Open is a bike brand that seems to be always ahead of the trend. The company’s co-founder, Gerard Vroomen, was half of the brains behind Cervélo and has always had a knack for creating bikes we never knew we wanted.
The original Open UP – a bike with what looked like a road frame but with clearance for 650b wheels and 2.1in mountain bike tyres – was bizarre on first sight. However, it proved to be hugely popular and broke new ground in the space between gravel bikes and hardtail mountain bikes.
Open dubbed it ‘GravelPlus’ but, with many gravel bikes now offering dual wheel size compatibility, this category is no longer really necessary. Not that we needed any further confusion anyway.
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Open achieved the UP’s wide clearance while maintaining a short and road-oriented 420mm chainstay length by using a then-unique dropped chainstay design on the driveside.
That allowed the use of wide tyres while making the UP handle like a road bike, a feature that has since been emulated by dozens of its competitors. For the Wi.DE, Vroomen has gone one step further.
Bigger is better
The bike introduces the ‘monostay’, where both chainstays are dropped. That means the Wi.DE can fit a whopping 2.4in tyre on 650b wheels, something that would have been unorthodox to see even on cross-country mountain bikes a few years back.
Equally, the double dropped stays allow 700c wheels to be paired with tyres as wide as 46mm. The monostay also increases stiffness at the bottom bracket, as the chainstays form a solid junction unit just beaneath.
Vroomen says this extra clearance helps to separate the Wi.DE from the UP, with the former being slightly more trail-oriented and the latter slightly more road-oriented.
‘The UP and Wi.DE do the same thing but with a different focus,’ he says. ‘The UP is great for tyres ranging from 700c x 28mm to 650b x 54mm [2.1in], whereas the Wi.DE’s range is more 700c x 35mm to 650b x 60mm. If you really spend a lot of time on tough trails, the Wi.DE is the better choice because you’ll want to go beyond 54mm tyres.’
In terms of handling, the Wi.DE has a slightly more relaxed geometry than the UP, but Vroomen assures me that the ride is essentially the same.
Buy the Open WI.DE now from CycleFit
I first rode the Wi.DE on a trip to Idaho in the United States, with a set of 2.35in Schwalbe G-One Speed tyres. I quickly found my way onto some high, narrow and rocky trails in the Idaho mountains, where the Wi.DE gave me huge confidence.
That was partly down to the wide tyres, but the geometry also played a part. The front end was lively, darting around rocks and through cracks without disturbing stability, and the bike was agile on technical fire-road descents.
The most striking thing, though, was how much the Wi.DE felt like a road bike. It’s pretty light for a gravel bike, which made steep inclines relatively breezy, and the mixture of light weight and relaxed geometry made riding gravel trails a lively affair. The same roads would have proved boring on a full-suspension mountain bike.
Once back in the UK, I switched to the set of narrower 2.1in Schwalbe G-One Bite tyres pictured, which hit a sweetspot on trails that are far less challenging than the Rocky Mountains. This bestowed confidence on bridleways and moderate singletrack, but didn’t dramatically affect the handling or ride quality on the road.
I’ve tested the UP, and the Wi.DE’s double-dropped chainstay does indeed seem to have further increased the lateral stiffness. On skinny tyres at higher pressure it really did feel like a rigid road racer.
The WI.DE. has multiple mounts for endurance riding and bikepacking
Vroomen claims this is down to the patented carbon layup, which he calls (with tongue firmly in cheek) TRCinTRS. That stands for ‘The Right Carbon in The Right Spot’.
At 170mm the head tube isn’t low enough to satisfy the most aggressive road setups, but that’s not the position you’d want to find yourself in anyway.
A more upright position with a shorter reach and higher stack helps handling and stability on tougher terrain, but at the same time the head tube is not so high as to pitch your weight too far back, which would affect traction on steep inclines.
Eagle eyes
Some have criticised the lack of a front derailleur mount on the Wi.DE, but to me it makes complete sense. I’m an advocate of 1x groupsets generally, but never more than on a bike like this.
The range of gears offered by the XX1 Eagle setup is impressive. To put it in perspective, it provides a bigger overall range than a mid-compact chainset with a sizeable 11-36t rear cassette.
I found myself able to climb almost anything. I even managed off-road ramps I’ve never been able to get up before (sometimes after a couple of attempts, admittedly), which I put down to a combination of frame stiffness, geometry, gearing and tyres. Whatever it was, it was a lot of fun.
When I was testing the Wi.DE, many people posed the question of whether someone who needs to limit themselves to one bike (possibly on account of city living) will likely have access to trails that would warrant all of the Wi.DE’s versatility.
It’s a good question, as a separate road and mountain bike might serve both areas better individually. But perhaps the Wi.DE reflects how MTB technology has outpaced the terrain most of us can access.
In my case, I do most of my riding on paths and tracks that a 32mm tyre could manage, and the Wi.DE makes those stretches faster and easier. It also allows me the option to venture onto more testing and exciting trails than I’ve managed on other gravel bikes.
Ultimately, the Open Wi.DE is a highly tuned performance bike, but with enough fun and versatility to not take itself too seriously.
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