No. 6 is a Chinese brand that has gained popularity over the last few years due to its growing reputation for making lightweight carbon wheels that, in independent testing, have been found to be on par with some halo offerings from well-established European and US companies.

Design details

The No. 6 G45R (R for race) is the brand's lightest gravel bike wheelset, part of its ProjectSpeed, which aims to make light, fast-accelerating, responsive wheelsets. Unlike the G45W (W for wide), these feature a narrower rim profile to shave off as much weight as possible.

The rims are hooked, made from Toray T700 and T800 carbon fibre, with a unidirectional glossy finish similar to the Campagnolo C-Lux finish. Both measure 45mm deep, but the front is 34.5mm wide externally and 28mm internally, while the rear is 33mm wide externally and 26mm internally. The claimed weight is 1,195g, and the scales of truth match this closely at 1,198g with rim tape, but no valves or lockrings.

The narrower rim relative to the 'W' offering reduces rotational mass, making the wheels more responsive to acceleration, changes in direction, and braking. This design philosophy continues into the carbon-fibre spokes. The rear spokes are wider at 5mm and are claimed to be more aerodynamic, while the front are still bladed but narrower at 3.8mm. The front uses just 16 spokes in a one-cross 1:1 pattern (eight on either side), while the rear uses 20 spokes in a two-cross 1:1 pattern. Spoke nipples are external for ease of adjustment and made of an aerotitanium alloy.

The hubs are No.6’s own Zero Gravity v.3, featuring a 45-tooth ratchet engagement system, Tripeak ceramic bearings, and compatibility with all Shimano, SRAM, and Campagnolo hub types.

No.6 claims optimal tyre widths of 40-50mm, while the maximum rider weight is 110kg and max. pressure is 110 PSI. Black, white, silver, and holographic decals are available.

Performance

The wheels come with valves, lockrings, and pre-taped rims, and the taping quality is good. I fitted a pair of Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M tyres for testing, in both 50mm and 45mm options. These are tougher tyres to fit, but that is not on the rims. A lever easily slotted the tyres on and the wheels were good to go.

A brief word on rim width, as this is fairly subjective. Both wider and narrower rims have pros and cons. In terms of aero performance with 50mm tyres, the 34.5mm external width is probably narrower than optimal for watt savings. But there are a few potential benefits. Firstly, fitting tyres can be a little easier with a narrow rim, as you have less distance to get the second tyre bead on. Next, at low pressures on wider tyres, if you have wider rims, there is potentially more chance of a rim strike, so reinforcements need to be made. Finally, narrower rims without the required reinforcement are lighter, and on gravel in particular, where speeds are lower and inertial force is harder to overcome, this can be more beneficial when accelerating, especially up climbs.

As I said, this is all very subjective, but I've enjoyed the performance on the No. 6 wheels, even if the aero benefits at the average speed I raced the Gralloch UCI gravel race at are negligible (just over 32km/h).

What I did find is that, for climbing, they are frankly dreamy. From sustained-pace efforts to the starting climb at The Gralloch, they changed speed rapidly, a trait I really like in bunch events like this. The low weight also means more responsive braking and direction changes, which, on technical sections and fast descents into tight corners, proved a brilliant combination. The hub engagement also helps with acceleration, with the 45t ratchet quick to respond and with no give.

I can’t comment on the performance gain of the ceramic bearings or the subjective ‘feel’ of the aero performance, but I can say these wheels are no slouch; tellingly, they roll fast on the road, too. Off-road, tyres make the biggest difference to speed, on tarmac, they play a part but the reduced rolling resistance swings the scales in favour of aero performance and hub rolling. I actually spoke with some of the DAS Hutchinson team and a few of them have used the G45R wheelset as a road race wheel option with wider road tyres. Again, from rim to rim, even at race speeds, the differences are usually a handful of single-digit watts, and they depend on the frame. All I can say is that these wheels ‘feel’ like they perform at a comparable level to other high-end offerings I've ridden, including Scope, Black Inc, Enve and DT Swiss.

I'm far less fond of carbon spokes. I find these somewhat superfluous on road wheels, as they are stiff in some directions but not as strong in others, like torsional forces. On gravel, they just don't make sense, given their lack of resilience against side impacts. On the road, this is rare; on gravel, stones regularly fly up into spokes. I suffered a stone strike at The Gralloch, which caused a splinter to come off one of the spokes. No.6 do supply spare spokes for both front and rear, with no need to remove tyres and rim tape to fit, but, as a rule, carbon spokes for gravel wheels are not something I think is needed. Alloy spokes perform brilliantly and are more durable.

Value

Certainly, $2,199 isn't cheap for a wheelset, and for a Chinese wheelset, it’s significantly higher than it has traditionally been. Those worried about Chinese wheels not being made to the same standard as ‘European and US’ wheelsets need not worry, however, given that the majority of carbon wheels from those brands are made in Asia. The main differences are marketing budget and occasional quality control, but the No.6 wheels run true and have a better finish and roundness than some big-brand wheels I have tested.

However, with the ceramic bearings, 45T engagement, carbon spokes, and a CFD-designed rim that has performed well in independent testing, these wheels are taking on the likes of the Enve G SES 4.5 Pro (£3500 /$3300), Scope Artech 4.G (£3,500 / $4,398), and Roval Terra CLX Aero (£2998 / $3400). Compared with these options, the No.6 wheels offer good value.

Of course, import taxes are an issue, as European dealers are currently limited. However, customer care and service are impressive, with spares easy to purchase and supply. But at this price, the Hunt Limitless 40 UD spoke wheels, which are similarly specified and priced at £2,449, might be a more attractive offer to UK customers at the moment, given Hunt’s proven customer care and service. However, those wheels are shallower and heavier, and are hookless only.

Personally, I have no qualms with purchasing wheels from China. The quality and finish of the No.6 wheels have been superb; the performance matches any top-of-the-range offering, and the customer care has been great. ]

So, are these wheels good value? Yes, compared to the high-end performers they compete against. However, they aren't cheap and still represent a large investment for a set of wheels. You can get similar performance for less.

Tech spec

• Price: £1,699 / $2,199
• Weight: 1,195g
• Hubset: Zero Gravity v.3
• Freehub options: Shimano HG11/12, SRAM XDR, Campagnolo
• Rim depth: 45mm
• Spoke count: 16/20 front/rear
• Rim: Hooked

Magnus Bak Klaris (Denmark) was the first to cross the line at the UCI Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia, on Sunday.

The Danish gravel specialist pipped Florian Vermeersch (Belgium) to silver, in a four-up sprint, with Great Britain's Connor Swift – who led the sprint after a last-ditch attack – taking bronze.

Bak Klaris' teammate, Mads Würtz Schmidt, was fourth after the eventual winner spent much of the race riding in support.

The 144-kilometre race was characterised by a three-rider breakaway, which formed soon after the flag drop, initially made up of British rider Jenson Young, and Austrian Lukas Pöstlberger, later joined by Peter Schulting (Netherlands).

Young was dropped with around 30km to go, and on the final extended climb, a group of five chasers – including Bak Klaris, Swift and Vermeersch – made their move.

The course in Australia represented a more technical challenge than previous editions, with riders negotiating long stretches of pea gravel that made holding traction over fast corners a consideration.

Würtz Schmidt slid out on a fast corner towards the final, with Swift and Bak Klaris slowing behind, which allowed Vermeersch back to the front of the race.

The quartet entered the final stretch of tarmac together, resulting in a fast finish that saw Bak Klaris take the honours.

How the race unfolded

Much of the race was led by one strong break, initially made up of British rider Jenson Young, and Australian Lukas Pöstlberger; the pair splitting from the peloton early on.

The escapee duo were later joined by Peter Schulting (Netherlands) and Jo Pirotte (Belgium), Pirotte eventually dropping for a long spell in no-man's land whilst the three out front led with over two minutes on a group of sixteen chasers.

The gap held as the chase group splintered and reduced to ten riders, but out front, fatigue began to show. Young dropped ahead of the 3.8km Glacier climb with just under 40 kilometres to go, leaving Pöstlberger and Schulting to battle to stay ahead.

Approaching the Folly climb, the final extended ascent of 2.4km at 4.8%, five riders from the chase – Connor Swift (Great Britain), Mads Würtz Schmidt and Magnus Bak Klaris (Denmark), Paul Voss (Germany) and Florian Vermeersch (Belgium) – splintered the group, obliterating the gap to the leaders and taking over the front of the race.

Vermeersch was dispatched, leaving a lead group of four; before remnants of the chase rejoined to form a larger group of nine.

Arriving on the shorter Tank 7 climb – which preceded a descent into the finish stretch – Swift, Würtz Schmidt and Bak Klaris again showed dominance to make a gap.

Then, Würtz Schmidt slid out, with Swift and Bak Klaris forced to decelerate fast. Vermeersch rode on, reaffirming his place at the front of the race. With Swift quickly regaining speed, the pair pushed on. Bak Klaris and Würtz Schmidt rejoined as the leading four arrived at the road section into Nannup.

Swift made a final attempt to ride clear, but was caught. Bak Klaris was first to the line, with Vermeersch taking a frustrated second and Swift rounding out the podium.

Results; UCI Gravel World Championships (Nannup, Australia)

1. Magnus Bak Klaris (DEN) 4:09:05
2. Florian Vermeersch (BEL)
3. Connor Swift (GBR)
4. Mads Würtz Schmidt (DEN), all same time
5. Paul Voss (GER) +7s
6. Keegan Swenson (USA), at same time
7. Martin Stosek (CZE) +8s
8. Stan Dewulf (BEL) +40s
9. Matt Beers (RSA) +42s
10. Peter Schulting (NED) +1:22

Marianne Vos won the elite women's race at the UCI Gravel World Championships on Saturday in Australia, becoming the first rider to win the title twice.

The Dutchwoman attacked within the final 4km, putting distance into her rival at that point, Rosa Klöser of Germany, who then went on to crash in the run-in. Vos's title in Nannup, Western Australia, means that she has now won 15 rainbow jerseys across cyclo-cross, gravel, road and track.

Two years on from her previous title, Vos won solo on a very technical course, which saw big names like Geerike Schreurs and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio crash out. The eventual winner and Klöser attacked out of a larger group with around 21km to go, quickly building up a significant gap; the latter accelerated on the final long climb of the day, pegging back Tiffany Cromwell of Australia, with only Vos able to follow.

However, as former Unbound Gravel 200 winner Klöser put pressure on Vos in the final, she was never able to distance the rider nine years her senior. After tightening her shoes, Vos put in the decisive attack, and Klöser hit a rut and crashed out, although was able to remount and chase for second.

Larissa Hartog of the Netherlands out-sprinted Nele Laing of Germany to take third spot on the podium.

"It was more muddy than expected, actually," Vos said post-race on TV. "We had to be careful and some really slippery parts. And Rosa was really, really strong, so on the uphills I had to dig deep to follow.

"I knew that that final corner around the top and then the descent were going to be tricky, so I wanted to be in front and take them my own lines. But of course it's unfortunate that Rosa crashed there.

"I was really happy when the World Championships were announced here, and it's a fantastic course here in Western Australia, and it's great to take the rainbow jersey."

More to follow...

Results

UCI Gravel World Championships 2026, elite women's race (125.6km)

1. Marianne Vos (Netherlands), in 4:30:04
2. Rosa Klöser (Germany), +27s
3. Larissa Hartog (Netherlands), +2:15
4. Nele Laing (Germany), at same time
5. Erica Magnaldi (Italy)m +4:17
6. Sofia Gómez Villafañe (Argentina), +5:15
7. Irina Lützelschwab (Switzerland), +5:28
8. Tiffany Cromwell (Australia), +7:15
9. Elisa Serné (Netherlands), at same time
10. Haley Smith (Canada), +8:55

This weekend, while much of the planet’s population is still tucked up in bed, the Gravel World Championships will be taking place in a tiny little place amid the enormous space that is Western Australia.

Nunnup, the host town, boasts some brilliant, albeit extremely tricky pea-gravel trails, and many people agree that it’s wonderful to see the World Championships of the fast-growing cycling discipline of gravel racing taking place outside the usual confines of Europe.

But there’s no getting away from the fact that it has been horrendously hard and very expensive for lots of riders to travel to the other side of the world to compete for their country.

Cycling's national governing bodies, British Cycling included, are unable or unwilling to devote thinly stretched funding to support riders travelling around the globe to take part in an event that isn’t featured on the Olympic programme.

In a statement, British Cycling said they are "not currently able to provide financial or operational support for riders attending this event." It has therefore fallen to teams and individual riders to pay their own way.

Despite all of this, the line-up is surprisingly strong. There are 63 riders taking part from Britain, including 2025 British champion Connor Swift and the current national champ Jenson Young who, along with teammate Sophie Wright, received assistance from Ribble Outliers to get to Australia.

“It wasn't like fully funded, just because it wasn't budgeted for at the start of the year, but yeah, they [Ribble] gave us a fair bit towards it, which is really helpful,” Young tells Cycling Weekly.

“Even though we ride in GB cycling kit, we’ve had no communication or any support or anything from British Cycling. It was the team that supported it and got us out here.

“I have not even heard from anyone at British Cycling. That’s a bit disappointing, really, that we've spent all this money to get here, and we’re riding in the GB kit, and to not even speak to us.”

Other riders have completely self-funded their travel, using sponsorship income and their own savings to get themselves and their bikes to Australia.

“I've had no assistance at all from British Cycling,” former British gravel champion and Traka 560 winner Maddy Nutt told Cycling Weekly, the night before the women’s elite race.

“They even charged us for the skinsuits, which we have to race in. I just used some of my racing budget from my sponsors as a privateer to get here.”

Another rider, Tom Martin, who races for Wheelbase-Cabtech-Castelli, told us that he had to shelve plans to compete at the Worlds when it became too expensive.

“I very nearly decided to go, after finishing in the top 20 at European Championships and racing near the front, along with being first British rider," he says. "But I made the decision [not to go] in the middle of the season. I was waiting to see if I could get some more financial support, but I didn't have enough budget."

He is philosophical about the event being so far away, though, saying: "We’ve had it good with the last three Worlds all being in Europe." And he's not surprised about the lack of funding and support from the governing body. "There never is [support], unless it’s an Olympic event, unfortunately. I’ve been to two mountain bike marathon worlds, both self-funded."

