Wilier Rave SLR £8,680 | 7.75kg

A speed-oriented gravel bike with a race-worthy low weight provides thrills aplenty, but watch out on the rough stuff, says Stefan Abram

- Stefan Abram

UCI APPROVED

Not so many gravel bikes come with this badge on the seat tube, but there's perhaps no clearer illustration of its racing intentions

SHORT HEAD TUBE

Quite the contrast to the sky-high stack of so many gravel bikes, the Rave SLR has a compact front end much more similar to a road bike

MISSING MOUNTS

Typically you can't move for them on a gravel bike, but the Rave SLR has no rack or mudguard mounts, nor a set of triple bosses on the forks

Gravel bikes as a category have been splitting into two distinct strands. The bikepacking- focused, multi-day adventuring sort contrasts with those lighter, faster, snappier models which have the gravel race scene in their sights.

Wilier, an Italian bike manufacturer with a heritage spanning over 100 years, has chosen here to focus very much on the latter. The Rave SLR gravel bike is lighter than many a carbon road bike and cuts a similar profile to that of Wilier’s Filante SLR aero bike. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look at the details.

Frame

While the contorting tube profiles and plethora of mounting bolts are something we’ve become quite accustomed to on so many gravel bikes, the Rave SLR bucks this trend with its clean, compact and very sleek aesthetic.

It’s a gravel bike that wouldn’t look out of place ridden solely on the tarmac and, sure enough, Wilier does offer a range of ‘all-road’ builds with Ultegra groupsets and SR AM’s larger 2x AXS gearing.