We're just two days out from the big Unbound Gravel showdown in Emporia, and the 2025 race is proving its reputation as the biggest hotbed of gravel tech of the season.
We've already brought you leaked images of what appears to be a new Specialized Diverge, a new Campagnolo gravel groupset, and an unreleased Factor. Now it appears Orbea is joining the party.
As social media posts from various pro athletes' recon rides become increasingly frequent, the only thing getting more airtime than photos of peanut-butter-mud-clogged tyres is images of unreleased bikes, with conveniently placed captions or scribbles hiding the details.
One such example came courtesy of Lukas Baum, cleverly hiding a photo of Lawrence Naesen's Orbea bike behind some overlaid text in his now-removed Instagram Story.
His subtle shot gave us some basic information, hinting at big tyre clearance, showing dropped chainstays and heavily dropped junctions between the seat stays and seat tube.
But on Thursday, I (Josh, here in Emporia on the hunt for tech) managed to spend ten minutes with another Orbea-sponsored rider, Morgan Aguirre, and got some detail photos to fill in the gaps left by Baum.
What can we see?
Put simply, the story with this new Orbea gravel bike looks to have followed the expected plot line for a 2025 gravel bike launch: Wider tyre clearance, more aero tubing, and more compliance. The latter is not necessarily confirmed, but looks to come courtesy of dropped seatstay junctions when compared to the Terra, Orbea's existing gravel race bike.
The frame also appears to have a deeper seat tube above this junction, suggesting Orbea has placed the clamp further down to create an extra element of compliance. It also features a round seatpost, perhaps hinting at dropper post compatibility too.
Elsewhere, we can see mounts atop the top tube, seen holding Aguirre's top tube spares bag, as well as Universal Derailleur Hanger (UDH) compatibility at the back and thus the ability to run SRAM's Transmission groupsets too.
Up front, Aguirre's bike is fitted with a two-piece bar and stem rather than the more modern one-piece cockpits found on some competitors. This doesn't outright rule out the potential for a one-piece option available to customers, but it does suggest the Spanish brand will offer the more traditional separate setup too.
The cables appear to route internally through the front end of the bike, suggesting a one-piece cockpit might be a viable option, but it's unclear at this stage whether the cables route externally beneath the stem, or through it.
It's also unclear exactly what tyre clearance Orbea has packed into this bike. We'd like to see it follow in the footsteps of Allied and Argon 18, both of whom offer room for 2.2in mountain bike tyres.
Aguirre is running the 50mm Schwalbe G-One R Pro tyres, and while there's not a massive amount of clearance to spare, we'd guess it's not impossible to squeeze in a 2.1in mountain bike tyre in dry conditions.
The one other thing we're unable to tell here is how soon this bike might be made available to the public.
It certainly looks like a finished product, and if it wasn't, you can be sure racers as strong as Aguirre and Naesen wouldn't risk a good result to be Orbea's guinea pigs.