Still, plenty of elite riders from around the globe have made it to the Worlds, including Marianne Vos and defending men’s champion Florian Vermeersch, and the event does promise to be enthralling for those who are lucky enough to get there.

“The field is definitely not as deep as normal for World Champs, but it’s still very competitive” says Nutt. “There are [fewer] road riders dipping their toes in and giving the Worlds a whack, but still a good number of the gravel peloton have made it out.”

British Cycling's response

When we approached them for comment about the level of support being offered to riders at the Gravel World Championships, a British Cycling spokesperson said:

“We are proud to see British riders competing on the world stage at the UCI Gravel World Championships, and we recognise the commitment, preparation and personal expense that goes into representing your country at an elite level.

“As the national governing body for cycling, our role is to support and enable the growth of the discipline, helping create the conditions for long-term, sustainable development. Gravel is one of the most exciting and fastest-growing areas of cycling, and its success reflects the passion and commitment of organisers, participants, and the wider community. We value the role they have played in developing the discipline and will continue to work closely with them as gravel continues to grow.

“As a non-Olympic discipline, the funding and resources available to support gravel differ from those available in some other areas of the sport, and British Cycling is not currently able to provide financial or operational support for riders attending this event.

“We remain committed to supporting the growth of gravel and will continue to explore the opportunities and resources available to support future editions of the event as the discipline develops.”

The UCI Gravel World Championships are taking place this weekend, in a little (and I mean little) place called Nannup in Western Australia, where the population of 538 is about to be considerably swollen by an influx of bike riders, mechanics, teams and fans – or at least the ones who can get themselves there, which is no mean feat in itself.

Outside of Perth, Western Australia (which could swallow most of Europe and still have room for a stubbie and snag) is pretty damn remote. Move away from the gorgeous coastline by more than a mile or two, and you might as well be on Mars. I once covered a car rally that went right across the state, and one night we were hosted by a young family who looked after a property that was bigger than England, and aside from about a million goats (literally), they were the only ones living there.

But it’s not just the sense of agoraphobia that the world’s best gravel riders are going to have to contend with this weekend. It’s also the terrain. Specifically the pea gravel. Which I am willing to bet even the likes of defending world champion Florian Vermeersch and elite riders such as Marianne Vos have not come across before.

I've ridden this stuff, and I'm here to tell you that some of the best gravel riders on the planet are going to spin out when they experience it.

In what now feels like a different lifetime, I lived in Australia for over a decade and for several consecutive years I competed in the four-day Cape-to-Cape mountain bike race. I say competed – in reality I didn’t see much of the front pack, which regularly included Aussie Olympians like Rebecca Henderson and Dan McConnell, after the starting line each day, but we all rode the same trails.

And what trails. Tracing what seemed like endless dreamy miles of sublime singletrack, the route went from Cape Leeuwin on the edge of the Great Australian Bite, through the Margaret River wine-making region to Cape Naturaliste, pausing at a boutique brewery or vineyard each night.

Everything, from the wildlife and wine to the wending trails, was stunning, but after stage two, when we first encountered it, all anyone would talk about post-ride was the bloody pea gravel.

In more recent years, a whole new network of community-constructed singletrack trails have been built and incorporated into this race, specifically based around this unique surface material. And this is where the World Champs are happening, in Nannup.

Organisers and locals are bigging up the fact that the event is happening on ‘real gravel’. And I can’t argue with that – there’s none of this root-and-mud, or chunky stone nonsense that counts for ‘gravel’ in the UK and England. This rusty red terrain is covered in billions of pea-sized, semi-spherical pieces of stone, such as you might see in a cartoon or slapstick film deployed by crafty kids to make people pursuing them skid all over the place and fall on their arses.

Pea gravel is as loose as a goose to ride on. Even on mountain bike tyres, berms become terrifying, any use of brakes only results in uncontrolled skidding, and the minute you stand up out of the saddle and pedal, your back wheel spins out and you come to a near stop. It is going to be very interesting watching how the elite riders known for their climbing prowess get on.

When I speak to Maddy Nutt the day before the elite women's race, the former British gravel champion and Traka 560 winner had recently explored the course and had her first taste of pea gravel.

"It’s a super interesting course," she tells me. "Harder, more technical than I was expecting, but that’ll make for an exciting race. The pea gravel feels a bit sketchy, and I’m glad I’ve practised riding on it a bit as you can’t brake on the surface, so there are parts of the course where you need to scrub off speed before you enter them.

"I’m a little nervous for how other riders take the pea gravel, especially anyone who hasn’t reconned the course. It’s great that the course really is a proper ‘gravel’ race. Especially for the world champs."

I also caught up with reigning British gravel champ Jenson Young shortly after he’d arrived in Western Australia and done a recce of the first 30km of the route, and the very first thing he wanted to talk about was the pea gravel.

“It's nothing like the gravel I've been on before,” he told me. “It's really fine. It looks like it'd be grippy, but actually there's not much grip at all. The slippage is at the point where, as soon as you get out of your seat on a climb, your back wheel is just sliding everywhere, which is something I've never really had in British gravel events, where the gravel is chunkier.”

Young has decided to make some technical changes, to deal with the pea gravel. "I've gone with a lighter set of wheels than I'd normally use, and I'm using a mountain-bike tyre that's sort of in-between the slick and the grit," he tells me.

"But it's weird – it's so fast rolling on some bits, and there's no chunky gravel, so you don't really need the puncture protection, but you definitely do want the grip on the corners, where it's really loose. You have to keep some weight on the back wheel. It doesn't really suit the fast climbers. I actually think the heavier riders might do well."

I don’t know about that. I was once put in the ‘Clydesdale Class’ when I entered a bike race in Australia (they’re not known for their tactfulness Down Under) and I still slid all over the place on the pea gravel.

But one thing is for sure, it will certainly make for an interesting couple of races on Saturday and Sunday.

I always enjoy the walk or jog to Parkrun. As you near the arena, such as it is, whether it is an actual park, or a seafront, or beside a motorway, over a bridge, as I did once. Once you’ve done the hard work of getting out of bed and making it to the designated place, you get to enjoy the anticipation in the air. People of all ages and abilities, semi-professional runners and people attempting their first ever 5km, all converge on the same spot, ready for the 9am start. It’s hugely successful, because the barriers to entry are so low: you need a pair of trainers, to be registered – which is free – and to complete a 5km at your speed. There is little danger, little cost, and few causes for apprehension. It’s little wonder that around 400,000 people take part each week.

Even then, it took me five years between signing up to Parkrun and actually embarking on one. I’ve now done 36, which is more reflective of my priorities on a Saturday morning than anything else, but it took me a while to not be intimidated by the event with little to no barriers. It took moving city, joining a run club and meeting like-minded people to encourage me to actually take part.

I was reflecting on all this when I went to watch my first ever cyclo-cross race in person last weekend. It was a local event, Round One of the Western Cyclo-Cross League in Cheltenham, England. Not to take part, no I’m not ready to do that, but to support my friends Rosalie and Laura in their first-ever race. There was the familiar trudge to a park, sadly with fewer people, but still a bit of a buzz. I can’t believe it took me this long to go to a race. The atmosphere was friendly, and reassuringly unintimidating, and it was great to see a range of ages and abilities race, from the semi-elite group at the front , to the much bigger group in the middle, having fun and taking part in their own battles. Just like Parkrun, there were those aiming for the win, or at least challenging for it, and then those using it as type two fun.

Cheering on the race, with the help of a continental lager – it is a CX race after all – I was taken by just how fun and friendly it looked, with a few of the competitors even thanking us for the support as they went round. It was far from the intimidating event that it could have been, that the world of road racing certainly seems to me, hill-climbing is similarly open. People just turn up with a bike they are prepared to ride off-road on, pay the fee (which in this case was £25), learn the course, and race for under an hour. The risks are low, especially the muddier it is. There are no open roads, no cars, it’s fun, and unless you’re battling at the front, it’s unlikely to be overly competitive. At least that’s how it seemed to me. There are technical bits, but nothing insurmountable, especially at the beginning of the season; then the worse the weather gets, the more the chaos mounts too.

The differences between Parkrun and a CX race are stark, of course. At the latter you do need a bike, you have to pay, and it feels a lot more hidden away; something you would only take part in if you met the right person, or were encouraged by a club. The equipment, especially, is a huge barrier to entry – I don’t have a gravel bike, so I’m out immediately. However, as we are several years into the gravel boom right now, you might have one, and I would encourage you to at least look into taking part in your local race. It’s easier said than done, obviously, but what’s the worst that could happen?

Organisers, locally and nationally, with the help of British Cycling, could do with a bit of a marketing revolution, to show that anyone can do it. I didn’t realise you could just turn up on the day and take part, so some clarity on the rules would certainly help, especially if you’re not part of a traditional cycling club that might push out info on this sort of thing. My friend Rosalie was hooked; she’s already done her second event. If we could harness this across the country, then maybe we could get loads more people hooked on racing. All I need now is a bike.

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com.

When Look released the G85 Cezal earlier in the year, the storied French brand heralded the gravel bike as a genuine all-rounder. Given that the sector in general is continuing its move into greater specialisation - race in one direction, adventure in the other - it appeared to be rather a bold move to position a new bike at the confluence of these points.

But the G85 Cezal did what all good bikes do. It proved its worth. Noted privateer Russell Finsterwald took it and won the respected US Belgian Waffle Race, helping to establish its racing credentials. Then the reviews rolled in, including our assessment of the Look G85 Cezal, which confirmed the bike’s versatility, stability, and light, agile handling.

But no sooner did we chalk one up for the generalist than Look released the G85 Cezal RS, a dedicated gravel race machine co-developed with Finsterwald. But rather than undermine the original Cezal's duality, the RS complements the platform, which Look says now covers 90% of gravel riding across the two bikes.

Interestingly, the difference between the two frames is found in the material rather than any tweaks to the geometry. Look has used what it describes as a “newly redesigned High Modulus (HM) carbon layup”, which it says saves 200g over the original G85 Cezal. The claimed weight for the RS frame is 1,000g for a size M, which is competitive enough for the gravel racing bracket; the internal downtube storage present in the original model has been sacrificed here, however.

The switch to the new layup has also increased stiffness, according to Look. The bottom bracket is some 19% stiffer by comparison, while the head tube is 20% stiffer. Combined, it's designed to make the RS more efficient during sprints, climbs, and accelerations in general. Look says the head tube stiffness is greater than that of its Blade RS 3 race bike, which was raced at this year's Tour de France.

All of this has been done without affecting compliance, according to Look; the frame features 3D Wave Flex System seatstays, designed to reduce vibrations and help to keep the wheels in contact with the trail, which in turn improves the rolling efficiency of the wider tyre; like the original model, the RS has clearance for 57mm front/50mm rear when using a 1x configuration, reduced to 45mm on a 2x setup.

As for that geometry, a size M combines a 590mm stack height with a 380mm reach. The head tube and seat tube angles are 70 and 74 degrees, respectively, with the 425mm chainstays also remaining. The frame can also accept suspension forks with up to 60mm of travel, if required.

For the RS to earn its 'race-ready' moniker, Look says it’s focused on real-world gains rather than obsessing over deep-section tube shapes. This means a fine-tuned front end, alongside cockpit choices that enable the rider to adopt and, vitally, hold an aerodynamically enhanced position. Combine this with the aforementioned compliance and wide tyres and you have a holistic approach that is designed to deliver greater comfort and control over challenging terrain, which in turn yields faster times.

Build options and pricing

The range comprises three models: two complete SRAM builds and a frameset option.

Leading the lineup is the G85 Cezal RS SRAM Red XPLR AXS, with a 44T aero chainring, Look Aero Carbon RS 3 handlebar and stem, and Fulcrum Shraq C25 wheels wrapped in 45mm Hutchinson Touareg Race tyres. Pricing is pegged at €8,990, with a total system weight of 7.9kg.

The second and final full build is the G85 Cezal RS SRAM Force XPLR AXS. It gets the same wheels and tyres as the SRAM Red version but drops a few teeth for a 40T chainring, while Deda Superzero Carbon bars and a Superbox stem round out the front end. It's a little cheaper, at €6,990, but weighs 400g more (8.3kg).

Finally, there's the G85 Cezal RS frameset for those who prefer to build their own bike. At €3,290, it's a more affordable option, provided you already have parts on standby to swap over. The frameset includes a Token T47 bottom bracket, 160 mm flat mount hardware, and a Look LS1 27.2 mm carbon seatpost.

Like many Italian shoe brands, Fizik shoes have traditionally been long and narrow, but with the Ferox 2 and Vega for the road, it has updated the last to deliver a more ergonomic fit, designed to be for suitable for a wider range of users, and not just professionals.

The shoes use a full carbon outsole for high-pace gravel racing, with a mix of dials and Velcro straps to provide secure foot retention. They now sit at the top of the tree in Fizik’s off-road shoe range.

But just how do these gravel bike shoes perform when put through their paces? To find out, I went gravel KOM hunting across local forest trails, adventuring through bridleways and plenty in between to see how they fare against the competition.

Design details

The Ferox 2 starts with what the brand calls its Anatomical Last. It features less of a heel-to-toe drop than the previous last, plus a wider forefoot better shaped to accommodate the toes. This is also featured on the Vega road shoes and came from Fizik studying the pressure distribution of riders’ feet. It found that reducing the heel-to-toe drop dramatically reduced forefoot pressure, while the wider front eliminated lateral hotspots around the toes.

Based on this new last, the Ferox 2 uses a full carbon fiber sole to deliver high stiffness and power transfer. A good amount of the outsole is protected with TPU tread so as to avoid scuffs and scrapes from stones and such. The sole gets a stiffness index rating of 10, the highest available for Fizik shoes, on a scale with no industry standard.

The upper is a one-piece design featuring a bootie fit rather than traditional sides and tongue. This is made from Airprene with perforations towards the upper section, and a scratch-resistant PU-laminated covering across the front and sides.

Retention comes from a Boa Li2 dial on the forefoot and a Powerstrap Velcro strap at the top. The latter is designed to be crash-proof (a dial can be at risk during a fall), while also spreading pressure across a wider area. It also has the benefit of being more adjustable than laces.

The claimed weight is 295g per shoe, while a size 45 came in at 342g on my scales with the insole fitted.

