How YT Industries went from gravity to gravelly with the YT Szepter

In 2016, the R&D team at YT Industries started tinkering with gravel bikes. The company is known for its gravity-oriented mountain bikes that can head down singletrack at speed. “Everything we do is focused on good times on the trails,” says Frank Dörr, product development manager at YT. As designers looked at the gravel bikes at the time, they noticed that the machines were a little too businesslike, not so concerned about those good times. “The team had the feeling that what was missing from gravel bikes was the fun part,” Dörr says.

Here, Dörr explains how he and his team put the fun into their gravel bike, as well as where gravel riding can take you.

You’ve said that there are 1,000 good reasons for a gravity brand like YT to create a curly-bar gravel bike. So why, then, did you and your team make the Szepter?

Because it’s fun. Because it’s fun to ride that bike on forgotten trails or trails you still ride.

Going back a few years, we had been seeing drop-bar bikes in the woods. And that’s where we live. That’s our territory. So we were like, “What’s going on here? That doesn’t make sense. Why is there a drop-bar bike here? Maybe he got lost?”

Then, we started to investigate and test bikes. We and our development partners had all noticed that there was space for improvement, not so much in terms of frame material, but in the ride quality and the components, which were made for the road. It didn’t make sense to bring those components to the trails.

So, we decided the gravel bikes were good fun. They offered a good challenge. They were pure riding. But we could do better.

What do you mean by pure riding?

A gravel bike has speed, simplicity and efficiency. I come from a mountain bike background, so when you compare gravel with that, there’s not much gear needed. You know, there‘s no body protection, no neck braces, no knee pads, no full-face helmet. With gravel, just give me a helmet. I can clip in the shoes and I’m ready to go. I could wear shorts or jeans. I don’t care. I’m just disappearing in the woods.

Tell me one of the features you wanted the bike to have?

As a mountain bike guy, riding trails with a drop-bar bike can be scary because it has a weird-shaped handlebar. The brakes are in a weird position as well. That’s where we started our mission to amplify riders’ confidence with a gravel bike. And, it’s not only for a mountain biker taking a drop-bar bike on a trail, but there’s a similar…