1 INTENDED FOR ONE’S OWN OR OTHERS’ AMUSEMENT RATHER THAN SERIOUSLY.
2 GIVING OR EXPRESSING PLEASURE AND AMUSEMENT.
“The real secret of life is to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realise it is play.”
Those words come from the writer and philosopher, Alan Watts; and they’re important to remember, yet too easily forgotten. CHPT3 is built on the idea that we all have another chapter to our lives, one that we all have the potential to engage and explore.
We often say CHPT3 comes from road cycling, which is half true.
There is another half to it and one that most of us have known... It’s the child challenging herself to learn to balance and pedal for the first time, it’s the feeling of freedom as we travel from home under our own power and will, the adventures and friendships that we discover and grow, the spills and thrills that scare and delight us in equal measures. It’s a space in our lives that we make our own. It’s where we get to play, and it can be found anywhere once we decide to look for it.
We want this idea to permeate through everything we do. This Autumn we’ll be launching one of our most playful projects to date, CHPT3 DIRT. For many cyclists the end of pavement is where it all begins. In those early days you spend most of your time eating it. Riding off road in the rough stuff, away from the dangers of big and heavy motor vehicles is where we’re told to go and have fun. Yet it becomes more than fun, it awakens our curiosity and introduces us to adventure and exploration; a form of play we are born to do.
As well as a capsule collection designed for gravel, MTB & touring, we'll be releasing a limited edition Gravel bike.
“IT’S A SPACE IN OUR LIVES THAT WE MAKE OUR OWN.”
We want each bike to be unique, to have a character of its own, so we got in touch with Eduard, a Catalan painter who has taken care of David Millar’s designs for years. David told Eduard he wanted a design that used CHPT3 colours in a way that made it look worn when it was clean and smart when it was dirty. He came up with a technique that involves layering our entire palette, then applying a final coat of carbon black, it’s then gently sanded back to reveal what’s underneath. No two bikes will be the same – just as no two rides in the rough stuff can be compared.
The bike itself is designed to perform, it’s light, responsive, yet robust and resilient, built to handle technical off-road riding yet fast when wanted. Another nod to the CHPT3 racing heritage is the Campagnolo finishing kit. David’s first pro road racing bikes were equipped with Campagnolo, so it seemed right for CHPT3 to rekindle the relationship anew in an unexpected way.
This CHPT3 gravel bike will be like no other, and it represents CHPT3’s move into doing more than road and street, you’ll be able to wear our DIRT apparel as well as ride our bike and rediscover your own adventures of exploration and adventure.
And on those journeys, you’ll realise it’s not a rediscovery, that maybe it had always been there, it’s just that you had forgotten to go off road in search – back to where it all began.
