Moots manoeuvres: we take a £10,000 superbike off road!

When you hear the word superbike, you probably think of a pure, sleek thoroughbred racing machine. Carbon everything adorned in only the most lavish of Italian finery. Specifically designed and manufactured by the old masters of cycling to easily ascend the Alps, dance in the Dolomites and plunder the Pyrenees... And all with five figure price tags. Sure, most superbikes are like that but what happens when you take such a steed and rough it around Europe?

I was fortunate enough this year to get my hands on a Moots Routt RSL (Race Super Light). The frameset costs $5519, with a total build cost of $11,699. Those numbers alone are more than anyone is probably ever willing to spend on a bike, so you’d expect me to treat it with utter care and only bring it out for those dry summer days we all long for… Wrong.

The first time I slung my leg over the Routt RSL in anger was on the French back roads that surround Roubaix, you can probably see where I’m going with this. The bike was to get a battering around the pavé of northeast France, followed by a 200km jaunt around the gravel tracks of Northumberland at the Dirty Reiver challenge event, with a quick trip over to Mallorca for the 312 sportive, culminating in Italy in a smallish town to the east of Milan where myself and BikeRadar staff writer, Jack Luke, were preparing to ride the Jeroboam 300. A 300km gravel challenge in the Alpine mountains surrounding Lake d’Iseo, sponsored by 3T Cycling.

Darkmatters

Starting at 4pm, all the entrants of the 300km Jeroboam were to ride into the night. Jack and I chose to ride into the night but not through it. Neither of us had ridden at an altitude of over 2000m before in the Alps so we wanted to see what the scenery was like. We’d estimated that we’d hit the big climb, the Croce Domini Pass, at anywhere between midnight and 2am so there was a very real chance we’d do the entire climb in complete darkness, which isn’t great when your aim is to admire the scenery.

This relatively unknown ride began with a thunderstorm of truly epic

proportions that left us huddled in a petrol station about 800m from the start, and suffering from soggy feet for the rest of the day. We had about 100km to ride that evening before we reached our accommodation not far from the base of the major climb.

The three climbs of the day were slow going as we didn’t account for gearing before we flew out to Italy. We’ve since realised that gravel bikes, when laden down with kit, are very heavy. I’d chosen to use a seatpost bag to carry the majority of my clothing, a handlebar bag with food and tools, a top-tube bag for extra food and a stem bottle bag for quick access to cameras.

Given that my bike had a compact crankset with only an 11-30t at the rear, climbing was best described as plodding. Combined with 42mm tyres at a lowish psi, all the climbs, regardless of length or gradient, were slow and cumbersome, which left us feeling anxious for day two knowing we had to tackle the near-2000m ascent. After just five hours of sleep, the day began with a rather curious incident of an Italian man shouting in our faces at the base of the climb. The route had been double booked with a go kart/soap box derby race. After a lot of confusion, we had an enforced 15-minute time trial up a hill that was scattered with crash pads and marshals. We had no idea what was going up or down but we reached the safety of the hillside pit area a couple of kilometres up the road before anything came careering towards us.

We continued plodding up the rest of the climb, beyond the second checkpoint and onto some proper gravel, topping out at an altitude of 2135m, where we were met with spectacular views. Speaking of gravel, despite the Jeroboam being billed as a gravel challenge, in reality it turned out to be more of an adventurous road ride with only smatterings of really rough stuff.

Unfortunately, our delayed start to day two, our rather casual, touristy approach to the ride and a broken saddle all contributed to us not making the 6pm cut-off time. At the end of the day, we got back to Erbusco (via a McDonalds and riding past the start of the Mille Miglia, an endurance race featuring some beautiful classic cars) with mixed feelings. There was elation that we’d finished a huge 275km, 6300m ascent ride, but also frustration that we didn’t finish the official route. Still, the overriding emotion was immense satisfaction from riding in such an incredible landscape.

Through all this adventure, one thing has become clear, during the three months I’ve ridden this Moots Routt RSL, it’s proven itself to be adaptable and capable over a series of mixed terrains. I can truly call it a super bike.

Goingup “Topping out at an altitude of 2135m, we were met with spectacular views” Reuben Bakker-Dyos