Performance

Getting these shoes on can be a bit of an ordeal, as the bootie-like upper doesn’t have the same flexibility as a traditional tongue design. It is similar to the Specialized Ares shoe, which similarly felt like it required a shoehorn, and the Q36.5 Unique Pro shoes, which do come with a shoehorn. Once on, however, the Ferox 2 are very comfortable, with the lack of material helping to keep the weight down

Adjusting the retention to the right level did take a little time. Shoes equipped with Boa dials top and bottom can be adjust easily. This remains the here case for the forefoot, but the Velcro strap around the ankle takes a little more refinement to get right. On some rides I found I had tightened it too much as my foot expanded in the heat. Other times my foot moved around a little as I hadn’t tightened it enough. The Powerstrap system is far easier to adjust than laces, of course, but a little more involved than a retention dial.

However, once you’ve got things dialled in, excuse the pun, the system stiffness of this shoe is fantastic. The sole provides a great platform for efficient power transfer to the pedals, while the strap-and-dial combination delivers a secure foot feel. The boot-like upper design means that even with the retention clamped down, no areas of the shoe pinch.

The tread is effective in multiple ways. The outer tread to the cleat bolts is the right height, so you don't need cleat shims to fit platformed gravel pedals such as the WolfTooth DEL or Look X-One-G. I also found that on the occasions when I did need to trek on foot, the shoes stayed secure on loose, dusty ground.

Speaking of dust, the lower section is very easy to wipe clean, thanks to the laminate upper. Meanwhile, the sock-like element towards the opening is a bit of a dirt magnet. This was okay for these black shoes, but in the lighter colour options I can imagine it would be very difficult to keep those clean. White knitted fabric and mud or dust do not tend to mix well.

Value

At £319.99 / $369.99, the Fizik Ferox 2 are not cheap, but compared with similar-spec gravel race shoes, they fare well.

The Specialized S-Works Recon Evo, for example, is £399.99 / $550, while the Sidi Aeron is prices at £349 / $569.99.

The Sidi Aeron, however, is significantly heavier at 407g per shoe in the same size, and although it features two dials, I think I prefer the retention of the Ferox 2 shoes overall.

The S-Works Recon Evo are a bit wider, but the Ferox 2 were not lacking in width. Arguably, the Recon Evo is a stiffer platform, but weight-wise they come out at a similar level, and there isn't enough difference between the two shoes to warrant the price hike for the Recon Evo.

There are, of course, cheaper options out there, but when it comes to the balance of stiffness, low weight, and value, the Fizik Ferox 2 is an impressive offering.

Tech specs

• Price: £319.99 / $369.99 / €329
• Sole: Carbon
• Sizes: 36-48 (half sizes 37.5-46.5)
• Weight: 342g per shoe (size 45)
• Retention: Boa dial and Velcro strap
• Colours: Black-dark forest, Lilac-black, Blue-black, Light grey-mint green, White-light grey

This Sunday, a bike race will take place in the Yorkshire Dales that is widely considered – by anyone who has ever been anywhere near it – to be the hardest one-day event in Britain. And probably well beyond.

It’s so nuts, there is some debate, even amongst former winners, about whether the 3-Peaks Cyclo-Cross race is actually a biking event at all. It's mostly off road, on very lumpy and technical terrain, but straight bars, suspension and chunky tyres are all strictly banned. At least six kilometres of the 67km (38-mile) course are deemed utterly unrideable, even by the organisers (who, to be fair, are famous for doing their own race).

Veterans of the event train for the race by carrying their bikes for miles, and it attracts almost as many runners as it does cyclists. Besides rough riders from all over the world – including Australian EF Education-EasyPost rider Lachlan Morton, back for his third attempt at glory – this year, the field will feature at least one elite triathlon, double gold-medal winning Olympian Alistair Brownlee, plus ultra-running tough guy Tom Evans, the current 3-Peaks fell-running champ.

“Is it a bike race?” muses reigning women’s champ and three-time winner Bryony Halcrow when Cycling Weekly asks her to define the 3-Peaks Challenge. “Is it a running race? What kind of race is it?”

On balance she decides it is primarily a cycling challenge, but for Halcrow – who considers herself a fell runner above all else, and tells me that she doesn’t enter many bike races – the difficulty is definitely part of the appeal. “It’s just really good fun,” she says.

“The atmosphere is amazing. Like, at the bottom of Ingleborough, everyone's there, crowding around. At the bottom of Ribblehead, the same thing happens. There's people out on the hill, everyone's cheering you on. It's so different from anything else. There are road bits, there are bits that you can't ride, there's bits that you can ride… it's just got everything that no other race has."

According to local lore, the race was born in 1959, when Kevin Watson, a 14-year-old lad from Skipton, rode a circuit of the Yorkshire Three Peaks – Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent – in six hours and 45 minutes.

Two other local riders, John Rawnsley and Harry Bond, subsequently turned Watson’s rugged route into an organised race, with the first iteration of the 3-Peaks Cyclo-Cross challenge being held in 1961. Rawnsley won, went on to organise the first 50 races (many of which he also took part in), and stayed involved until he passed away in 2019.

The race has attracted and produced some genuine legends, including Nick Craig, who won in 1991, 2009 and 2011, and Rob Jebb who, between the year 2000 and 2022, bagged an extraordinary 13 victories (the Jebb name appears again in this year’s start list). Louise Robinson has the record number of wins in the women's race, with five victories between 2002 and 2011, and she also holds the female course record, but Halcrow is hot on her heels on both counts.

Over the years the race has evolved slightly and grown considerably, with the original route being 25-miles (40km) long, but it remains steeped in history and tradition, which is partly why it’s so tough, with anything even vaguely resembling a mountain bike completely banned.

This year the rules have been relaxed slightly to allow 40mm tyres to be used (anything up to 40-622 / 700 x 38C is now permitted), so there will be more gravel bikes among the cyclo-cross steeds than ever before, but splayed bars (let alone straights) are still strictly banned. And there’s no getting away from the hike-a-bike element of the event.

"There's nothing else like it,” says last year's winner Jenson Young, who fought off a challenge from Lachlan Morton to set a new course record in 2025.

“To prepare for it, you've got to do specific things that you wouldn't do for any other race. There's such a variety of terrain. You could be a really good fell runner or really good at going up, but that doesn't mean you can do technical descents on a bike. Everyone struggles at something on the course – no one like excels at everything, which makes it pretty interesting.

“The first year I did it, I was really specifically doing running training and interval sessions. And then I realised that, actually, that approach didn't make me quicker at going up the hills. What you need is the ability to power walk up steep steps with a bike on your shoulder. The second year I did it, all my training was just walking up steep hills with weights or my bike on my back."

Young will miss this year's 3-Peaks, because he is heading to Australia to compete in the Gravel World Championships, but the guy who was on his heels last year, Lachlan Morton, is travelling in the other direction, and will be a big contender this year.

Like fell-running, there is a big community culture around the race. Will Scholey, who races at national level, took part in the race last year for the first time, and placed an impressive 14th in a large and competitive field, but it's been in his blood for years.

"It's right on my back doorstep, as I live just down the road in Settle, where my Dad's bike shop is," he explains. The bikeshop in question, 3-Peaks Cycles, has sponsored the race it takes its name from for the last ten years.

"Every year, Dad and I have gone up to watch. It's always been a goal of mine, and I always said to Dad that when I was old enough, I was going to do it," Will continues.

"I did it for the first time last year, aged 19. Unfortunately it didn't go my way – my descending was far from up-to-scratch, and I cramped the whole way down Whernside and whole way up Pen-y-Ghent. I hadn't quite got my nutrition right.

"I've only done it once, but it was the best race I did last year. I really enjoyed it, and I instantly wanted to come back for more, and to do better, which is what I'm hoping to do this year.

"It's called the world's hardest cyclo-cross race for a reason. It's a challenge, but it's a fun challenge. It takes in everything from road riding to grassy descents, riding down slabs downhill mountainbike style, hike-a-bike sections, especially up Simon Fell, which is close to vertical."

The technicality of the course, the steep nature of the terrain and the quality of the entrants all combine to make this a highly challenging event, but the elements can also play a big role in how the race pans out. Not that conditions overly bother everyone.

"I haven't actually looked at the weather yet," admits Halcrow. "If it was absolutely horrible, I think I'd survive better, compared to other people because I go fell-running out in foul conditions all the time."

The third-generation Canyon Grail has plenty to live up to. The previous model won at both Unbound and the UCI Gravel World Championships. But Canyon seems confident its changes will only strengthen the Grail’s racing pedigree, calling it “the fastest, most accomplished gravel race bike out there”.

The newest iteration is offered in three guises: CFR, CF SLX and CF, with the ‘fastest’ tag attached to the CFR model. Claimed frame weights are 989g, 1,095g and 1,128g respectively.

Testing the bike for CW has been video manager Jamie Williams, who called the changes a “revolution rather than an evolution”.

Perhaps the most notable of the changes is the increased tyre clearance. Reportedly, this was a product of working closely with Rosa Klöser, who won Unbound in 2024. Her move to Canyon, we’re told, was based in part on the promise of a gravel race bike that would allow for tyres as wide as 2.25.

Canyon says this marked a turning point in the development of the third-generation Grail, which boasts clearance for tyres as wide as 57mm, with 4mm to spare (although the bikes will ship with 45mm as standard).

Unsurprisingly, the Grail is now compatible only with 1x groupsets.

Klöser provided ample justification for her demands by winning The Traka 360 on the Grail CFR’s racing debut. And as Canyon is keen to point out, if the likes of Klöser are all in on running 50mm+ tyres to help them go faster over challenging terrain, then it’s likely a good solution for any gravel rider who enjoys tackling tough trails, whether they have a number pinned on their back or not.

Clearly, off-road performance is the focus here, with getting to the trails via the road a means to an end.

If ‘wider is faster’ has been gravel’s hottest debate of the past couple of years, then aerodynamics has been a close second. Seemingly every new gravel race bike comes with substantial aero claims, but when developing the new Grail, Canyon says it focused only on realistic scenarios. Testing at the GST Wind Tunnel in Immenstadt used a moving leg dummy and focused on 35km/h, which the brand deems “real-world gravel race pace”.

Canyon says it tested its prototype against leading machines, including Factor’s Ostro Gravel and Cervelo’s Aspero-5, as well as the previous-generation Grail. Using control wheels and a 45mm tyre width, it bested its rivals, albeit by less than half a watt in the case of the Aspero-5. Throwing on 55mm tyres it still proved faster than the Gen 2 Grail fitted with 40mm rubber.

While you might assume that the increased tyre clearance requires more than a few tweaks to the Grail’s handling geometry, Canyon says the only change is to the wheelbase, which has been lengthened by 10mm. Otherwise, the handling characteristics of the previous model remain intact, with a consistent 71.5-degree head tube angle and 69 mm trail values across all core frame sizes.

The aim is predictable, stable handling, with the rider’s weight balanced at the centre of the bike to help with cornering.

The overall geometry has shifted, most notably in the reduced stack height. The new Grail is 15mm lower than the previous model, which Canyon says enables a more aggressive fit. The CFR and CF SLX versions also feature Pace Technology, which lets riders adjust the cockpit height and width with a single Torx 25 tool; the adjustments allow for 50mm width and 20mm height. It also added a new drop bar option, called Control Drops, which offers 10mm of adjustment to the effective reach.

While the generous tyre clearance should, in theory at least, equate to a more comfortable ride, Canyon has also called in the seatpost to help absorb the shocks. The VCLS post is the same as the one used on the brand’s Endurace CFR road bike and, according to Canyon, delivers 25% more compliance than a rigid post.

Another feature born from the needs of the self-sufficient racer that benefits the everyday rider is the inclusion of the Load down tube storage, featured on both the CFR and CF SLX models. Canyon has also teamed up with Cyclite, the Bavarian bikepacking brand, to create two lightweight and waterproof bags - a midloader and a top tube - that work seamlessly with the Grail to avoid any aerodynamic issues. The former uses a ‘push-to-release’ mechanism that's designed to make it a cinch to install and remove.

The adaptability options don’t end there. All three models feature Gear Grove, a ‘cockpit interface’ that lets you fit lights and a computer, plus adjustable aero extensions if you fancy taking on an ultra-endurance challenge. Both the CF SLX and the CF are also compatible with Defend Fast Fenders.

Canyon is launching a new set of gravel wheels alongside the Grail, the GR 50 CF carbon wheelset. Featuring a 50mm deep rim with an internal rim diameter of 27mm, they come specc’d on two Grail models - the CF 7 AXS and the CF SLX 7 Di2 - as well as being available as an aftermarket purchase.

Canyon Grail CF SLX 7 - first ride impressions

CW's Video Manager, Jamie Williams, has been testing out the bike – here are his early thoughts...

The third generation of Grail hasn’t been kept much of a secret after being raced at the world’s biggest gravel events throughout 2026, but we now have all the details and have managed to swing a leg over the mid-tier CF SLX model ahead of its launch, so here are our initial impressions.

I think it’s fair to say that the new Grail is a revolution rather than an evolution, with some massive changes over the outgoing model.

The stat that is sure to grab the headlines is space for up to 57mm tyres, matching the new Factor Elara and Scott Addict Gravel. For me, this is a welcome change, as it was one reason I overlooked the previous generation and opted for a Lauf Seigla instead (which also has space for my favourite 2.2in Continental Dubnitals). This has been made possible by a clever solid chainstay on the driveside and the switch to making the frame 1x compatible only – for me, that’s not a deal breaker, although it might be for some people.

Canyon has also published plenty of aero claims about the new bike with some unsurprisingly favourable data of the new Grail compared to bikes such as the Cervelo Aspero 5 and Factor Ostro Gravel, but the most interesting data for me was the fact that the new Grail is faster than the outgoing version fitted with 40mm tyres even with the new one fitted with 55mm tyres – another nail in the coffin for ‘narrow gravel tyres’.

Out on the trails and tracks of South Wales, the new Grail has certainly been fast; it’s also surefooted and finds a good balance between agility and stability. The ability to fit wider tyres has undoubtedly made it a more versatile bike. I also like that the bike comes with an adjustable cockpit, and the fitted bags are a nice touch. In fact, they’re the first frame bags that I haven’t taken off at the first opportunity; they’re lighter than most, fit the frame excellently, and the quick-release system is genius.

