New 2026/27 BMC Kaius 01 gravel bike

Up until recently, the road-inspired layups and racy angles of the best gravel bikes have resulted in reduced comfort and vibration-induced speed loss over challenging terrain. Having spent a lot of time riding and racing gravel bikes all over the world, I’ve experienced the very best and worst of it – including the corrugated and technical terrain of Gravel Burn in South Africa late last year. Looking back at my Gravel Burn experience, I cited the Cannondale SuperX Lab71 I used for the event was perhaps too racy given the technicality of the terrain, and I’d have been better off on something like the new BMC Kaius had it been available at the time.

Having tested the Kaius 01 One at the press event in Sardinia on a testing assortment of terrain types, I’ve come away impressed by what it offers as a package, especially in terms of overall trail compliance, front-end control, stability, and comfort – most of which stems from the clever frame design and geometry, and provision for wider tyres. BMC is a firm believer in the purity of the gravel bike and in the idea that suspension forks and shocks should be reserved for mountain bikes, not drop-bar race machines.

While gravel courses are getting increasingly more technical and demanding on both the body and the bike, BMC, like several other manufacturers, has looked to the humble tyre as a solution, exploring how wider clearances and aerodynamic efficiency can achieve parity. In fact, the biggest evolution in gravel bike design over the past two years has been an increase in tyre clearance, and the added capability, comfort, and speed wider gravel bike tyres provide when smooth tarmac becomes rough and rowdy gravel.

BMC hasn’t merely shoehorned wider tyres into the existing platform either, but has instead looked holistically at the Kaius platform, tweaking the tube shapes, frame architecture, and layup to create what it believes is “the answer to every gravel racer’s wish.”

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