3T‘s Jeroboam 300 Gravel Challenge in Northern Italy
Hours of gravel grinding and tons of fun? That’s all Drew, Jonas and Basti needed to hear before jumping at a chance to ride bikes in Italy.
Three weeks ago, I was asked if I wanted to participate in 3T’s new gravel challenge along with two of my colleagues, Basti and Jonas. Not really knowing what I was getting myself into, I agreed and then checked out the Jeroboam website to learn more. The ‘ride’, or suffer fest, would take place close to Bergamo around the lake Lago d’Iseo, which looked beautiful from pictures of the area. The views alone got me hooked, which meant all that was left to do was get training and decide which of the three routes I wanted to take.
The routes
The routes are based on the sizes of sparkling wine bottles from the area.
Jeroboam 300: red route, Magnum 150: yellow route, Standard 75: purple route © Bikerumor.com
The Jeroboam is a 3 litre bottle so the course was 300 km long with 6,000 m of climbing.
The Jeroboam 300 elevation change graph. © Bikerumor.com
The Magnum is a 1.5 litre bottle which corresponds to a 150 km route with 3,500 m of elevation gain.
The Magnum 150 elevation change graph. © Bikerumor.com
The Standard bottle is 0.75 litres and it was the only part of the event that was considered a race.
The Standard 75 elevation change graph. © Bikerumor.com
After a little bit of back and forth, Jonas and I opted on the 150 km Magnum route and Basti decided to go all the way and ride the 300 km Jeroboam.
The bikes
We all rode 3T Exploro bikes which were the perfect way to transverse the varied gravel terrain. For a more in depth review, check out Basti’s full report here.
The 3T Exploro ready to ride.
It was my first time riding an Exploro and I was thoroughly impressed by its capabilities both on and off the road. I really enjoyed being able to transition quickly and effortlessly between asphalt and gravel / dirt.
The ride
The way 3T approached both the Jeroboam 300 and Magnum 150 Challenges was not to call them races. They continuously made this clear before we started and stressed the fact that people should ride together. Not really being a fan of stressful race situations, I was happy to see that this was taken very seriously. Jonas and I ended up riding with a group comprised of various people from 3T and in the end, the ride felt like an extended suffer fest with friends. Everyone was super friendly and positive, keeping our spirits up on the gruellingly steep climbs. (Thanks for the high fives and good vibes y’all.)
Us with 3T after yet another grinding climb.
About 120 km into the Magnum 150, I got a flat and we stopped to fix it. Sadly, due to some fluke with the thru-axle on my rear wheel, I was not able to replace the tube. At this point, I had to send the rest on and wait for a ride at the bottom of the mountain. From what I heard, the last 30 km were beautiful with picture perfect gravel through the area’s vineyards.
What we saw most of the time.
The finish
The Magnum 150 route was tough. So tough that there were portions where I dismounted and had to push. Combining steep climbs with technical gravel descents made the ride even more challenging, but all the while I had a blast. The 150 km Magnum is not for the faint of heart and I can’t even imagine what Basti went through on the Jeroboam 300.
Feeling good at the top of a mountain.
Though I didn’t have the chance to finish, I still felt like I had accomplished a lot. I climbed plenty of mountains and descended down rough gravel roads for over 8 hours making it all worth it. Basti completed the Jeroboam 300 in 19 hours while Jonas crushed the Magnum 150 in 10. All of us arrived with smiles on our faces that quickly faded into expressions of exhaustion, but that’s how it should be anyway. Soon after, we got back in the car and headed back to the bc headquarters, leaving beautiful Lago d’Iseo behind. Thanks for the great ride 3T! We’ll see you next year!
