Most bike reviews end with loosening bolts, removing pedals and taping up cardboard boxes. So when Temple Cycles invited me to the launch party for their new showroom on Whiteladies Road in Bristol, it seemed fitting to ride the Adventure Disc 3 (AD3) there rather than pack it into a box – 50 miles from Cardiff, taking in bike paths, muddy singletrack, forest trials and a few kilometres of what I'm generously calling champagne gravel. Every surface type in one afternoon. A better send-off than brown tape and bubble wrap.
Built to last, priced to start
The AD3 is Temple's entry point into the Adventure Disc range, priced at £1,495 and built around the same Reynolds 725 frameset as the more expensive AD1 and AD2. That detail matters. Temple haven't cut corners on the thing that defines how the bike feels and how long it lasts – they've made savings elsewhere while keeping the structural argument intact.
The MK3 frameset is TIG welded with a 12mm thru-axle, flat-mount disc tabs, three bottle cage mounts and a universal derailleur hanger – a practical acknowledgement that these bikes end up loaded more often than not. The fork is investment-cast with a lugged crown and straight legs. It’s classic look, one inspired by the founder, Matt Mears’s cycling journey, from fixing up bikes as a uni student to starting the company.
“When I went to university, I just loved tinkering with bikes,” Mears told me at the launch party for his company’s new showroom. “I started a vintage restoration business, just finding frames on eBay and Gumtree, like old Raleighs and Reynolds tubing sort of bikes, and I would rescue them in a way, and then restore them to get them back up and running again.”
This would involve adding new components to old frames to give them a new lease of life – Mears became an expert in matching the right groupsets to the frames he was fixing up.
Components chosen for the long haul
The AD3 uses a 2x9 Shimano Sora setup with a Temple own-brand 46-29T crankset and an 11-34T cassette. Sora gets dismissed as the groupset you graduate away from, but on a bike designed for multi-surface adventure, the mechanical simplicity is a feature. If something went wrong on my way to Bristol, I wanted something I could fix with the tools in my saddle bag.
Braking is via TRP Spyre mechanical disc calipers with Shimano RT30 160mm rotors. The Spyres run two-piston actuation – both pistons move simultaneously – which gives better modulation than most mechanical discs. The wheels are WTB ST i25 TCS rims on Shimano RS470 hubs, shod with WTB Vulpine 700x40c tubeless-ready tyres. The Vulpine rolls well on tarmac and grips adequately on hard-packed gravel.
At 11.8kg in a medium without pedals, the AD3 is not a light bike. However, I found it rolls well at a steady pace but asks for effort on sharp climbs.
Mears founded Temple in 2014, following his passion and throwing himself into it: “Towards the end of university, I thought it'd be quite cool to make a bit of a career of this, so I carried on doing the vintage restoration for a couple of years after university, but slowly started to like design my own frames and getting frames made.”
“I started to call it Temple. I had custom build orders, using Twitter and Instagram for marketing, and I got random people messaging me. Throughout the first like four or five years, I did loads of pop‑up shops all over the country, that was kind of the way I got the name out there and got the bikes out there."
Fifty miles, every surface
I'd spent previous weeks on the trails north of Cardiff – tracks around Castell Coch and some rougher stuff toward Caerphilly. For the final ride I headed east on the old commute from my time as a reporter on the South Wales Argus.
The steel frame does take the edge off road buzz. However, over broken patching and uneven surfaces, the AD3 was perceptibly more comfortable than aluminium and steel bikes I have ridden. The low pressure in the tyres added to the cushioning effect – if you live anywhere with plenty of potholes (like me), you’ll be pleased with how the AD3 handles bumps.
Just past Newport, across the River Usk, I passed the Wastesavers Reuse Centre. It seemed, on this particular morning, an appropriate landmark to pass on the way to deliver a bike built explicitly around the idea of not being thrown away. It was also the site in which I interviewed the former First Minister of Wales, Eluned Morgan, last year when she was still in power. I won’t get into politics, but the contrast in longevity in that line of career and what Mears is looking to achieve with his frames, is striking.
“Everyone is always like 'Oh, you should put a carbon fork on the front of it.' I'm just like, ‘then it'll just become like every other steel frame with a carbon fork gravel bike’. And we're not about performance, we're about longevity. I want that fork to last for like 40–50 years. I can't imagine I would feel comfortable riding around on a 50‑year‑old carbon fork. That's not our ethos really. Our ethos is wanting the framesets to last and be like the vintage bikes I used to work on when I first started Temple. My whole dream is that these bikes become vintage."
Where a steel frame earns its keep
East of Newport the road climbs into Wentwood forest, and this is where the character of the Adventure Disc 3 becomes clearest. The trail network through the upper forest is loose, rooted and intermittently steep – the kind of terrain that quickly reveals whether an adventure bike (and my bike handling) is genuinely capable.
A head angle of 71.5 degrees with 45mm fork offset gives a wheelbase just over a metre and a neutral steering feel – quick enough to be engaging, stable enough on the descents. The TRP Spyres delivered better modulation than expected, and there's a progressive feel that lets you manage speed rather than slamming the brakes. The Vulpines, running tubeless with sealant, held pressure across the forest without incident (thankfully). It was my first time through the forest, and on a clear late April day, the bluebells were out in their hundreds to cheer me on.
What followed was a long section of tarmac and bike paths across the Severn on the bike path on the M48 and despite a bit of fatigue setting in, the AD3 kept rolling smoothly, as I navigated the final stretches of gravel and entered the distinctively Bristolian climbs. Passing through the leafy suburbs to the north of the city, I felt like the AD3 was at home – it looks, from a distance, like a well-made steel touring bike from any decade. Up close, the detail is classy and neat: the lugged fork crown, the clean cable routing, the slick finish.
The new Temple showroom on Whiteladies Road is a long, workshop-facing space where customers can watch bikes being assembled while they talk through a purchase – a deliberate choice for a brand that has spent the last decade selling almost entirely online. Bristol is where Temple started in 2014, where the bikes are still built, and the Whiteladies Road store is the first time that story has had a permanent home on the high street. The full range is on display, alongside components and accessories, with test ride slots bookable in advance. The AD3 was the most affordable bike on display, but it didn't look out of place next to its steel brothers and sisters.
The new site opens Temple up to the community in north Bristol, something which Mears is excited about: “It's such a good area. If people want to come and do a test ride, they can go up to the Downs to do a nice little test ride. It's a really cool place to go and ride. There's actually a proper high street here, so I hope we will get loads of walk‑ins."
Verdict
The Adventure Disc 3's argument is a simple one: the same frame as the rest of the Adventure Disc range, at the most accessible price, with components chosen for durability and field-serviceability rather than performance. It is heavier than bikes that cost similar money. The Sora drivetrain is functional rather than exciting. But that is not really the question this bike is asking. What it asks is whether you want to buy something once, maintain it over years, and keep riding it – and on that, the Adventure Disc 3 makes a persuasive case. I thoroughly enjoyed my time riding it.
Details
Price: £1,495
Weight: 11.8kg (medium, no pedals)
Frame: Reynolds 725 heat-treated steel
Drivetrain: Shimano Sora 2x9
Brakes: TRP Spyre mechanical disc
Tyres: WTB Vulpine 700x40c tubeless-ready
See more details on Temple Cycle's website: templecycles.com
