BMC has refreshed its versatile URS line of journey gravel bikes, with the objective of creating them extra succesful off-road. Headline updates observe present trade tendencies, particularly wider tyre clearances and slacker geometry, but it surely’s value remembering that the URS, in all its guises, was already a really in a position bike over tough terrain.
This newest iteration builds on that purposeful basis – a top quality that BMC likes to name ‘Unrestricted’. It’s a machine constructed for bike packing, exploration, time spent in nature, and having enjoyable hooning about off-road. It’s not an all-road bike or a gravel race bike – BMC has the Roadmachine X and the Kaius for these situations.
In actual fact, the URS blurs the road between gravel bike and hardtail, a contentious difficulty proper now with main riders like Keegan Swenson competing in occasions similar to Leadville 100 on XC mountain bikes fitted with drop bars.
BMC has additionally launched a gravel e-bike model of the URS, which in itself isn’t significantly out of the bizarre. However, with the use case so sturdy, it might promote wider acceptance of electrical motors inside the e-bike resistant drop bar group. A gateway bike, if you’ll.
There are 4 major fashions inside the wider URS vary: the URS, URS 01, URS 01 LT and electrical URS AMP LT, with all however the latter out there in a wide range of completely different builds. It’s most likely best to consider the URS as the bottom mannequin, with the URS 01 and its variants extra premium selections. Nevertheless, with costs beginning at $5,999, none of those bikes could be thought-about cheap.
Earlier than stepping into the element of every mannequin, let’s have a look at how BMC has revised the main frequent options.
Options and upgrades
Improved tyre clearance
The brand new BMC URS has adopted tendencies, with a rise in tyre clearance
(Picture credit score: BMC)
All 4 fashions ship with 44mm tyres with clearance for as much as 47mm (measured). BMC says 50mm (measured) tyres will match however solely simply, so the model does not suggest them. For those who completely should match them then restrict your using to dry situations the place you’re not going to select up any mud – which can preclude most of us.
The URS also can take 650b wheels as an aftermarket choice, wherein case 50mm clearance is genuinely out there.
The benefit of working larger tyres is the elevated air quantity this offers. Extra quantity means you’ll be able to run decrease pressures, which will increase grip and lessens the danger of punctures. Decrease pressures may also reduce rider fatigue throughout lengthy stretches over uneven floor.
At launch, most URS fashions have been fitted with WTB Raddler tyres, which is fast-rolling rubber with a comparatively delicate centre tread lined with toothy outer knobs for enhanced grip, particularly on free corners or deep mud.
Geometry
The URS’s geometry is characterised by an extended body attain, mixed with a brief stem. On a measurement M, that is 410 and 72mm respectively. This can be a geo trick that will probably be acquainted to mountain bikers as a result of the improved attain offers stability, whereas a brief stem offers extraordinarily direct and responsive dealing with.
The pinnacle angle is now even slacker too at 69.5 °, for extra assured dealing with on steep downhill sections. Conversely, the seat tube stays comparatively steep at 74.5° to deliver the rider’s weight over the centre of the bike for higher stability and management on ascents.
The extra tyre clearance has both enabled or required — relying on the way you have a look at it — longer chainstays, which have grown 5mm to 430mm (435mm on the AMP), growing the wheelbase to 1077mm for a measurement M, up from 1064 for the earlier model.
The underside bracket has additionally been dropped by 7mm to decrease the centre of gravity, which doesn’t sound like loads however BMC maintains that it makes a distinction.
Lastly, BMC has elevated the variety of body sizes by one to 5, from XS to XL. This implies the URS ought to be rideable for anybody from “beneath 167 cm” (we’ll ask BMC for clarification as to the beginning top) to 188 cm in top and taller. I’m 190cm and each the L and XL fitted me properly.
Suspension choices
MicroTravel Expertise (MTT) seatstays assist consolation, however aren’t a brand new addition
(Picture credit score: BMC)
All fashions, apart from the bottom URS, characteristic suspension, as did the outgoing vary. That is both to enhance consolation, so you’ll be able to journey longer with much less fatigue, or to allow the entrance wheel to higher monitor uneven surfaces for improved grip. The latter permits you to discover routes that beforehand would have been too bold for a gravel bike.
The URS 01 options MicroTravel Expertise (MTT) seatstays and an ICS MTT stem. The seat stays characteristic an XCell damper on the junction with the seat tube that offers the rear triangle 10 mm of journey, measured from the centre of the rear wheel. None of that is new, however with this newest mannequin of URS it’s attainable to simply swap out and in dampers to change journey high quality. Three completely different grades can be found – delicate, medium and exhausting.