The internal frame storage has also worked well, and the system is much less rattly than competitors' systems I’ve used. The Grail CF SLX 7 Di2 model I’ve been riding will retail for €3,999 / £3,899, which is a lot less than I expected. This model also comes fitted with Canyon’s new GR50 CF in-house wheelset, which has performed well, although it is hookless, which not everyone will be delighted about.

The bike feels excellent when up to speed and is impressively smooth and comfortable, however, as impressive as the bike has been - I have found a few (minor) drawbacks although most are easily remedied…Firstly, all of the new bikes ship with 45mm tyres; to me, this is like having a supercar and then never using the top half of the rev range. Like I say, easily remedied, but you'll probably need another 100 quid or so to get the most out of this bike. Secondly, the GR50 CF wheelset has been very good overall, and the DT Swiss 350 hubs are a solid, reliable spec choice. I did, however, wish it had a higher-engaging freehub, and I’d certainly invest in an upgrade kit if I bought this bike to make it feel more instantaneous on slower, techy climbs.

The hardest thing to remedy with the Grail CF SLX 7 Di2 model that I tested is that it's no featherweight, with a claimed weight of 9.5kg. A 1,100-gram frame weight means that this is almost entirely down to spec choice. The Shimano RX715 cassette is heavy, and the wheelset isn't the lightest either at 1,675 grams. With that in mind, I personally find the 9.1kg, €3,499 / £3,499 SRAM Rival-equipped Grail CF 7 a far more attractive proposition.

Overall, there’s been a host of welcome updates to the Grail platform, and Canyon has been busy bundling a lot of changes into a package that performs very well. If you want a gravel bike to race on or to traverse everything from road to MTB territory as fast as possible, then the Grail is definitely worth considering.

Model lineup and pricing

The pro-endorsed CFR comes in two builds, with SRAM RED XPLR AXS and Shimano GRX Di2 800 groupsets. Both bikes are equipped with 50 mm DT Swiss GRC 1100 wheels as standard.

Grail CFR Di2: £6,200 / $7,999 / €6,500
Grail CFR AXS: £7,600 / $8,999 / €8,000

The CF SLX, described by Canyon as “the privateer’s favourite” is available in two builds: the CF SLX 8 AXS with SRAM Force XPLR AXS groupset and DT Swiss GRC 1400 wheels, the 7 CF SLX 7 Di2 with the aforementioned GR 50 CF carbon wheels and a Shimano GRX Di2 700 groupset.

Grail CF SLX 7 Di2: £3,899 / $4,999 / €3,999
Grail CF SLX 8 AXS: £4,799 / $5,999 / €4,999

Finally, the entry-level CF 7 model is offered with a SRAM Rival XPLR AXS groupset and Canyon GR 50 CF wheels, and with a mechanical Shimano GRX 600 groupset and carbon Newmen Advanced G.34 wheels.

Grail CF 7: £2,499 / $3,499 / €2,499
Grail CF 7 Speed: £3,499 / $4,299 / €3,499

All models are available in seven sizes, from 2XS to 2XL.

Trek Driftless had plenty to celebrate in Minnesota over the weekend, with Cobe Freeburn and Paige Onweller sweeping the elite titles at the 2026 USA Cycling Gravel National Championships. After 107 miles of racing, Freeburn clinched his Stars and Stripes jersey with a late solo attack, while Onweller won hers in a two-rider sprint.

For Freeburn, the victory came with another milestone: his first trip onto a national championship podium.

"The day was great. It was very chaotic with people up the road all the time," Freeburn said. "Luckily, we caught Griffin [Easter] right at the end, and I was able to attack in the forest and get away."

The men’s field of 61 offered little opportunity to settle in. Attacks steadily reduced the bunch, and by mile 53, five riders had gone clear: Zach Calton, Marc Spratt, Braeden Sellinger, Chase Wark and Robert Oehler.

That move was back by the three-hour mark, leaving 12 riders at the front and Griffin Easter (OpiCure Gravel p/b Orbea and Castelli SOG) chasing half a minute behind. Easter worked his way across, then kept going. With 10 miles remaining, he was alone out front, 40 seconds ahead of a nine-rider chase.

It was a promising position, but in the effort of bridging and then attacking, Easter had perhaps burned one match too many. The chasers reeled him in during the closing miles, opening the door for Freeburn to launch his race-winning move.

The Durango rider quickly built a 20-second advantage and held clear to the finish. Cole Davis (SpeedStudio p/b Basso) won the sprint for second, while Easter salvaged third after helping shape the race.

“I’ve been thinking about this since last year and I really wanted it, so I’m really proud,” Freeburn said.

Freeburn’s path to gravel began on mountain bikes, including four years with the Bear National Team development programme. He joined Trek Driftless for 2026 after a privateer season that brought victory at Bighorn Gravel and a third-place finish at SBT GRVL. Completing his college degree before the 2025 season also gave Freeburn more time for training and recovery, helping set up his breakthrough year as a Life Time Grand Prix debutant.

Men's Podium

1. Cobe Freeburn (Durango, Colo.; Trek Driftless)
2. Cole Davis (Roseville, Calif.; SpeedStudio p/b Basso)
3. Griffin Easter (Park City, Utah; OpiCure Gravel p/b Orbea and Castelli SOG)

In the women’s race, Onweller wasted little time to test the 25-rider elite field. After a hard opening sequence of climbs, she attacked around mile 38, using a long plateau and crosswind to force a separation.

By mile 41, she had 20 seconds on the chase, with two groups of eight behind her. After an hour off the front by herself, Onweller was joined by Sarah Lange (Velocio // Exploro)and the two worked well together.

At mile 66, the pair led solo chaser Emma Langley (Ventum / DT Swiss / Kenda / Rule28 / Monolith) by 40 seconds, with another five riders 2:40 behind. Onweller and Lange continued to cooperate, keeping the title contest between themselves.

"We work really well together, we’re both super strong, and really committed to working together to the finish," Onweller said.

Their partnership lasted until the final sprint, where Onweller took the win ahead of Lange. Langley completed the podium.

"I got her at the end, but she really pushed me today, and it was a really fun day with her," Onweller added. "Solid day out today at Gravel Nationals."

Onweller’s cycling story started comparatively recently. A former collegiate runner and emergency-room physician assistant, she began riding in 2020 to complement her running, then found competition on Zwift. Her first mass-start bike race was (the unofficial) Gravel Worlds in 2021, where she finished fifth; just over a year later, she won Big Sugar. She's now a familiar face at the front end of any pro gravel race.

Women's Podium

1. Paige Onweller (Bella Vista, Ark.; Trek Driftless)
2. Sarah Lange (Lyme, N.H.)
3. Emma Langley (Richmond, Va.; Ventum / DT Swiss / Kenda / Rule28 / Monolith)

While sightings first surfaced at the Traka gravel race in May, we got our first real look at a Factor One-inspired gravel bike at Unbound later in the same month, ridden by former WorldTour pro Romain Bardet and some of his teammates. I wouldn’t say I was shocked so much as I was surprised, as I was told just a few weeks earlier that the company was capping its gravel bike offering at three distinct models – at the time that comprised the Ostro Gravel, Aluto and recently released Sarana.

Unbeknownst to me, however, Factor was already cooking up a radical new aero gravel machine designed to replace the Ostro Gravel. Dubbed the Elara, it came to fruition as an idea floated by the brand's athletes – Magnus Bak Klaris and Romain Bardet, both of whom were instrumental in bringing it to life. Magnus, a self-confessed cycling tech obsessive and PhD candidate, asked the design team for an aero gravel bike solution that could accommodate 57mm-wide tyres, as he felt this was the future of gravel racing and could potentially make him faster.

Factor's three-model gravel lineup aims to address the various offshoots of the burgeoning gravel cycling discipline: the Aluto represents the middle ground (Race Balance), the Sarana takes care of the adventure side (Race Endurance), while the Elara is an all-out speed merchant (Race Speed).

Design details

The Elara is available in two colours: virescent blue (pictured here) or matte carbon. I'm a huge fan of raw carbon finishes and would have loved to see the bike in that configuration, but the metallic, desaturated turquoise hue is rather pretty. I like the colour-coded seatpost, too – it's a lovely detail, so is the F.K.T. logo (Fastest Known Time) on the top tube.

In terms of frame options, the Factor Elara is available in six sizes from 49 to 61cm.

As expected, the frame and fork are constructed using a meld of materials – TeXtreme, Toray, Nippon Graphite and Pan-Based fibres, but where 3K woven fibers typically comprise the downtube, Factor has incorporated reinforced TeXtreme for extra strength.

The front triangle draws many parallels with the Factor One and Ostro VAM – specifically the fork integration, hourglass-shaped head tube, and leading edge around the downtube. Factor cites a 2.5w gain from relocating the leading edge forward on the fork compared to the original fork design.

Ah yes, original fork design, I hear you mumble?

Yep, the Factor Elara initially started out with a traditional-looking fork, but after seeing the online memes showing the Factor One aero bike with a 2.2-inch mountain bike tyre shoehorned up front, the design team got thinking and tested the Elara with a wider, Factor One-style fork in the wind tunnel in December last year.

What started as a laugh turned out to be an effective solution that improved both aerodynamics and handling.

This was quantified using CFD modelling with a textured map and followed by 3D tyre testing before validation in the wind tunnel – the testing showed that airflow was contained within the fork with measurable drag reductions with 45–57mm race tyres, delivering aero efficiency on par with modern road frames.

While it uses a similar aero chin protrusion to the One, in this application, the fork is UCI-illegal because the fork conformity and down tube boxes intersect. Look closely, and you'll find no UCI-approved decal; then again, most of the races where the Elara will be used are non-UCI-sanctioned events, so it doesn't matter.

Those with a keen eye might even recall the Factor gravel bikes used by Romain Bardet and Magnus Bak Klaris at the Santa Vall gravel race in Spain earlier this year. While some cited the bikes as updated Ostro Gravel bikes, they were actually early Elara prototypes – just without the aero fork pictured here. Factor had aero forks ready to go, but they hadn't undergone the necessary safety checks and stress testing, so they decided to field-test the Elara with the regular fork instead.

The Elara’s geometry is inspired by Factor’s road bikes, and the riding position also reflects this – so it has a long reach with reduced trail number and a bottom bracket that is positioned lower to ensure stability across the board. To avoid stretching out the chainstays, the bottom bracket has been positioned lower (80mm) to help triangulate the rear end – this has also ensured stability and preserved agile handling characteristics. It also doesn’t veer too far from rear centre dimension relative to the rider’s centre of gravity, as the Ostro Gravel does.

On a medium-sized frame (54cm), Factor has paired a 72.5-degree head angle with a 74.5-degree seat tube angle, with the chainstays measuring 420mm. In fact, the head tube angle, trail number, and fork offset are basically the same as the Ostro Gravel.

The big news with the Factor Elara, however, is how it was manufactured: the entire frame is a one-piece monocoque, built to the exact tolerances needed to clear a 57mm chainline, 52T 1x chainring, and a two-by front derailleur. The monocoque construction also makes for a lighter frameset. This also means the chainstays are a single piece, not bonded, so the alignment is perfect. It has allowed Factor to use wafer-thin rather than solid carbon, so Shimano Di2 cables can still thread out the rear. As such, the rear triangle uses a split-plane design with a lowered drive-side stay and an offset seat-tube junction.

To ensure a polished product, Factor spent considerable time refining the details and industrial design of the rubber gaskets used throughout the bike. Another area was the seatpost clamp, now removable and easy to service while retaining all the benefits of the pusher clamp system seen on the Ostro Gravel 2.0. Other details include a default 160/160 front/rear rotor configuration, a threaded bottom bracket, UDH functionality, range-universal dust caps for handlebar cross-compatibility, and the same seatpost dimensions as the Ostro VAM.

Specifications

The Elara is the second Factor gravel bike I've recently sampled that came outfitted with SRAM Force AXS and a power meter. It's a superb groupset, delivering Red AXS performance at a much more palatable price point. In terms of the tactile experience, overall performance, and brake modulation, the differences are marginal.

This particular build features Force XPLR AXS, which combines a one-by 44T chainring with a 10-46T cassette and direct-mount rear mech. Shifting is crisp and predictable, and the gearing is well matched to the terrain I ride around the Surrey Hills. The Elara also benefits from a new 38cm Black Inc Aero Gravel Bar AB07 matched to a 120mm stem, complete with a 17-degree flared drop.

Of all the components, the big talking point is the Black Inc 64 Gravel wheels. Built exclusively for the Factor Elara, they function as a complete system with the frameset. While you can outfit it with shallower Black Inc 46 wheels or pair it with another compatible brand, the bike was optimised around the 64mm deep rim and 2.0in-wide tyres. The deep rim profile is matched to a modern 30mm internal rim width (40mm external) and plays nicely with tyres up to 57mm (2.2in). The minimum tyre size compatible with the Black Inc 64 Gravel wheels is 47mm.

All this, however, means the wheels tip the scales at a rather hefty 1,620g (720/900g front/rear).

It also has in-frame storage for those who need it. Accessible through a door beneath the Black Inc bottle cage on the downtube, it houses a pouch for storing tools, a tube, and perhaps some emergency gels.

Performance

The Factor Elara was designed for speed – it’s a fast bike, and that goes for whether you ride it on gravel or tarmac. As such, the bike works as a complete system - frame set and wheels combined - and you can feel this out on the trail. For a bike as radical-looking as the Elara, it’s incredibly easy to ride, and despite the 8.75kg weight, it minces rolling hills and is able to get up the steeper stuff fairly adequately, too.

While you can feel the added rolling resistance of the 2.0in Continental Race King tyres, the benefits these rubber options afford are truly incredible, especially when the terrain is washboard-like or heavily corrugated.

I've raced gravel bikes in week-long stage races with much firmer ride qualities than the Elara, and I think the firmness-to-comfort balance here is good. The vibration-induced speed loss I've often experienced just didn't feel present as the Black Inc 64 Gravel wheels and tyres soaked up vibrations and ever-changing chunky terrain effectively. The result is speed unlike anything else I’ve tested – in fact, you’ll find yourself held back more by your lack of confidence rather than the Elara. Overcome this and ride the Elara harder than you usually ride a gravel bike, and the rewards are massive.

