Introducing the Passage. Named after Alaska’s Inside Passage, a coastal route that weaves through islands of the Pacific Northwest to Southeast Alaska famous for its abundance of wildlife. No, we don’t recommend our Passage for water travel, but we do recommend it for seeing wildlife--be that the natural kind, or the variety at Dirty Kanza or SBT GRVL or Rebecca’s Private Idaho!
 
Years ago we said that we’d only ever build fatbikes. We know, we know--but at the time it made sense, and at the time gravel wasn’t really a thing. In Alaska it’s always either snow or mountain biking (road is dead).
 
About four years ago we started fooling around with endurance frames for bikepacking adventures and came up with the Saber (a 27.5+ trail bike) and the Sterna, our first gravel adventure bike.
 
The Sterna featured a large triangle for storage and stable all day geometry at the cost of some playfulness on the trail. Many described it as a tank! Not because of weight but because of its ability to roll over just about anything without getting tossed around.
 
With the Passage, we’ve taken the stability and all day comfort of the Sterna and added more playfulness, or flickability, or huck potential--you choose the adjective!
 
The chainstays are longer at 425mm and still feature a dropped drive side to accommodate large tire clearances. How large? How about 47mm tires on 700c wheels, or for the drop bar mountain bike set, 2.2 inch tires on 27.5s--either way that’s more tire than many of us will ever need or want.
 
The stack is lower and the reach is longer, helping to create its playful nature but the seat tube and head tube angles are still slack enough to keep things stable. Basically, you know, the best of both worlds.
 
The Passage from 9:ZERO:7. Call it what you want: a gravel bike, drop bar mountain bike, or endurance road bike. Our answer to Alaska’s roads and trails in the summer; your answer to what bike you need next!