BMC licences the know-how for the ICS MTT stem from Redshift, however makes some important tweaks, together with provision for built-in cabling. It’s a easy system that depends on compliant elastomer inserts to considerably scale back vibration by way of the handlebars when traversing tough surfaces. The quantity of cushion could be simply adjusted to go well with the rider or situations by merely changing elastomer inserts. 5 ranges of hardness can be found.
The 01 LT mannequin retains the rear suspension however ditches the stem in favour of an MTT suspension fork with 20mm of sprung journey. The coil suspension factor is nearly fully hid inside the headtube, however springs possessing completely different tensions, and washers providing various ranges of preload, can be found as choices.
The MTT fork may also be locked for street use, or left huge open for off-road, through an aluminium Hello-Trip dial positioned on high of the stem.
Accessible groupsets
BMC opts for a mullet set-up
(Picture credit score: BMC)
BMC has adopted SRAM’s UDH for the URS, primarily I believe to benefit from SRAM’s new Purple XPLR AXS groupset, which is just suitable with UDH-equipped bikes.
A key benefit of UDH is that it offers a exact interface between rear mech and dropout by utterly getting rid of the necessity for a derailleur hanger. This ends in extra exact, extra dependable shifting. It’s extra strong too, as a result of there’s no hanger to bend on a rock strike or drop.
There are presently no Shimano groupset choices for the URS as a result of BMC favor a ‘mullet’ choice – mtb parts on the rear and road-spaced cranks up entrance – that, proper now, is best served by SRAM. Actual element alternative differs from construct to construct however, for instance, the top-tier URS 01 ONE options a mixture of SRAM RED XPLR AXS parts with SRAM XX SL Eagle Transmission on the rear.
Mounts and safety
Body safety comes as customary on all 01 fashions
(Picture credit score: BMC)
After all, it’s compulsory to hold loads of equipment with you in your adventures. Luckily, each URS mannequin is roofed in a rash of mounting factors, together with these for racks and fenders. You discover them on the fork, down tube, seat tube, high tube, rear stays – just about in every single place in actual fact.
Evidently no gravel bike today is worthy even of consideration for an journey except it has down tube storage, ideally hidden behind the bottle cage. Sure, I do know it retains your mini-tool and spare tube good and clear however I can’t assist pondering that these little areas, which want loads of reinforcing, do little however add weight to a body. BMC has, in fact, offered.
The 01 fashions characteristic intensive body safety, together with an extended, rubberised down tube and BB cowl, to stop rock strikes marking the body or worse.
Mannequin breakdown
URS
The bottom URS mannequin is the purist’s alternative. It doesn’t characteristic suspension, nor does it have built-in cabling or a lot in the best way of body safety.
It does, nevertheless, really feel extra direct to journey, which can attraction to these in search of a motorbike suited to quick gravel. Accessible in two builds, it’s the one mannequin that may be specced with mechanical shifting.
URS 01
The URS 01 is kind of an improve from the bottom URS as a result of it options suspension. With MTT seatstays and an ICS TT stem, this bike is extra snug and succesful off-road then the bottom URS. It additionally options prolonged body safety.
At launch, it’s out there in three construct ranges.
URS 01 LT
The 01 LT mannequin favours an MTT suspension fork with 20mm of journey for elevated contact and grip when using uneven floor. It’s presently out there in two construct configurations.
URS AMP LT
This mannequin is nearly an identical to the 01 LT, however is fitted with a near-silent HPR50 motor that outputs 50 Nm of torque and as much as 300 watts of peak energy. This boosts its off-road functionality significantly, whether or not you’re a match rider or not. It’s out there in only one construct configuration.
First journey impressions
Simon Fellows aboard the BMC amp
(Picture credit score: BMC)
For the URS launch, BMC invited me to journey roughly 100km of gravel and blended surfaces close to its HQ within the Swiss Jura mountains. Extra particularly, I used to be using the excessive ridge to the north of Olten and Neuchatel that encompasses the Thal Nationwide Park and peaks similar to Weissenstein, the Hasenmatt and the Grenchenberg.
The route actually was various – every thing from broad gravel tracks sweeping by way of alpine meadows to slim singletrack tightly meandering by way of woodland of hornbeam and beech.