I found myself barreling into corners at much higher speeds than usual, relying on the blocky shoulder knobs of the Race Kings to grip into the hardpack lurking under the powdery surface layers. At first you can hear the tyre breaking traction as you lean in, pushing the front end into the trail beneath, followed by a skidding sensation from the unweighted rear – but then the tyres bite, and grip comes in spades. Get into a rhythm and start stitching together a state of flow, and it becomes a vivid picture of detail and connection, often missing from the gravel bike recipe. It’s a little trickier in singletrack – especially when climbing tightly stitched-together sections and toe overlap comes into play.

The Elara only truly comes alive when the road ahead opens up. Tuck in and assume the lowest position you can, and watch the speed increase on your cycling computer. It’s absolutely mental; not even the terrain can hold it back or scrub off progress.

The ride quality isn't too bad, all things considered. Of course, the wheels and tyres are a large reason for its ability to soak up bumps and hits from below, and this helps with keeping things swift. The front end and Black Inc Aero Gravel Bar AB07 arrangement is pretty stiff (as is the BB area) and expected at this level, and while I suffered no real hand and arm pain, I’m confident that if you pair it with the correct tyre pressure (for your weight), you’ll be able to find a balance to best suit your needs. This is a racing bike after all!

The riding position is fairly aggressive and not too far removed from other racing gravel bikes (and some road bikes for that matter); Factor made a point of retaining the Ostro Gravel's frame angles and for good reason – there was nothing to fix. As a racing gravel bike, the Elara needs to be ridden hard, and that means setting it up to match its intentions. I kept things aggressive with a forward-bias setup, which let me stretch out into an aero position.

The gearing is good, too. While it can accommodate two-by drivetrains and subsequently unlock another level of speed, the stock 44T, 10-46T gearing spread was ample for my testing routes.

The bars are pretty ergonomic for the application, with a slight flare. The one-piece bar-stem configuration gives you confidence to hit ruts at speed without worrying about the bar rotating in the stem, as traditional bar/stem setups often can. A setup like this matters even more on descents, where you need the confidence and trust to navigate technical terrain at high speeds.

I tested the Elara on both gravel and tarmac, with both the stock Black Inc 64 Gravel wheels with 2.0in Conti Race Kings as well as Fulcrum Sharq GR wheels wrapped in Vittoria Corsa Pro Control 42c road tyres. This test showed that the Elara is absolutely rapid on tarmac with slick rubber fitted, and can easily keep up on fast group rides – even at average speeds of 36km/h and above.

On the road with the stock Race Kings, the Elara never really feels held back either; if anything, it’s more the humming of the 50mm tyres that suggests you might be going slower. That said, you will need to work the pedals harder to overcome the rolling resistance of the chunkier tyres.

Tyre clearance is ample, especially on the stock 2.0in Race King configuration. While it’s been fairly dry in the south of England, where I've done most of my testing, there was at least one wet, muddy day that put the grip and clearance to the test. The Race Kings are great: their mud clearing is impressive, as is their grip in the wet, but over some prolonged, seriously sticky sections, I could feel and hear mud coming into contact with the underside of the fork crown. Whether this might be more of an issue in areas with clay soil, I don't know, but in those conditions, no bike will be immune.

Overall, I had no issues with the stock 2.0in tyres, as well as no desire nor reason to shoehorn anything wider in either – and I put this bike through its paces on properly chunky, muddy technical terrain.

As a racing package, the Factor Elara makes complete sense for events such as Unbound and stage races like Gravel Burn. In fact, if I were entered for this year’s edition of Gravel Burn, the Elara would be my weapon of choice given the speed it’s able to maintain over rough terrain – any weight penalty is more than made up for in comfort, speed and confidence. The Black Inc 64 Gravel wheels and 2.0-inch tyres essentially act as suspension and let you bulldoze and bully your way through terrain that would previously thwart progress and bring about unimaginable levels of vibration-induced wrist, head, neck, and body pain.

Value

As it stands, the Factor Elara occupies a unique position, with few rivals. Sure, the 3T Racemax² Force gravel bike comes to mind, but it offers neither the same level of tyre clearance nor the aggressive geometry of the Elara, despite coming in at a more affordable price point in the UK and EU (it's pricier in the US).

In fact, the closest rival is the Ridley Kanzo Fast 2.0, which clears tyres as wide as 58mm, and hits a cheaper price point in the same Force AXS build. Then again, the Kanzo 2.0 is only available in four frame sizes and also lacks the super-aero Black Inc 64 Gravel wheels, which are a key differentiator and a key component that set the Factor Elara apart – it's a case of sliding scales.

The Factor Elara - as expected - is a pricey beast, but there are options available. The bike pictured here will set you back £9,499/ $9,699/ €11,599 as a full build. Opt for SRAM Red AXS, and this figure will climb to £10,999/ $11,399/ €13,599.

You can also purchase the frameset and build it up accordingly if you've already got some components lying about; this will cost you £5,899/ $5,999/ €7,199. Factor says you can build and spec it with any gravel wheelset. That said, having tested it both as a full system and with aftermarket wheels, the Black Inc 64s are the way to go if you're after the full experience.

Purchasing the Black Inc 64 Gravel wheels separately will add £2,199/ $2,199/ €2,599 to your bill, but there's also a shallower £1,699/ $1,699/ €1,999 Black Inc 46 wheelset option if that's too dear.

Scoring breakdown

Tech spec

• Price: £9,499/ $9,699/ €11,599
• Brand: Factor
• Frame: TeXtreme, Toray, Nippon Graphite with Pan-Based Fibre
• Fork: Full carbon
• Weight: 8.75kg (actual, 54cm)
• Sizes: 47, 52, 54, 56, 58, 61cm
• Levers: SRAM Force AXS
• Brakes: SRAM Force AXS, 160/160mm front/rear
• Rear derailleur: SRAM Force AXS
• Front derailleur: SRAM Force AXS
• Crankset: SRAM Force AXS with Power Meter, 44T
• Bottom bracket: T47A, threaded
• Cassette: SRAM Force XPLR AXS 10-46T
• Chain: SRAM Force
• Wheels: Black Inc 64 Gravel
• Tyres: Continental Race King 2.0
• Bar/stem: Black Inc Aero Gravel Bar AB07
• Seatpost: Factor aero-profile carbon
• Saddle: Selle Italia SLR Elite

The Revolt is Giant’s long-standing gravel bike. First introduced in 2013, the design has been honed, improved, and upgraded many times, and the range now runs all the way from the £1,200/ $1,400 aluminium option up to the £5,000 carbon Revolt X Advanced Pro, or the $7,000 Advanced Pro 0 in the US.

In those 13 years, gravel bikes have morphed from something more akin to a cyclo-cross bike into a tool capable of tackling some very serious terrain and equally demanding distances. There are branches of the gravel family tree shooting off into adventure riding, group racing and even mountain bike-type territory, but the Revolt remains something of an all-rounder, especially this mid-priced Advanced 2 model.

I spent some time on the 2025 version of this bike, so was interested to see what changes, if any, had been made for 2026.

Technical details

Most obviously, the smart gloss black paint job remains, but the logo has been switched from iridescent purple to a tyre-matching tan colour. And at first glance, that is about it. In fact, at a second or third glance, there is not much that has been changed between the model years, but that is no bad thing, as I was impressed with the last year's Revolt.

The carbon frame is classic Giant, with a very compact design and masses of standover height, but there is a bit of cleverness going on around the seatpost. The supplied Giant D-Fuse carbon post is D-shaped for compliance, but fits into a round seat tube using a shim. This is a little bit of faff, but does give the option to run a 30.9mm dropper post if so desired, although I never quite got the rubber seal at the top of the seat tube to seat neatly in place.

Apparently the frame has been on a diet and dropped 160g through a change in carbon layup, but both the 2025 and 2026 models that I tested weighed in at 9.6kg for a M/L, probably because of a welcome increase in tyre width from 40mm to 45mm on the newer model.

Another carryover feature is the flip-chip on the rear dropout, which alters the chainstay length and hence the wheelbase by 10mm. The down tube storage, now a gravel mainstay, also remains.

Giant has used a neat compromise when it comes to the ever-fashionable internal cabling – the cables run through the frame as usual, but, crucially, don't run through the stem or handlebars. Instead, they route along the underside of the bars and stem before disappearing into a port on the front side of the steerer. This keeps the cables out of harm's way and prevents them from fouling handlebar bags, but it also means that bar and stem switches and alterations can be made far more easily.

Specifications

Complementing the carbon frame is Shimano’s 12-speed GRX groupset, using an 11-36T cassette paired with a 32/48T chainring configuration from FSA. The frame can take 53mm-wide tyres, too (in the long flip-chip position), so the inclusion of a front mech hasn’t affected clearance

As is the norm with Giant, most of the components, other than the groupset, are in-house. As mentioned, the stem and handlebars are Giant-branded, as are the seatpost and saddle. The P-X2 wheels are also a Giant product and are shod with, yep, Giant rubber in the form of 700x45C tubeless-ready Crosscut Grip gravel tyres. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, and it often enables better pricing and specifications than those of externally sourced components.

The Revolt range has three main families within it: the Revolt (aluminium), the Revolt Advanced (carbon composite) and the Revolt Advanced Pro (carbon composite with SL grade materials). Within each of these, there is a choice of specification.

Giant’s sizing runs from XS through S, M, ML, L to XL, and caters for riders from 155cm up to 200cm tall.

Performance

Between the 2025 and 2026 models, I’ve spent a lot of time on the Revolt over the last 12 months and racked up plenty of miles; I’ve ridden it on short, hard blasts and long, 100km+ days as well as overnighting with it, too.

I’ll start with my main negative point: the handlebars. While, controversially, I really liked the lack of flare, I think that they are too thin and harsh (especially when compared with the plush rear end), and the Stratus 3.0 bar tape does nothing to help this situation. Thicker bar tape is essential, but I’d more likely swap the bars completely for something more comfortable if the bike were mine. In part, this is a function of the trails I ride being a bit more MTB-adjacent than champagne gravel, but even on smooth terrain, some additional comfort won’t go amiss, especially on long days out. Unlike me, I imagine that many riders might prefer something wider with more flare, too.

Aside from comfort, the bars have another issue, which is that they taper immediately after they leave the stem, meaning that it is difficult to fit a computer, bell, or light unless you use a stem mount.

Luckily, thanks to the semi-external cable routing, changing the bars and/or stem would be very easy and reasonably inexpensive.

Aside from that, it is pretty much all good news. The wider 45mm tyres add a modicum of comfort to the front end and, in conjunction with the new carbon layup, give the bike a slightly zingier feel. With the D-shaped carbon seatpost almost at its maximum for my 186cm height, the rear of the bike was super comfortable when seated, with plenty of flex in the post. Of course, this only works when in the saddle, so rough, out-of-the-saddle descents still relied on the tyres and my legs for suspension.

The tyres and wheels were decent enough. Despite the weight, the wheels rolled very smoothly, a sensation accentuated by the freehub’s silence; indeed, a noisier freehub would have been useful in lieu of a bell on some trails! The Crosscut tyres with their smallish knobs performed well enough on dry trails, and weren’t horrible on tarmac sections, but looked like sloppy mud would overwhelm them. Luckily I didn’t experience much of that.

As is so often the case with reasonably priced bikes, the wheels and tyres would be a great place to start any upgrading and weight saving. Although doing so can quickly move a bike out of the reasonably priced category, I did try the Revolt on some lighter carbon wheels, and the improvement in ride feel was instant, but the upgrade would add another 50% to the bike's price.

One area that really doesn’t need any upgrading is the groupset. I’ve used various versions of Shimano’s GRX offering, and, put simply, it just works. Braking performance on the Revolt was excellent – powerful and rub-free, while the shifting was light and accurate. The use of a double chainset goes against gravel’s obsession with single rings, but I am all in favour of it and run a double on my own Topstone; I’ve never had an issue with using a front shifter, and much prefer the range and closeness of gear ratios it offers.

Some will perhaps bemoan Giant’s use of a press-fit bottom bracket, but again I’ve never had a problem with them, and I think on a bike at this price point it’s not unreasonable to use one.

There are plenty of attachment options for riders who like to go long (or just carry the kitchen sink with them on every ride). In addition to the standard two bottle-cage bosses, there are bosses on the fork legs and the top tube. I didn’t use the downtube storage, but it looked to be one of the better versions of this feature, with an easy-to-use mechanism and a secure, rattle-free fit.

I rode the Revolt in both the long and short flip-chip settings, and while it was interesting to play with, I can’t say I’d have missed it if it wasn’t there. I think it felt a little zippier and more playful in the shorts setting, but it could easily have been confirmation bias.

Making the switch is a 10 minute job; rear wheel out, rear mech off, undo both dropouts with a small hex key, flip them and tighten, replace rear mech, undo brake caliper, flip the adaptor, refasten caliper and set up on the rotor, replace rear wheel. Easy enough at home, but not a realistic option for trailside use. I suspect most riders might change it once and then just leave it alone.

Giant says that tyre clearance is reduced from 53mm to 45mm in the short setting, but there looked to be plenty of room for 50mm tyres to me, even with a front mech.

Value

The 2026 Revolt Advanced 2 is actually £200 cheaper than the 2025 model and, at £2,500/ $2,800, represents pretty decent value.

Handlebar issues aside, you could quite happily ride the Revolt as it is day in, day out on all sorts of terrain and never think twice about it.

You could fit a dropper post, flip the chip, max out the tyre clearance and stick on a flex stem with big bars and blat around having loads of fun. Or you could bolt on a bunch of luggage and head off for the horizon.

All of which to say that the Revolt is a versatile, easy-to-ride gravel bike; if I were told that this was to be my only gravel bike for the next few years, I would be happy enough.

I really liked the seated compliance offered by the combination of the frame and D-shaped seatpost, and the tyre size increase to 45mm is a great upgrade. I would consider budgeting for a different set of handlebars, though, for better balance and easier mounting of gadgets.

Four stars feels a bit mean for such a competent and enjoyable bike, but I'm not sure that buyers at this price point should be expected to fork out more cash to sort out the cockpit.

