Over Zoom, piped in from his home in Marin County, the impression of eager speed holds. Skyler looks ready to leap out of the door and turn his pedals to a blur, just for the hell of it. Although this week, he’ll have to resist the urge. “I’ve been training full-on since mid-November,” he says. “I have a few days off the bike now to rest. Then, starting next week, I’ll build toward Unbound with a three-week training block.”

Before we get to the to and fro of the Highland race, we better back up a bit and talk about the bike Skyler rode to victory, his brand-new custom Sarto Raso Gravel. We heard on the grapevine he only got it a week before the event. “Yeah, that’s right!” he laughs. “We received the frame with only days to go before I was set to fly out and got it built up in under a day. I managed to snatch two rides on it before the race – once of which was in Arkansas itself.” It’s an understatement to say he must have felt at home from the first mile. “Definitely. Sarto did a nice job making sure we dialed in the whole geometry to align with my prior road and gravel bikes, so I was pretty confident that it would feel good once I got on it. And sure enough, it started to feel really nice after only a few moments. After a few miles, I realized I was riding something pretty wild. It’s an amazing bike.” A quick numbers check with his coach, the renowned Craig Upton, followed, and Skyler took off to Arkansas for his debut ride as a sponsored Sarto racer.

Skyler’s Raso Gravel looks incredible, with wide 2.2″ Continental Race King tires that speak to his experiments in speed and journey to discover the nature of the fastest gravel tire setup on the world stage. “I believe mountain bike tires are the superior choice,” he says. “On my last bike, I was doing crazy things, shaving off the knobs to make wider tires fit where they wouldn’t. So to have a bike like the Raso Gravel that can accommodate up to 2.2″ tires front and back and still have clearance to spare is a game-changer.”

That extra room to maneuver came directly from Skyler’s feedback to Sarto, who was introduced directly to the team in Italy by Regroup’s very own Pete, who has a close relationship with Sarto. When Sarto shared some of their early ideas for the Raso Gravel with Skyler, he made some suggestions as to the rubber the fastest professional gravel racers in America were rolling, and in turn, directly influenced the development of Sarto’s new bike.

I’ve interviewed a lot of founders and makers from the world of bikes. There are many things that tie them together. But if I had to pick a common thread that indicates a chance of success, I’d say it’s the knowledge of self and company: if a bike CEO knows himself and what his company is, things always seem to go well. If, however, someone appears to be chasing the market, money or searching for identity and meaning, their company, like a sailboat without a pilot, will go wherever it will. It may hit upon success, but if it does, it will be accidental and the founder won’t know how to replicate it because they don’t know how they got there the first time. Most likely, their company will just hit upon the rocks.

“We have a purpose, a feeling, no,” begins Enrico during our recent catch-up at the Regroup in the Desert bike show. “We connect with customers who recognize our direction and our idea for what a Sarto bike is.” To that end, he says, Sarto, a company established in the 1960s that built steel bikes before embracing carbon fiber over twenty-five years ago, is laser-focused on the road and gravel experience.

“Our customers are typically very passionate cyclists looking for something different, a performance bike they can ride in comfort over medium to long distances,” he explains. “They want something handmade – truly handmade – by us, by our team. And custom – tailored down to each tube to not just their geometry, but their riding style, weight and power. And a thousand other things.” He pauses for a second and shrugs. “Ultimately, I think we exist to help them find space away from the stresses of life: family, work and so forth.”

In Italian, ‘Sarto’ means ‘Tailor’. Enrico, his wife Chiara, who works in the business and who may very well be the real boss, and his father Antonio, who still comes to the factory every day to check up on his son, are literally tailors. Their cloth is carbon fiber. Their tools are their hands, hearts and eyes, which they use to form tubes, bond, paint and bring to the road the hopes and dreams of their customers. A smattering of hi-tech machinery helps, as does a big blue autoclave, and a solar array on their roof that beams all the power its small team needs to the factory floor.

“We are a bespoke maker, but our bikes have a signature Sarto ride feel,” says Enrico. Can he explain that feeling? “It’s stiff enough in specific moments of the ride, like on the descent, but stiff in the best way. It’s not elastic – it’s stiff where the ride needs it.” Is he talking about a connection to the road? “Exactly. When you descend, the bike reveals itself. You should feel the road, where it’s going, and what it’s doing, like a great racing car driver who drives through their seat, not the steering wheel. If you feel it through the cockpit, it’s too late. We make bikes that allow our customers to sense the road, to ride quickly, but in complete control and comfort.”

Then Enrico says something that makes my ears prick up. “If your bike is too stiff as you turn into a corner, you need to brake because you don’t feel confident.” In that one sentence, the worst of modern bikes, machines that feel like you’re propped up, perched, not as one and definitely not in control. “Our customers give us great feedback,” he continues. “What we hear most is that when they ride their Sarto, they feel connected in a way they have never experienced before.” To what’s under their wheels? “Yes, to the road, the trail. They say they feel more yet in greater comfort. From that comes confidence and speed.”