The gravel farm tracks served up loads of steep ascent and, in fact, descent. For probably the most half, the gravel particles have been small, deep and free however sometimes we’d come throughout sections with gullies full of chunkier, free rocks.
The only monitor was invariably far much less pleasant. Very steep, twisty and lined with fearsome-looking rock gardens, it required some care and for me, at the least, the occasional little bit of hike-a-bike. Nevertheless, we have been all the time using inside the sound of cowbells, if it sounds idyllic, properly, it was.
I rode all 4 bikes. The bottom URS felt tight and managed, with that slacker headtube — I might see the entrance wheel method out in entrance, a lot additional than I’m used to — giving it an air of stability on the downhill sections. Quick, correct and fast to speed up, nothing a lot appeared to unsettle it.
Nevertheless, add suspension into the combo, working in tandem with plush 42mm tyres, and the URS turns into a distinct beast fully. The MTT stem does an amazing job of accelerating consolation by lowering vibration by way of the arms and wrists however the MTT fork was on a distinct degree once more.
Using the URS LT was an eye-opener for me. I discovered myself floating throughout the rocky sections that I’d discovered mildly terrifying just some hours earlier than. But, surprisingly sufficient, I seen no handicap when it comes to torsional stiffness on the quicker, sweeping gravel sections or tarmac lanes. We weren’t hanging about both – my Karoo recorded speeds of as much as 68 kph.
Among the worst surfaces we coated when it comes to consolation have been grass meadows pockmarked with the deep indentations left by cow hooves — akin to using cobbles, however worse. I’m not going to faux that I floated throughout these too, however at the least the suspension fork made them bearable, and I nonetheless have all my very own tooth to show it.
Including the TQ motor was a game-changer. Using the URS AMP LT, ascents that may ordinarily have been too steep and free, all of a sudden turned possible. To some extent I might make up for my lack of motorbike abilities by simply powering on by way of.
Lengthy, delicate ascents that may have turn into a bore within the humid, 35-degree warmth turned pleasurable because the passing airflow, generated by my now much-improved easy pace, cooled my physique.
The TQ motor is remarkably clean and silent, with a really pure journey really feel, so I can’t ever keep in mind it intruding on the journey. I can perceive why mountain bikers in Europe have totally embraced e-bikes, as a result of at off-road speeds they’re working properly beneath the authorized 25 km/h cut-off pace, a determine that’s an actual frustration for many roadies as a result of it’s really easy to surpass it. Gravel riders, then again, will spend far more of their time battling on at a extra sedate charge, so I can predict an upswell in e-bike curiosity sooner or later.
The URS is a high quality gravel bike, however that’s sort of lacking the purpose. Push previous gravel, into unknown territory the place the situations are prone to get more difficult and it excels.
Specs
UK pricing is but to be introduced however we are able to deliver you Euro and US greenback prices.
URS 01
ONE
Groupset: SRAM RED XPLR AXS / SRAM XX SL Eagle Transmission
Wheelset: ZIPP 101 XPLR
Worth: € / $11,999
THREE
Groupset: Drive XPLR AXS / SRAM X0 Eagle Transmission
Wheelset: CRD-400
Worth: € / $8,499
FOUR
Groupset: SRAM Rival XPLR AXS / SRAM GX Eagle Transmission
Wheelset: DT Swiss G 1800 SPLINE
Worth: € / $5,999
URS 01 LT
ONE
Groupset: SRAM Drive XPLR AXS / SRAM X0 Eagle Transmission
Suspension fork: MTT Suspension Fork (HiRide, 20mm)
Wheelset: CRD-400
Worth: € / $8,999
TWO
Groupset: SRAM Rival XPLR AXS / SRAM GX Eagle Transmission
Suspension fork: MTT Suspension Fork (HiRide, 20mm)
Wheelset: DT Swiss G 1800 SPLINE
Worth: € / $6,499
URS AMP LT e-bike
Groupset: SRAM Drive XPLR AXS / SRAM X0 Eagle Transmission
Suspension fork: MTT Suspension Fork (HiRide, 20mm)
Wheelset: CRD-400
Motor: TQ HPR50
Worth: € / $9,999
URS
TWO
Groupset: SRAM Apex XPLR AXS / SRAM X1 Eagle AXS
Wheelset: DT Swiss G 1800 SPLINE
Worth: € / $4,499
THREE
Groupset: SRAM Apex 1 / SRAM Apex Eagle
Wheelset: DT Swiss G 1800 SPLINE
Worth: € / $3,799