Tech spec

• Price: £2,499/ $2,800
• Brand: Giant
• Frame: Revolt Adv 2 Advanced-grade composite
• Fork: Revolt Adv 2 Advanced-grade composite
• Weight: 9.6kg (actual, 56cm)
• Sizes: XS, S, M, ML, L, XL
• Levers: Shimano GRX RX-610, 2x12
• Brakes: Shimano BR-RX410hydraulic, Giant MPH rotors, 160mm/160mm front/rear
• Rear derailleur: Shimano GRX RX-820
• Front derailleur: Shimano GRX RX-820
• Crankset: Shimano FC-RX610-2, 46/30T
• Bottom bracket: Shimano, press-fit
• Cassette: Shimano CS-HG710, 12-speed, 11-36T
• Chain: KMC X12L-1
• Wheels: Giant P-X2 , alloy
• Tyres: Giant Crosscut Grip, 700x45c, tubeless
• Bar: Giant Contact XR D-Fuse, 31.8mm
• Stem: Giant Contact AeroLight, -10 degree
• Seatpost: Giant D-Fuse, composite, 14mm offset
• Saddle: Giant Grit

Walking around the MADE Bike Show in Portland last week, it was difficult to miss the 32-inch wheel. The emerging rim standard appeared on mountain bikes, bikepacking rigs and an increasingly convincing collection of gravel bikes.

There were purpose-built forks, carbon rims, various tyre options, production intentions and even a new TPU tube. What emerged as a collection of prototypes early in the season is beginning to resemble an actual ecosystem. But what I could not find was anything resembling a road bike built around the 32-inch platform.

The pitch for 32-inch wheels is usually that they roll over rough terrain with ease and cover lots of ground with significant momentum, at least in a straight line. This is because their larger radius meets obstacles at a shallower angle, reducing the disruption that can slow a bike down. Their greater rotational inertia helps resist changes in speed once the wheels are turning, but do take more effort to get up to speed.

The first benefit naturally belongs off-road. The second sounds tailor-made for riders who spend hours chasing aerodynamic and rolling-resistance gains. To me, that sounds a lot like triathletes.

And long-course triathlon has produced some of cycling’s wildest machines precisely because it sits outside the UCI’s tightly drawn equipment box. Think beam bikes, huge airfoil sections, unconventional hydration systems and adventurous cockpit arrangements.

When I pondered my thoughts out loud with a few builders at MADE who had already embraced 32-inch wheels, the first response was, admittedly, laughter. Then we went down the rabbit hole together, exploring the possibilities and limitations, lack of parts and potential use cases.

"This is a wonderful question," said Aaron Barcheck of Mosaic Cycles. "We were talking about this last week."

Road racing is a closed door, unless the UCI rewrites its rule

The UCI does not need to ban a 32-inch road wheel by name because the rim size already sits outside the limits of its current code. Article 1.3.018 caps a bicycle wheel at 700mm in overall diameter, including the tyre. A 32-inch wheel uses a 686mm bead-seat diameter, leaving only 14mm for both tyre radii combined. In other words, any usable tyre would push the complete wheel well beyond the limit.

That makes UCI road racing a closed door unless the rule changes. Any eventual wheel design would also need to satisfy the UCI’s approval requirements for road, track and cyclocross wheels.

Road racing is not the end-all of bicycle design, of course, particularly for independent framebuilders whose freedom to experiment is part of the appeal. But when a new rim standard is seeking broad adoption across the industry, access to road racing and the development budgets, exposure and perceived legitimacy that come with it often matter.

A main concern with the larger-wheel standard is that it creates significant geometry problems (more on that below), and many shorter riders may struggle to fit one properly.

Interestingly, UCI rules and regulations do not require every product to fit riders of every height. However, the governing body seeks to preserve safety, sporting fairness and access to competition equipment.

The fit problem

The UCI rules aside, for the industry to embrace 32-inch wheels as a genuine standard rather than a tall-rider niche, manufacturers would have to show that the platform works across a meaningful range of sizes.

Right now, the geometry compromises are difficult to ignore. Larger wheels tend to push the front end higher and the wheelbase longer while generating toe-overlap. The smaller the frame, the more significant those compromises become.

Barcheck was frank about the constraint: "It’s just going to be a long-wheelbase bike no matter what."

In creating his 32-inch gravel bike, Mosaic’s new GT-1 i55 32, Barcheck couldn't find a fork that suited the build, so he created his own. Sold under Mosaic’s new Zero Components name, the carbon fork has a deliberately short axle-to-crown measurement to suppress front-end height and an offset to preserve toe clearance.

However, this fork is built around a 2.2" tyre clearance, and a road version with, say, a 30mm tyre would need another purpose-built fork with the appropriate length and offset.

Brian Hall of Rare Earth Cycles cautioned against declaring the fit problem insoluble, however. He declared that he has seen a five-foot rider happily using a prototype 32-inch bike, while recognising that it was, indeed, a mountain bike.

Hall also described his award-winning MADE creation as an "aero drop-bar-shaped mountain bike," rather than a gravel bike, due to the fork offset and trail being closer to those of a rigid mountain bike than a traditional drop-bar bike.

The missing parts

Before anyone can test the road concept properly, someone has to make the parts.

Aaron Stinner of Stinner Frameworks said the current ecosystem of 32-inch parts stays true to its off-road origins. There are no suitable forks, little-to-no narrow tyres and the available 32-inch carbon rims generally have internal widths intended for wide tyres. A road project would therefore need a suitable rim and tyre before a builder could learn much from it.

"If I had a road tyre, I’d build one and try it," Stinner said plainly.

Barcheck arrived at the same conclusion. "You would need some road-specific rims," he said, noting that the products appearing now tend toward 28 or 30mm internal widths. "That’s not going to work for road."

Simply putting a narrow tyre into Mosaic’s existing fork and calling the result a road bike wouldn’t work either, he said, explaining that a smaller tyre would require "a really specific rake and offset of the fork." Depending on the frame, it might also need a yoke or another chainstay solution to control rear-centre length.

"Maybe we try an all-road next," Barcheck mused. It preserves some of the tyre volume and rough-surface benefit that justified the bigger wheel in the first place, while allowing builders to move incrementally toward road speed.

Would bigger actually be faster on asphalt?

The central unanswered question is whether there would be any real benefits of going bigger on pavement. On rough ground, the larger wheel’s shallower angle of attack is tangible: it meets rocks and holes less abruptly and can tackle broken terrain without losing as much momentum. Smooth asphalt removes much of that advantage. What remains is a hypothesis about rolling resistance and speed retention, but that’s met with extra material, aerodynamic exposure and rotational inertia.

Barcheck pointed out that a light 700c road wheel with a low moment of inertia will remain difficult to beat, especially when the road tilts upwards. The answer may be course-dependent, he said, just as a 32-inch gravel bike might suit the long, fast expanses of Unbound Gravel better than the steep climbing of Crusher in the Tushar.

Stinner’s experience was similarly specific. On an aggressive fire-road climb, the big wheel can roll over rocks that would trip up a smaller one. Take those obstacles away, however, and "you’re not going any faster uphill," he said. The longer wheelbase also changes the way a rider approaches tight switchbacks and technical descents. Stinner admitted that when riding a bike with 32-inch wheels, he had to relearn finding the right lines.

That suggests that a 32-inch road bike, if it ever emerges, would be a highly specialised machine for flat or gently rolling courses, sustained speed and relatively few accelerations. Which brings the conversation back to triathlon.

The Kona case

Triathlon had occurred to Barcheck, too. Its bikes are already "wild," he said, and long-course racing often resembles gravel in one important respect: riders spend long stretches alone, travelling in a mostly straight line. Toe overlap matters little, and a long wheelbase can be a feature rather than a fault when stability is the priority.

IRONMAN’s rules provide substantially more design freedom than the UCI’s and do not specify a maximum wheel diameter. They even allow the front and rear wheels to have different diameters unless an event director decides otherwise for safety reasons.

That does not make a 686mm BSD wheel automatically race-legal. Under the current rules, "non-traditional or unusual" bicycles or equipment require approval from the event-specific head referee before the race. The bike also needs to meet the rules governing overall bicycle dimensions, axle placement, braking and safety. But unlike in UCI road racing, the wheel diameter itself is not expressly disqualifying.

The biggest concern would be wind. A larger, deeper front wheel catches more of a crosswind, which could make the bike harder to steer and control.

Stinner said that he’s currently waiting on a deeper 32-inch rim prototype, in part to reduce spoke length, which would increase a wheel’s stiffness. He expects it to be interesting at speed but wants to know what happens when faced with side winds. Deep-section and disc wheels already become "huge sails," he said. Scale the front wheel up and the handling concerns increase.

Gravel first, road backwards

Historically, bicycle technology has migrated in the other direction: road creates the performance idea, all-road adds volume and gravel pushes it farther. Like the adoption of disc brakes, the 32-inch wheel may travel backwards. Mountain biking supplied the first tyres and rims, gravel gives them another use case, and custom builders use their freedom to solve the geometry one rider at a time.

All-road may be the next step. Triathlon could be the first road experiment. The UCI peloton would come last, if it comes at all.

At MADE, nobody could say that a 32-inch wheel is, in fact, faster. What the builders could say, almost unanimously, was that it feels fast enough to make them curious.

Stinner compared his first ride to an e-bike moment: "You get on the 32, and you’re like, ‘'Whoa, this thing wants to go'."

Barcheck sees all-road as a plausible next build. And Hall’s fully in love with the new wheel diameter. "I love it. I absolutely love it," he said. "I pretty much quit riding 29ers at this point."

So, is road next? Not any time soon. The industry needs to create more components. For that, it needs proof of the diameter’s benefits, geometries that aren’t limited to only the tallest of riders, and, above all, it needs demand.

As 31 elite women lined up on the start line of the 2026 Gravel Worlds race on 22 August, many multi-thousand-dollar carbon bikes with perfectly trued wheels and carefully selected tyres could be seen in the sea of steeds ready to take on the 150-mile course through the plains of Nebraska.

But looking carefully through the start line melee, one bike stood out from the rest. Professional triathlete Amanda Macuiba, 32, pushed off to tackle the 9,000 feet of climbing aboard a $500 Marin gravel bike that she'd purchased on Facebook Marketplace the previous week.

"I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t a little underprepared," Macuiba admits. "But I had faith that my body and my years of racing experience would get me through the race – even if it got a little ugly."

No bike? No problem.

Macuiba is no stranger to elite competition. She competed in collegiate running, and now races as a professional in the sport of triathlon with multiple podium finishes to her name in half- and full-distance Ironmans.

When Macuiba had the opportunity to pivot from racing Ironman Maryland in September to lining up as an elite at Gravel Worlds (the long-running Nebraskan gravel race not to be mistaken with the much-newer UCI Gravel World Championships), she readily took on this new challenge.

"I love how gravel biking has different focus points [than road racing]," Macuiba says. "It’s not just about how close you are to someone’s wheel; it’s also about navigating the terrain and handling technical sections…I find gravel to be fun and refreshing compared to road cycling."

While Macuiba's late entry into the elite wave at Gravel Worlds was accepted, she was facing two big challenges: she hadn’t done any gravel-specific training in months and, worse, no gravel bike to race on. She has a custom gravel bike in the works, but it wasn't going to be ready in time.

Some may have let this stop them from pursuing Gravel Worlds, but not Macuiba.

"I didn’t feel comfortable asking a friend to borrow a bike given the length and technical terrain of Worlds," Macuiba says. "So I turned to Facebook Marketplace, and the $500 Marin bike I ended up getting fit my budget and was close enough for easy pickup with less than a week to go for Worlds."

Macuiba adds with a laugh, "I refuse to call the bike a bad bike. I thought what better thing for [the bike] and I to bond over than both being a bit over our heads with Worlds."

With a bike now secured, Macuiba decided to rely on her years of aerobic endurance training, hoping it would translate to the 150 miles of dirt awaiting her in Lincoln.

The $500 Bike

• Brand: Marin Nicasio+
• Year: Unknown
• Size: 52
• Frame & fork material: Steel
• Tyres: 650b x 47mm (with Super Glue jammed into the cracks)
• Drivetrain: 1 x 9 speed Microshift mechanical

95 Miles and Lessons for A Lifetime

When the race got underway, Macuiba was pleased to keep up with the elite peloton for the first 10 miles, until the gravel-specific skills and tactics of the race came into play.

"I learned the harsh lesson that one bad corner will cost you the entire peloton," Macuiba says of her race experience. "But it also gave me so much respect for the other elite women. I tried to channel any humiliation I felt into absolute respect for the skills these elite women possess."

At mile 53, Macuiba crashed hard while attempting to corner at a high speed, planting the bike derailleur-side down into the dirt and rock. Despite Macuiba being physically OK, the bike was not.

Mechanics at the mile 54 aid station attempted to fix the bike’s shifting issues caused by the crash, but with little success. Macuiba had to manually push her shifters back into place after every click, and eventually, could only shift between two gears in the middle of her cassette.

"By mile 95, my knees were aching from grinding uphill at 50rpm and I was weary of spinning out on every downhill," Macuiba says. "I thought to myself, 'I can’t do this for 55 more miles.' Plus, I could have used more calories, and my body and mind were growing weary. I decided it wasn’t safe for me to try to continue and made the tough call to DNF."

Despite DNF’ing, Macuiba says she comes away from the race with a wealth of new information that she "couldn’t possibly" have learned without giving Worlds a go on her $500 steed.

"I took any feelings of embarrassment or imposter syndrome and told myself that physically, I can belong [in the elite field] if I work on my technical riding and get some better gear," Macuiba says. "As I waited for my teammate to pick me up [from the DNF point], I reminded myself that my elite application for Worlds was accepted for a reason."

"I would absolutely do this again"

Macuiba unflinchingly says she would do this entire experience again.

"I would absolutely do [Gravel Worlds] again," Macuiba says. "And when I get that finisher medal, no matter what place I’m in, I’m going to be really freaking stoked. I can’t wait to re-prepare myself for a big gravel race like this in the future."

Macuiba says that if she could impart any post-race wisdom to other cyclists, especially those new to the sport, it would be that "waiting for everything to be perfect will never be worth it."

"Waiting for the perfect day where everything aligns is unlikely to ever happen," Macuiba says. "Embracing the imperfect days will make you a better athlete mentally and physically – and I think that’s why we do sport at all."

Even if you feel twinges of embarrassment or nerves taking on a new challenge, Macuiba encourages cyclists of all abilities to push through those feelings and enjoy the new adventure.

"As I stood on the start line with these incredibly elite women and their really nice bikes, I did feel some embarrassment," Macuiba says. "But I thought, 'You’re already here, so just do your best,' and I ended up having such a cool experience that I would never have had if I waited for the perfect circumstances."

