Wilier Rave SLR ID2

£9,200 This aero gravel racer can get busy when the going gets tricky

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This version of the Rave SLR has been designed with racing at its core - not that the original model was a slouch when it came to going fast. However, while it’s an excellent racer, there's more to the new Rave's bow - a lot more.

All the aero

The new frameset was developed at Wilier’s Innovation Lab in Italy, using 3D-modelling and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to optimise the Rave aerodynamically. It’s claimed to save 5.3W over the previous Rave SLR at 35kph. The bike has full NACA tubing profiles, and I like the small details, such as the widening down tube, which shields water bottles from the wind. Up front, the fork has a wide profile inspired by Wilier’s Supersonica SLR time-trial bike.

An optimised carbon fibre layup improves stiffness versus its predecessor, according to Wilier, and the bike is said to have more precise handling, thanks to a revised geometry. This matches a 71.2° head angle to a steeper 73.5" seat tube angle, with the stack on my large test bike a low 579mm, combined with a 393mm reach numbers akin to those of a road race bike. The frame is stripped back, with room for three bottles (one under the down tube), and bento box mounts on the top tube. That's all, though - there’s no down tube storage. Bringing things up to date, it has a SRAM UDH dropout and clearance for 52mm tyres.