When gravel racing enthusiast Martin Kjellemar recently shared a reel of his latest flat-bar gravel/XCM/monstercross build on Instagram, it racked up more than 30,000 views within just 48 hours. Clearly, he’d tapped into a rapidly growing trend, inspiring a passionate following for this bike and his other distinctive builds. We caught up with him to learn more about his background, his love of riding fast off-road, and the thinking behind his unique flat-bar bike creations, the latest of which features a Seido MGV410 carbon fork.
“The year before Covid19, I took part in the biggest cross-country skiing race in the world. Around 20,000 people take part, all racing on the same course. The race is 90 kilometres long and obviously it’s held in the wintertime. I had trained hard for it, but then it was such bad condition. Around 30 to 70 centimetres of snow feel during the race, so it was so heavy. I was so done with that, so I was thinking that I need to figure out something new. I cycled when I was younger and I have always been interested in materials and stuff. So that was easy to be very nerdy about the bikes. In that way, I find a new hobby for everything.” Although Martin has only been cycling (in adulthood, anyway) for the past six years, he has been properly bitten by the bug and he has done everything from bicycle commuting to work (even in the depths of winter), to racing in some of the world’s toughest gravel and XC MTB events including The Rift (Iceland), The Traka (Spain) and the GravelBirken200 (Norway).
Martin splits his time on the bike between a Fara GR4 carbon gravel race bike and, from our perspective, a more distinctive Velo Orange Chessie. Velo Orange are based in Baltimore on the east coast of the USA and according to their website they “believe that a good bike should provide comfort, utility, and enjoyment.” Strangely, they don’t seem to list blistering speed in the list of requirements for their bikes, so when he is riding on his custom-built Chessies, Martin is somewhat of an outlier. Velo Orange isn’t a brand that is very well known in Europe, so we asked Martin how he first heard of them “Velo Orange actually contacted me, after seeing some of my videos on Insta where I was riding an old steel flat bar commuter bike that I had built up. The original concept we discussed was for me to create a cool, practical commuter/winter bike from a Chessie frameset and it’s just grown from there.”
The Chessie is an aluminium framed monstercross-style bike which is according to Velo Orange is “ready to tackle the wildest gravel and bikepacking routes you can throw at it.” They go on to say that the Chessie frame has a “double-butted main triangle and meticulously selected tubing deliver an exhilarating, smooth ride with all the stiffness you need to charge ahead.” We asked Martin about the reputation of many aluminium frames having a stiff and unforgiving ride quality. Martin is tall enough to require a 59cm frame which means that unwanted flex might be an issue, but the aluminium frame helped mitigate this. To counteract the stiffness, Martin maxes out the frame’s tyre capacity with a set of big volume Continental Dubnital tyres, he runs a carbon seatpost to provide a little extra flex and, perhaps most importantly, he’s chosen to use a Seido MGV410 fork to provide the perfect blend of stiffness, compliance and great handling.
We asked Martin what it was about the Seido MGV410 fork that attracted him to it? He told us that he had initially been using a rigid carbon fork provided by a local bike shop. Martin has a huge fanbase on social media and is asked regularly about what kit he runs and why. His old fork wasn’t available to purchase by the public, so he started researching alternatives. He wanted a fork that combined big tyre clearance, a low axle-to-crown length (so as to avoid negatively affecting the geometry of his bike), was good looking, was available to buy and was a reasonable price. “I could have bought a high end made-in-the-USA fork” he told us “but it seemed crazy to buy a fork which cost more than my frame.” He continued “I also really love the fact that the MGV fork can have the brake hose routed either internally or externally, so it’s very practical. I haven’t found a headset yet that lets me route the hose internally, so at the minute I’m going external. I think that matches the retro-look of the bike anyway.
Martin’s distinctive looking Velo Orange builds all have one thing in common – he builds them up with flat bars. His latest build, in a none-more-black colourway, manages to look fast even when it’s parked against a wall and he says it rides super well too. We asked him about his inspiration for building a flat bar gravel bike, rather than the dropbar builds we’re more used to seeing. “My latest build is actually meant for some specific races in Sweden and Norway. They have some XCM [cross-country marathon] races there which are between maybe 80 to 100 kilometres, but they are actually more like a gravel race. There’s a small amount of technical riding and some super small sections of technical singletrack, so the fastest bike would definitely be a modern gravel bike. But, they have held this race for maybe 30 years, so they don't want to let the dropbar bikes in the mix. If you do the competition version of the event, you can only use like a flat bar. I did that race last year and it's so fun because it's super-fast. The speed of last year’s winner was around 37 kilometres per hour, average. And that's on a full suspension mountain bike. You can imagine how fast it would be if everyone used like proper race gravel bikes - it will probably around 40 kilometres per hour! So that's why I want to have a proper bike to do those races. That race is so fun because a lot of people do different builds. It's very common that people use a mountain bike hardtail with a rigid fork. But then they have problem to get wheels with the mountain bike [boost width] hubs. You need a special wheel built for that. So that's why I think it's super beneficial to use road-based wheels and a gravel frame. The geometry of the Chessie frame is quite long and it feels like something between a hard tail and a gravel bike.”
Martin’s bike builds are really distinctive. He runs a 150mm -17 degree stem, combined with a carbon 560mm XC MTB bar. Initially he wrapped (and even double wrapped, when necessary) the ends with bar tape. The reason for using bar tape, rather than more useful MTB style grips? So that he can use SRAM AXS blips to take on shifting duties – he just cuts very neat holes in the bar tape through which the blips poke out. For the latest iteration of his build however, he’s gone for lightweight rubber XC MTB grips instead. His wheels-of-choice are Fulcrum Speed 57s – deep section wheels really help give him some aerodynamic benefit when the events he competes in are so fast. He runs a SRAM GX Eagle AXS drivetrain (with upgraded Ceramic Speed bearings). The whole thing comes in at 9.75kg. Probably not the lightest bike on the start line, but certainly the most distinctive.
While the performance of his Velo Orange build is crucial to Martin’s race results, aesthetics and style are equally important in shaping the character of his finished bikes. We asked Martin what initially inspired him to build a flat-bar off-road bike, and he pointed us towards an Instagram reel featuring Anthony Richelot. A French architect, creative director and passionate flat-bar fixed-gear rider, Richelot’s bikes clearly struck a chord with Martin. The visual inspiration was immediately apparent.
To finish off our conversation, we asked Martin what plans he had for the rest of the summer? He told us that he had two more races left – the first, which he has since completed, was a flat-bar only marathon MTB event in Sweden, where he finished fifth in his age group despite crashing not long after the start and then having to ride for much of the race by himself – battling his way into a strong headwind. His final race comes at the end of the month in Norway and is a 200km gravel event, where do the length of the parcours and the likely high speed, he will be riding his dropbar gravel race bike, rather than his Velo Orange build.
If you would like to follow what’s next for Martin, his Insta account is this one. You never know, if you watch carefully, you might spot other Seido components on Martin’s builds in the future…..