As for the $500 Facebook Marketplace bike? After it gets some TLC to recover from its battle wounds, Macuiba plans on keeping the bike and loaning it to family members so they can experience the joy of riding and trying something new and different, too.

It’s been a long time coming, but it finally seems safe to say that wide tyres are here to stay. From road race bikes all the way up to gravel and adventure rigs, tyre clearances have grown to provide space for more rubber, and the comfort, reduction in rolling resistance and increased grip that goes along with it. And at long last, we’re finally seeing wider wheels become more prevalent, with updated profiles to match the aerodynamics and shaping of modern tyres.

Enve may not have been the first to the wide-wheel party, but the company made a splash when it launched three new gravel wheels earlier this year. The "Big Dawgs," the G SES 6.7 Pro, certainly got most of the attention, and rightfully so: these are wheels that mean business. In fact, Enve claims to be the "outright fastest gravel wheel on the market."

While the 6.7 Pro appears to be extremely fast, especially on long, open gravel courses like Unbound, Enve’s shallower option in the lineup, the G SES 4.5 Pro, provides a much more versatile option for most riders. They’re lighter, for one, and less susceptible to crosswinds, making them easier for smaller riders to control. And while they may lose out a bit in terms of absolute speed, the 30 mm internal width of the 4.5 rim enables riders to safely run tyres as narrow as 40 mm, something that isn’t possible with the mega-wide 35 mm internal width of the 6.7s.

Design details

The G SES 4.5 Pro is the lightest option in Enve’s gravel lineup. The rims themselves are front- and rear-specific: the front measures 49 mm, while the rear is 55 mm deep. Internal width is 30 mm, while external width is 37.6 mm (37.8 by my calipers). Enve states that the rims are “tuned for aerodynamic performance with high volume tyres between 44-52 mm.”

The wide rims are mated to Enve’s top-spec Innerdrive Pro hub, which features ceramic bearings, oversized stainless-steel ratchets, and a light-action spring to reduce drag. The hubs are laced with Alpina alloy nipples and Alpina Ultralite straight-pull spokes. Like most Enve wheels, the nipples are located internally within the rim. Total system weight, including rim tape and tubeless valves, is 1,482 grams, per my scale. The spokes and hubs both have a polished silver finish, visually differentiating the Pro wheels from the standard G SES 4.5 wheelset (which shares the same rims as the Pro version) and adding a bit of pizzazz.

In the box are multiple freehub bodies, and swapping them is straightforward; it can be done without tools in about three minutes. I conducted most of my testing with an HG driver installed, but also briefly tested the XD driver. Underway, the freehub makes a loud but not deafening noise that’s decidedly more of a growl than a high-pitched buzz.

The rims are hookless and ship with tubeless tape and valves installed. As this is a gravel-specific design, Enve has designed these rims with impacts in mind and made the bead very wide to blunt the edge and help prevent pinch flats. The width of the sidewall measures a very robust 3.8 mm, similar to what one might find on a mountain bike rim. Max tyre pressure is 50psi and the minimum approved tyre size is 40mm.

Enve manufactures its rims in the USA and covers its products with a limited lifetime warranty for materials conformance, as well as a limited lifetime crash-replacement policy.

Performance

These wheels are fast, full stop. Are they the fastest option out there? It’s tough to say. Enve’s road-going wheels seem to be working fairly well for Tadej and his UAE teammates, so it stands to reason that the equivalent gravel version would also be pretty quick.

In my time spent riding these wheels, I tested the G SES 4.5 PRO wheelset with two different tyres. I started with Schwalbe’s 2.1 inch/55 mm Thunder Burt tyres, a fast-rolling knobby tyre that is my go-to for dry gravel conditions. Installation was smooth, and the (slightly undersized) tyres measured around 54 mm, just over the upper edge of Enve’s recommended tyre size.

For such a wide rim, the G SES 4.5 Pro is impressively light. I didn’t try to ascertain any measurable aerodynamic gains during my testing, but at higher speeds, the wheels clearly make a difference to the bike’s speed. Good wheels feel stable and encourage you to push, to dig deeper into your pedal stroke and tuck your head that little bit more to eke out another .5 kph. That feeling of liveliness at speed, where the entire system is working harmoniously, is addictive, and these wheels possess it.

I also tested the wheels with a tyre at the opposite end of the recommended range: Vittoria’s 42 mm Corsa PRO Control tyres. Setup with these tyres also proved uneventful, and riding on this (slightly) narrower rubber gave me a good feel for the character of the wheels without the interference caused by the knobby tread and sheer volume of the 55s. In this configuration, the 4.5 Pros felt very much like a standard aero road wheel, with good lateral stiffness and direct road feedback coming through to the rider. Here again, the wheels performed at their best when ridden aggressively, seemingly coming alive once my speedometer ticked over 45 kph. I think the wheels are at their best, performance-wise, with a slightly narrower, firmer tyre. According to Enve, these wheels are optimised for 44-52 mm, but based on my time spent riding them, I liked them the most with rubber in the 40-45 mm range.

Now obviously I wasn’t privy to the engineering discussions that Enve’s designers had about wide tyres and aerodynamics. Clearly, they know what they’re doing. With that said, I wonder why Enve decided not to make these rims even wider. I presume that making them more similar in width to the tyre widths they are supposedly designed for would improve their aerodynamic performance. Perhaps the extra-deep 6.7 wheels are better suited to tyres on the wide end of the range.

Regarding the hubs, I didn’t have any issues during my testing, but I do wonder how they will hold up over the long term, given that they are touted as a race-day-tuned setup. Enve uses the same hubs on its top-level road wheels, so the tech is not new, but then the demands (and conditions) of gravel racing are unique.

Also notable about these wheels is their look: big logos and silver spokes tend to draw eyeballs, for better or worse. If you want people to notice your bike, these wheels provide an efficient, albeit very expensive, way to achieve that. Paired with a titanium bike, the shiny silver with a bit of dust on it looks, to my eye, quite proper. If understated is more your thing, these wheels may not be the best option.

Value

Enve has a reputation for making high-quality products and pricing them at the top end of the market. In my experience, it also provides a commensurate level of customer service and warranty coverage, which helps to justify the cost somewhat. At $3,100/ £3,500/ €3,899, the G SES 4.5 Pro wheels aren’t at the very tippy-top of the carbon wheel market, but they’re close.

If you’re interested in Enve but don’t want to spend quite that much, the standard G SES 4.5 wheels use brass nipples instead of alloy and have black hubs and spokes instead of silver, but are otherwise indistinguishable from the Pro version. These wheels cost a still quite substantial sum of $2,850.

Zipp’s 303 XPLR SW wheelset is another close competitor. Specifications-wise, they’re quite similar. The internal and external widths are very close, as is the weight; however, the Zipp wheels cost a third as much at $2,200. Having ridden both, I would say the performance is indistinguishable.

It also must be said that the rise of direct-to-consumer wheel brands out of China, of which several, like BTLOS and Light Bicycle are now well-known and highly regarded, also make wheels with similar dimensions for even less. These products may not have the same wind-tunnel chops as a top-level name brand, but they aren’t far off.

Enve makes a very good product, but not one that screams value. If you want the best, flashiest wheel on the market, these are right up there. I could find no discernible faults with them, and I rode them hard. But for the money, that’s the way it should be.

Tech spec

• Price: $3,100/ £3,500/ €3,899
• Weight: 1,480g (claimed), 1,482g (actual, including tape and valves)
• Internal width: 30 mm
• Minimum tyre size: 40 mm
• External width: 37.6
• Depth: 49 mm front, 55 mm rear

The Flanders-born brand unveils a sub-900g frame and aerodynamic drag-reduction features for its new flagship gravel racing platform, the RCR-G.

Designed for the demands of elite gravel racing, the new platform marks a shift from multi-purpose gravel geometries to a pure competition setup.

The launch of the Van Rysel RCR-G marks a new chapter for the brand in gravel, making it a notable addition to its existing line-up and positioning it to compete with the best gravel bikes already at the start line.

Speaking to me ahead of the launch, Van Rysel RCR-G project manager Jeremy Debeuf said development of the all-new gravel bike focused on four key performance metrics: high average speeds, mixed-surface efficiency, quick acceleration, and precise handling on technical terrain.

Building on the engineering layout of the Van Rysel RCR-R road bike, which is currently being ridden by the likes of Paul Seixas and the rest of the Decathlon CAM CGM.

Debeuf says the team used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, virtual prototyping, and wind tunnel testing to adapt the road frame's architecture for gravel use.

One major departure was the decision not to use the same top-level carbon layup: "This would be too stiff for a gravel bike," confirmed Debeuf, and would create a very uncomfortable ride feel.

Built for speed

While the core of the RCR-G is still a high-modulus carbon frame. Van Rysel's Race Bike Engineer, Alexis Grosecorge, who also worked on the road and cross platforms, explains how the carbon mix just needed to be 'toned down'.

He explained that this was initially challenging as the target weight for the whole bike, in a size medium, was set at 7.8kg; "we actually achieved 7.7kg, with a SRAM Red AXS build," he told me, clearly delighted with the outcome, although caveating that the 885g carbon frame and 415g fork are at the unpainted weight.

To also help keep the overall weight low, top models feature an integrated monocoque carbon cockpit, lightweight thru-axles, and, curiously, a 27.2mm round carbon seatpost.

This regular seatpost setup may seem like a compromise on proprietary frame tech, but asking Grosecorge about it in more detail, he assured me that the seatpost specification was chosen specifically to help filter out high-frequency vibrations and reduce rider fatigue during long-distance races.

Despite its focus on low weight and aerodynamics, the RCR-G still has off-road-ready clearances, with room for tyres up to 50mm wide, although it comes as standard with 45mm Continental Terra Comp TLR tyres on the VR 50 Carbon wheelset.

Another uncommon choice on a performance-focused bike is drivetrain compatibility: it supports a maximum 50T chainring in one-by configuration and a 52T when set up as a two-by arrangement.

It's a helpful safety net for riders planning to tackle crazy, hilly events and need fail-safe gearing options. It's Universal Derailleur Hanger (UDH) compatible and will also open up more cassette options, but a braze-on is a pretty rare sight in this day and age, and I can't work out if it's the future or living in the past.

Peer pressure

Looking at the big gravel bike rivals and doing a quick back-of-the-envelope cross-check, the RCR-G most closely resembles the Factor Ostro Gravel, with nearly identical stack and reach (RCR-G: 554mm stack and 391mm reach vs 555mm stack and 394mm reach on the Ostro, both size medium).

It also closely mimics the snappy handling of the Ostro, with its 72- vs 72.2-degree head angle. That said, the chainstay is 6mm longer at 426mm.

Compared with the Specialized Crux, with a 560mm stack and 388mm reach, the Van Rysel RCR-G could be considered 'racier' in its lower, longer position.

Double new bike day: the Van Rysel EDR-G gravel bike

The EDR-G was the second bike launched by Van Rysel today, and is the more adventurous ultra-long-distance twin of the RCR-G, favouring total comfort and practicality for multi-day riding.

Carrying the 'don't endure terrain, outplay it' strap line, the woman behind the bike, Product Manager Rachel Gassier, also worked on Van Rysel's EDR-CF Ultra and EDR-CF endurance bike range and spent two years on the design, capturing 25,000km of ride data from more than 30 testers.

The EDR-G has a longer wheelbase (1,033.7 mm vs 1,019mm in size M) and a slacker head tube angle (71 degrees in size M) than the race-oriented RCR-G, aiming to deliver a more stable ride at high speeds and smoother, less "twitchy" steering on technical trails.

An even more vibration-damping carbon lay-up was chosen for the frame, which, along with the forks, has 15 luggage mounting points and an integrated toolbox as standard.

The top-end EDR-G uses a RockShox Rudy XPLR fork with 40mm of travel, a Deda Gera cockpit with 24-degree flare, and a VR32 carbon wheelset, capable of running up to 50mm tyres.

Van Rysel RCR-G – First ride impressions

So far, I've only spent a day on each model, at a pre-launch press event in the Var region of southern France, just east of Marseille, and in the lesser-known Massif des Maures, a mountain range considered part of the pre-Alps.

A 70km hilly route included tough techy gravel, leaving all riders grateful for the respite provided by stretches of paved road. Despite the rocky, loose-stone, hilly terrain, I was impressed by how agile and responsive the RCR-G was. I was far more fluid than on the previous day's ride on the EDR-G, finding the bike easier to maneouvre over and around the pretty gnarly trails.

A mix of drops, rock gardens, and rain-slick climbs with little flat ground meant I struggled with the wide bar flare and barely used the drops, not wanting to risk putting more weight on the front wheel. I've tried to unpick this and concluded that the longer wheelbase and flared bars meant I didn't have the strength to overcome the bike's turning moment and lift the front end at all.

On the RCR-G, however, I was significantly more graceful. I had initially left the 35psi in the Continental Terra Comp TLR 45mm tyres, knowing that it would be a few kilometres on tarmac to the trailhead, But on dropping into the first off-road section, I was immediately dealing with too much bounce back from rocks and stones. A quick pressure drop—measured unscientifically by a thumb and forefinger squeeze—changed everything.

I went from hanging on to feeling far more harmonious with the bike. It felt way more comfortable than the two new models, despite having a much stiffer frame and fork and more road-like handlebars.

It was still a brutal ride, and one that could have used more vibration-damping tech. Despite wearing gloves, my hands were blistered, like the pros' at the end of Paris-Roubaix, and the five kilometres of black tarmac had never looked so inviting.

I'm looking forward to getting a longer term test with the RCR-G. I've turned down the ECR-G for now, as I can't see how, for the riding that I do, the RCR-G can be beaten, even if I'm not looking for podiums, or rapid full gass rides, it just rides so much better than it's adventure going sibling that I would be more confident at coming back in one piece, perhaps minius small patches of skin on my palms.

Model range

There are three Van Rysel RCR-G models.

The top-end Red AXS uses SRAM Red XPLR AXS (46T, 10-44T), a VR50 carbon wheelset, and the integrated Combo RCR-R carbon cockpit used on the RCR-R Pro bike from the Decathlon CMA CGM pro team. It weighs a claimed 7.8kg (size M), comes in XS to XL, and costs £6,500/ $10,999.

