame which caused our chains to get stuck when they dropped).

Some on our team felt the Exploro was too harsh. Personally, I didn’t notice it. With the right size tire and the right tire pressure, the Exploro felt smooth to me. The narrow stays on the Factor do seem to absorb some vibration, almost like a leaf spring.

The Factor is the most stable bike I’ve ridden. It tracks very straight. I’ve never ridden a bike that is easier to ride with no hands. In the race this weekend, I took off my vest in a crosswind while I was riding on the chunky gravel shoulder. It wasn’t an issue at all. On the 3T, those conditions would have made me a bit more nervous. The 3T to me felt a little nervous in corners. Something about the front end just didn't feel right. The Factor carves through turns like a road bike.

When you remove the rear wheel of the Factor, your rear derailleur doesn't fall off. Cables are completely hidden, unlike the behind-the-stem routing the 3T has. The seatpost clamp of the Factor seems to be a more finished version of the 3T clamp. If you are short, the smaller sized Exploros don't have much room inside the triangle for large bottles. Even the smallest sized Factor has plenty of room for 1L bottles in standard cages (the 3T needed side loading cages).

I'm not sponsored by 3T anymore, but i still won't say anything bad about that bike. It's a good bike, and does a lot of things well. However, for a pure gravel racing bike, the Factor is a better option.

If I'm being picky and honest, here are some downsides to the Factor. There are no top tube bosses for a bento box, but that is easily fixed by using a velcro bag from Darkspeedworks (i'm not sponsored by them, but i do like their packs and will buy one shortly). The current bar/stem doesn't allow for clip-on aerobars, but I believe they are designing a solution for this right now. With the way gravel racing is going, aerobars are a huge advantage, and most races do allow them. Hopefully by Dk200 i will have this part figured out.

Factor did a lot of cool things with that frame but designing a "pure gravel bike" with only 35mm (stated) tire clearance is a head scratcher.

What are the odds they were trying to make a UCI legal play?

The Cervelo C-line is another head scratcher.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

It fits a true 40. The Gravel King 38 measures 40mm, and it fits.

I think companies would rather be on the safe side when recommending tire size because the actual size varies so much on different rims. Some 40s measure 44mm, so a frame company won't want to say "we fit 40c tires" because it would lead to disappointment when somebody tries to squeeze their 44mm tire that says "40" into a frame that can only fit a true 40.

In at least 75% of the races i did last year, i used 35s (which measure 38). In a couple races I used 32s. There was only one race that I used something bigger than a true 40. I raced in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Michigan, and I guess technically part of MO.

If that merely means that it doesn't rub, that's normal for a bike that states 35mm. 35->40 is only 2.5mm on each side, quite a bit less than is usually added on top of stated.

In the gravel I ride in central and western Montana and north Idaho I’ve been plenty happy with 32-37 mm. I’ve thought about going wider, but I sometimes I’m riding on 15 miles of pavement until I get to the gravel and don’t want a wider tire for that.

While the idea of being able to fit a 650b 2” tire sounds neat, if I’m riding on terrain requiring it I’d personally think a mountain bike would be a better option. But I get why people are interested in having the flexibility all in one bike

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Matt

I’ve never looked at Factor bikes. I just checked them out - nice geo and some some nice fractures. Man, that tire clearance is a total deal breaker for me. To me it defeats one of the main points of a bike like this - versitility. If you can’t run 700x28 all the way to 650x50, then it becomes a narrow scope bike for no particular reason.

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