MyBikes

The Orbea Bikes Range

It was perhaps the eye-burning orange of Iban Mayo’s Euskaltel-Euskadi team kit back in the early 2000s that brought Orbea bicycles to a broader audience in the US. And the bike he road was an Orca, still the range-topping silhouette in Orbea’s pleasingly concise road bike collection. Don’t expect to be boggled by several pages of essentially the same bike; Orbea keeps things crisp and clean, a methodology that leaves a lasting impression when you first pilot one of its bikes.

The Orbea Orca is a supremely light bike that doesn’t compromise on comfort, and that is difficult math. But the Mondragon-fueled brand balances the equation with graceful ease, which is exactly how you can expect to reach the summit of whichever mountain you care to ascend when an Orca is your bike of choice. Ok, perhaps it won’t be all grace, but there’ll be enough for you to huff and puff to a personal best, such is the Orca’s turn of speed and almost impolite eagerness to push you further and higher. It’s a fabulous machine.

Inheriting the same DNA but tuned for endurance is the Avant, and taking a turn towards the gate, over it and through a farmer’s field is the Terra. Not that you’d want to be so cavalier in the Basque Country, whose sheepdogs are the real deal. This is a hard region of rugged terrain and earthy if disarmingly chatty and friendly, people. Terra is an apt name because Basques are so intimately connected with nature and trails that abound beyond the region’s pristine, vertigo-inducing asphalt.