Wilier Jena Gravel Bike Frame

Explore the World with Wilier Jena

Though no one has yet claimed that bikepacking is the new golf, there is no denying the popularity of loading up your bike and heading out on a multi-day tour. The Wilier Jena will be the perfect companion for your own #nogotours, whether you want to get there quickly and stay in official accommodations or you want to load up the bike and be entirely self-sufficient.

The Jena is a lightweight carbon frame made from the same high quality carbon as most of Wilier’s other top drawer offerings. They were determined to make it light and durable so that the Jena could cover all sorts of terrain – from serious mountain climbing to rough double tracks and more. As you may expect, the geometry diverges from the racing bike geo you’ll find on the Cento10Pro, for instance, since this is not meant for WorldTour racing, but rather riding comfortably, if aggressively, on your home trails and extending as many miles as you like. So their racing comfort geometry slackens the head tube a touch and gives you an extra 2cm in chainstay length to increase the handling stability. So if you end up on a fairly rocky descent in the woods, you will still easily be able to control the bike.

The designers at Wilier have decided to make this their ultimate gravel bike with options so they have mounts for mudguards, pannier racks, bags, and multiple bottle cages, including an arrangement on both fork blades that can be used for a luggage rack or fork-mounted bottle cages. They want you to feel free to take this bike as far away as possible. Of course, if you are more of the pack-light type of traveler, and wouldn’t really want to weigh a bike down with racks, you will be pleased to know that Wilier keeps their eye on the aerodynamics of the frame by giving the tubes the same Kamm tail profiles used for their most racy bikes. After all, wind resistance sucks on gravel grinds as much as it does at road races. And since they know you will want to try the Jena out on the roughest roads you can find, Wilier has been extra careful about layering the carbon to provide the utmost in vibration absorption. No one likes shaking hands and a sore ass at the end of a ride.

But perhaps the biggest comfort factor, though will be the tire sizes you will be able to run and the wheel selection you can have. The frame and fork have been designed so that you can run 28 inch wheels with 44mm wide tires, or 650B MTB wheels, you can even install 48mm wide tires, which is equivalent to about 1.95 inches wide. So you can keep the setup lighter with 35 or 38mm gravel tires if you want to use this more on the road than off, or you can go pretty darn beefy with an XC mountain bike setup if you are all about taking this baby deep in the backwoods. That’s what Wilier means when they say there are no limitations with the Jena.

Customizable Gearing Options of the Wilier Jena

Wilier recognizes too that a lot of people are going to want to go with a 1X setup as well. Not wanting to make anyone conform to one notion of what the best gearing will be, they have made it possible to run a usual 2X setup with a front derailleur, but they have also made it possible to remove the derailleur to run a gravel-specific 1X without compromising the way the frame looks.

The Wilier Jena offers a ton of neat solutions that will allow you to run the type of setup that will work best for your rides.

Also check Moots Gravel Bikes.