Meet the OPEN MIN.D
OPEN are a relatively young brand, but they've made a big impact, with the combined forces of Andy Kessler and Gerard Vroomen concentrating on building the kinds of bike that they want to ride themselves, to great success.
To date they've mainly focused on gravel/adventure bikes, and have helped define the category, not least with the hugely popular OPEN WI.DE, through its blend of innovative tech and supersmooth handling.
Now they're drawing on their masses of experience, at BMC and Cervélo respectively, to take inspiration from their road bike roots, whilst still pushing the envelope in terms of design.
The new MIN.D is a road-focused machine, with the emphasis on light weight but also very much on comfort (because as is so often pointed out comfort goes hand in hand with speed).
While we love pushing the envelope, we also love the classic bike aesthetic. In the MIN.D. both come together.
Gerard Vroomen
The MIN.D is, at first glance, a very 'classic' road frameset. There are no obvious gimmicks or special shock absorbing features, and the clean design harks back to an earlier age.
That's a little misleading though - this is an OPEN, after all - and looking a little closer there has been a lot of attention paid to the fine details.
Build your own custom MIN.D in our interactive online Bike Builder:
OPEN are convinced that comfort trumps aero outside of TT/Tri use, and the new MIN.D reflects that. There are no fancy KAMM tube profiles here, but every element has been tuned for maximum comfort and minimum weight.
There's a new R-Turn fork, which OPEN say is the lightest disc road fork currently available, and a superslim integrated seatpost and newly designed seatcap keep weight to an absolute minimum whilst providing some natural shock absorption.
What are those weights? Well, you're looking at around 870g for the frame (Medium, painted, with uncut seatmast, excluding metal parts, ±3%) and just 335g for the fork (±3%, uncut steerer).
OPEN have ditched the flatmount adapters to keep weight to a minimum, meaning that the MIN.D will only run 160mm rotors, but that's an eminently sensible decision in our opinion.
Clearance for larger volume tyres is a big part of the comfort recipe, so the MIN.D will accept tyres up to 32mm wide.
Geometry is the other major factor, and OPEN have paid particular attention to finding the perfect blend between long distance comfort, nimble handling and performance:
Our fit geometry is sportive (we still want to go fast) but with a realistic saddle-to-handlebar drop and reach. Our steering geometry is different from the traditional road bike standard, coupling agile handling to rock-solid stability.
The internal cable routing is of course ready for electronic, but will also work with Shimano's latest generation mechanical groupsets.
There's just one stock paint colour available, a stunning deep Midnight Blue with OPEN's colour panel accents. But of course there's also their customary "Ready to Paint" option - allowing you to choose your own unique paint scheme (we have close links with a number of brilliant paint shops who can work with you to find the perfect design).
The MIN.D is due to start shipping within the next 60 days. To discuss build options, fit, or to pre-order yours, get in touch now.
OPEN has done a lot of work on steering geometry in the past five years, using a steel mule frame with adjustable dropouts and headtube. The MIN.D. takes everything we've learned from our road bike test mule and our gravel bike on/off-road geometry experiments, putting it back into a pure road bike geometry.
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