Spend enough time on the previous Áspero and you learn exactly what's worth keeping, and Cervélo clearly agreed. This is still a gravel race bike first, built around efficient pedaling, quick handling, and a front-of-the-pack attitude. What's new is a handful of practical upgrades I'd been waiting to see: a threaded bottom bracket shell, tidier cable routing, and a UDH-compatible rear end for anyone who wants to run one of SRAM's Transmission drivetrains. It's also more aero, though on this bike aero isn't really about raw speed. Cervélo frames it as energy conservation, and I use the same pitch with riders: after a big day in a headwind, the three watts saved over the previous Áspero might add up to one less energy gel your stomach has to digest. Worth it.

The frame is Cervélo's all-carbon layup paired with a tapered all-carbon Áspero fork, and the geometry stays aggressive the way you'd expect from a bike wearing this badge. Stack and reach sit closer to an aero road bike than a relaxed endurance rig, which is why it rewards riders who want to push pace rather than sit up and cruise. For this generation Cervélo dropped the seatstays to add compliance out back and quietly softened the front-end stiffness, so the last hours of a long race hurt a little less. In addition to the drag reduction, they dropped the seat stays to give a bit more compliance out back and reduced front-end stiffness slightly to make the last hours of a long race less painful, and between those dropped seat stays they added a bit more clearance for mud, taking what they learned from R5-CX and the Unbound mudfest in 2023.

Two details I always point out to riders cross-shopping this against other gravel race bikes. The bottom bracket is the asymmetrical T47a threaded interface Cervélo pioneered on the R5-CX. It's a simple, rider-serviceable interface that delivers the benefits of BBRight in a more user-friendly form. That's a genuine relief compared to press-fit creaking. The rear end uses SRAM's Universal Derailleur Hanger standard, so you can live your best business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back life with one of SRAM's Transmission drivetrains today, and it ensures compatibility for future drivetrain developments. This particular build leans into exactly that, pairing a road drivetrain up front with a mountain-derived Transmission out back.... Read More