Cervelo Aspero Apex XPLR AXS 1X - 2025

NEW ERA OF SPEED IN GRAVEL

We may not have made the first gravel bike, but we definitely made the fastest gravel bike. In 2019, Áspero took the world by storm, heralding a “new era of speed in gravel.” It was gravel, Cervelo-style. Since then, gravel bikes have grown, fragmented, and started to look a lot like the road and mountain bikes that spawned them, with suspension forks, bolt-ons for...everything, and ever-increasing tire widths.

The new Áspero remains true to those early, simpler days of gravel, but with some improvements—a threaded BB shell, neater cable routing, and a UDH-compatible derailleur hanger for those who want to use SRAM’s Transmission drivetrains. And it’s faster, of course. We shaved off three watts worth of drag in the redesign process. We also 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. Between those dropped seat stays, we added in a bit more clearance for mud, too. Aspero will clear a 45mm tire by ISO standards. ISO TRUE TO THE EARLY DAYS mandates a minimum of 4mm of clearance between tire and frame in all dimensions, but we’ve found (and we think folks at last year’s unbound will agree) that sometimes you need a bit more than 4mm in muddy conditions. We designed the Aspero around 42mm tires with an additional 3mm of clearance on top of what ISO requires, but if you’re feeling lucky (or your rides are typically dry), feel free to push that to 45mm. It’s a lot of seemingly small improvements, but they add up to a lot. The result is a bike that feels a lot like the original Aspero, but is faster, more comfortable, and more versatile.