Next is the RCR-G Force AXS, which moves to SRAM Force XPLR (46T, 10-42T), an aluminium/carbon stem-and-bar combo, and VR35 carbon wheels. Weight rises to a claimed 8.2kg, while the price drops to £4,000/ $7,399.

Finally, the RCR-G Rival AXS uses SRAM Rival XPLR (46T, 10-40T), an aluminium bar and stem, and VR30 AL wheels. It weighs a claimed 8.6kg, costs £3,000/ $5,299, and is also available in XXS to XL.

The Van Rysel EDR-G also has three models. The top model, the EDR-G Force XPLR, uses a carbon frame and fork, SRAM Force groupset (46T, 10-40T), Deda Gera Alloy stem and handlebars, VR32 carbon wheels, Schwalbe G-One R Pro 45mm tyres, and comes in sizes XS-XL. It weighs more than the race version, with a claimed 8.85kg for a medium. Unfortunately, it’s currently unavailable in the UK, but retails in the US for $6,299.

The EDR-G Suspended fork is reserved for the UK and has a retail price of £3,500. The spec is the same, but the carbon fork has been replaced with a RockShox Rudy XPLR with 40mm of travel. While I’d have loved this extra suspension on the routes we rode, it adds about a kilo, bringing the medium to 9.7kg.

The final model, the £2,100 EDR-G GRX, is also not heading to the States. It keeps its 1x setup, but drops to 12-speed (40T, 10-51T). It comes with DT Swiss G1800 wheels and Schwalbe G-One R Pro 45mm tyres. It comes without suspension and weighs 8.75kg.

For a professional cyclist, signing a new equipment sponsor is hardly unusual. For Dylan Johnson, signing with a tyre sponsor is different.

The professional gravel racer, coach and YouTuber has spent his career purposefully unattached to any one tyre brand, preferring the freedom to test, scrutinise and race whatever he believed was fastest.

"I purposefully have not had a tyre sponsor for my entire career because I think that tyres are probably the most important equipment choice that gravel cyclists make," Johnson told Cycling Weekly. "And I didn't want to compromise by being beholden to one brand."

That changes now.

Johnson has signed his first tyre sponsorship with Silca as the Indianapolis-based company launches Protocol, its first-ever collection of road and gravel tyres. The contract runs for the remainder of this season and the following two years, Johnson says. But his involvement with the project dates back to 2024 when the brand first approached him.

Johnson is well aware of how the move might look coming from someone whose brand agnosticism has been central to both his racing and his reputation.

"To make this switch, hopefully my audience won't be like, ‘Oh, Dylan finally sold out,’ because I had quite a hand in the development process of these tyres," Johnson said.

"I wouldn't be signing to a tyre company if I didn't think it was the best tyre on the market, genuinely."

It also wasn't a case of Johnson simply being handed a finished product along with a sponsorship contract. He says he was involved from the project’s early stages, testing prototypes and providing feedback on everything from tyre volume and casing construction to ride feel and tread patterns.

That distinction matters for a rider who has built a considerable following by obsessing over equipment choices.

When we interviewed Johnson in early 2025, he described himself as an "optimiser", interested in finding the lightest, most aerodynamic and most efficient set-up possible. And his willingness to question conventional gravel equipment put him at the forefront of the gravel discipline's move toward much larger tyres.

After his own real-world and wind-tunnel experiments, Johnson turned to large-volume, thin-casing cross-country mountain bike tyres for gravel racing long before it became trendy. He argued that, counterintuitively, those tyres could roll faster over rough gravel while offering better puncture protection than many conventional gravel tyres.

Johnson remembers 2024 as the season when the wider trend took hold.

"2024 was the year when U.S. gravel racers made the switch from 45s to mountain bike tyres," he said. At Mid South early that season, he recalls only a handful of racers making the choice. By Big Sugar that fall, "it seemed like nearly everybody that could fit mountain bike tyres on their gravel bike was on mountain bike tyres."

The bike industry has quickly caught up. Tyre clearance has continued to grow across recent gravel launches, with most 2026 releases easily accommodating mountain-bike-sized rubber. Specialized’s latest Diverge and Crux clear a 55mm tyre, for example, while Factor’s new Sarana goes to 57mm and the new Open W.I.D.E clears a gargantuan 66mm.

For Johnson, being sponsor-free had been central to his experimentation, and his tyre choices changed according to the course: a Continental Race King for rougher events, a Schwalbe Thunder Burt for courses where lower rolling resistance took priority, and a narrower gravel tyre only when a course contained enough pavement to alter the equation.

So when Silca approached him for input back in 2024, Johnson says his demands of a gravel tyre were clear. He wanted significant volume combined with a thinner casing, essentially retaining the lessons that had drawn him towards XC tyres in the first place.

"It needs to be wide, probably 55 millimetres, and it needs to be a thinner casing than most of these gravel tyres are," Johnson recalls telling Silca. The response, he says, was that this was already exactly the direction the company was pursuing.

Meet SILCA's Protocol line of tyres

Rather than starting with a traditional road-tyre construction and adding more material and volume for gravel, Silca says it worked from the principles of cross-country mountain bike tyres towards a high-efficiency gravel platform. The company calls it an "inverse proportional" design approach: pairing larger tyre volumes with thinner, high-density 120 TPI casings.

At modern, lower inflation pressures, Silca claims the construction allows the casing to deflect around impacts more effectively, with the aim of reducing rolling resistance and weight without compromising puncture protection.

"For years, the industry approached gravel tyres by just slapping thick, heavy rubber onto traditional road tyre carcasses," said Silca CEO Joshua Poertner.

"By optimising casing ply angles, tread profiles, and material science together, we've created a tyre platform that is faster, lighter, and more supple without sacrificing durability."

Silca's entry into the tyre market consists of three gravel models and one road tyre.

• Protocol RCG-1 for fast hardpack and mixed-surface gravel
• Protocol RCG-3 for all-around rough-terrain gravel
• Protocol RCG-4 for adventure, mud and loose trail
• Protocol RCR for high-volume road

Silca positions the Protocol RCG-1 as its fastest gravel option, intended for smoother hardpack and mixed-surface courses. It pairs a low, ramped directional centre tread with taller side knobs intended to add bite as the bike leans into a corner.

The RCG-3 moves towards rougher gravel, with tightly spaced centre knobs that increase in size towards the shoulder and additional puncture protection beneath the tread. Silca positions it for demanding, rougher courses such as Unbound and Big Sugar.

For mud, sand, loose rock and more adventure-oriented riding, the RCG-4 gets considerably more aggressive, widely spaced lugs, along with bead-to-bead puncture protection.

Finally, there is the Protocol RCR, a high-volume road tyre. Silca says the RCR similarly uses increased air volume for impact absorption rather than relying on additional layers of rubber. The 29mm version is optimised around modern 25mm-internal hookless rims, while the 38mm model maximises volume within UCI regulations.

Across the Protocol range, Silca uses its new Pulsar rubber compound, carbon-fibre beads and size-specific rim compatibility. The company says its casing geometry and asymmetric tread designs are intended to minimise energy losses while improving stability, braking and cornering grip.

For Johnson, however, the spec sheet alone wasn’t enough.

He says Silca has put the tyres through both rolling-resistance and puncture-resistance testing, the two factors he personally considers most important for gravel, using both indoor and outdoor methods.

"They did drum testing and then John Karrasch, who does all the outdoor testing, he has done outdoor testing," Johnson said. "So it's been tested indoors and outdoors."

Karrasch’s testing provides an increasingly popular counterpoint to traditional laboratory drum tests. His outdoor work uses the Chung, or Virtual Elevation, method to calculate rolling resistance on pavement and several grades of actual gravel. Some tyres that perform quickly on a drum remain fast on real-world, off-road conditions, while others do not.

During the past year-and-a-half, Johnson has also experienced the less glamorous side of product development, riding prototypes through multiple iterations – some better than others. The final versions, he says, have resolved any issues he encountered along the way.

"I think the tyres feel great," he said, describing the handling as predictable and the traction in line with what he would expect from the tread designs.

The RCG-1 and RCG-3 have now effectively replaced Johnson’s previous two favourite race options. The Schwalbe Thunder Burt had been replaced with the RCG-1. And for chunkier terrain, higher puncture risk and races where cornering traction matters more, the RCG-3 takes over from the Continental Race King.

There is, inevitably, reputational risk in that declaration.

"I do realise the risk of signing a tyre deal after I've been Mr Tire Agnostic Guy for so long," he said. "I hope my audience can recognise this."

His own involvement aside, Johnson's confidence comes partly from watching Silca enter product categories in which it previously had little experience, pointing specifically to the company’s chain wax and tubeless sealant. That track record, he says, made him more comfortable racing on a first-generation tyre from a company that had never previously made one.

Ultimately, though, his argument is simpler: no sponsorship cheque is worth using equipment that he believes could cost him a result.

"It's not worth a paycheck to be on an inferior product to me," Johnson said. "For me personally, it's not worth a paycheck to be on a product that's gonna cost me race results down the line."

To that end, he left us with one final endorsement:

“I've not punctured a Silca tyre yet."

The Silca Protocol range is priced at $99 USD / £99 / €119 / $149 CAD / $159.95 AUD and is now available from Silca’s website and select retailers.

Yesterday, we wrote that the supporting ecosystem around 32-inch wheels is beginning to catch up. Today, there’s another fairly significant piece to add to the puzzle: an actual bike you can order.

Mosaic has unveiled the GT i55 32, a handmade titanium gravel bike designed around 32-inch wheels. And the Boulder, Colorado, brand is making its intentions pretty clear: this is, in its words, "not a concept bike."

Thirty-two-inch wheels are quickly becoming the bike industry's biggest new trend. We saw a host of bikes, wheels and tyres at Sea Otter, followed by perhaps the highest-profile example yet at Unbound Gravel, where defending champion Cam Jones and ultra-endurance racer Robin Gemperle raced Scott’s RC Gravel 32-inch prototype. But Scott made it clear that its bike was a "pure prototype," stating that it "will never be released on the market."

Mosaic, meanwhile, is going the other way. The GT i55 32 will debut at this weekend’s MADE bike show in Portland, Oregon.

Mosaic isn’t the first brand to move beyond the prototype stage, nor is it the only 32-inch bike headed for consumers. Stinner has already shown its Refugio 32 with pricing attached, BTCHN’ has been preparing its Bandito for production, and Salsa has said 32-inch Fargo framesets will go on sale this summer, with complete bikes to follow later in the year. Mosaic stands out in that its made-to-order platform is available from launch. A Batch Built option will be added later.x

"The new GT i55 32 platform wasn’t simply designed to generate conversation around a new wheel size. It’s not a prototype destined to disappear after a trade show," Mosaic insists. "Instead, it represents Mosaic’s commitment to 32-inch wheels as a legitimate performance platform."

More than simply squeezing bigger wheels into a gravel bike

Larger wheels bring some compelling theoretical advantages. Compared with a 700c wheel running an equivalent-width tyre, the shallower angle of attack should help it roll over rocks, holes and generally rough terrain more easily, while the larger wheel size is also claimed to carry momentum more efficiently.

But there are compromises. Bigger wheels increase stack and wheelbase, stretch chainstays and can create toe-overlap headaches – particularly as frame sizes get smaller. They’re concerns Cycling Weekly has looked at in depth in previous coverage.

"...A new wheel standard only matters if its benefits aren’t limited to the tallest riders in the field," Mosaic states and tackled the aforementioned limitation as "an engineering problem rather than an unavoidable consequence of the wheel size."

For starters, the brand's designers decided to design an entirely new platform from teh groun up rather than modifying one of its existing gravel bikes.

The frame uses a bent seat tube and relatively compact 440-445mm chainstays to tuck the rear wheel beneath the rider. A 3D-printed titanium yoke creates clearance for tyres up to 55mm (2.2"), while still accommodating a standard gravel chainline and chainrings up to 46 teeth.

The axle standards do move into mountain bike territory, with a 148x12mm rear and 110x15mm front.

And then there’s the fork

Mosaic says one of its biggest headaches was finding a fork that would allow the geometry it wanted without pushing the front of the bike too high.

So it made its own.

The result is a new 32-inch gravel fork under Mosaic’s new Zero Components name, with a 445mm axle-to-crown measurement and 60mm offset. The former is intended to keep the front end down, while the latter helps Mosaic achieve its desired steering geometry while creating more toe clearance.

Mosaic says the combination of its shorter fork, increased offset, compact rear triangle and offset seat tube helps make the platform work across a wider range of rider sizes.

And because these bikes are being offered through Mosaic’s custom programme, geometry can also be tailored to the individual rider.

You can actually buy this one

Mosaic is rolling out the GT-1 i55 32 in two initial versions:

• Fully integrated: The high-end option gets fully internal brake routing, a T47 bottom bracket and a choice of Mosaic’s standard paint layouts, with pricing starting at $8,250.
• Semi-integrated: The second option offers semi-integrated brake routing via Cane Creek HCR, a T68 bottom bracket and Mosaic’s Titanium Ghost finish, and starts at $5,000.

Both come with rider-specific custom geometry.

More information can be found at mosaiccycles.com.

For decades, cycling has measured success much like every other professional sport: bigger broadcasts mean bigger audiences, bigger audiences attract bigger sponsors and, ultimately, a healthier sport.

The Tour de France draws millions of television viewers. Paris-Roubaix lines its cobbled sectors with spectators six deep. In track cycling and cyclocross, fans even pay to get through the gates.

Gravel has never looked like that.

At Unbound, the discipline’s biggest race, thousands travel across states (and increasingly continents) to be there. Yet remarkably few come simply to spectate. Most are racing, supporting a friend or family member, working for a brand, volunteering at an aid station or imagining themselves riding the same roads one day – should the entry lottery be in their favour. The line between participant and fan is almost impossible to separate.

And yet the professional side of gravel is growing quickly. Riders can make a legitimate living from the discipline, marquee events require entry lotteries, and organisers are increasingly looking to invest in livestreams and race coverage.

That evolution will be on display again this weekend in Lincoln, Nebraska, at (the unofficial but original) Gravel Worlds. The event will livestream its elite racing as professionals tackle roughly 150 miles of Nebraska gravel. Uniquely, the cameras will continue running till the very last amateur crosses the line, too.

Because in many ways, gravel has more in common with a marathon running event than the Tour de France. No one judges the health of a marathon by television ratings. The world’s biggest marathons are successful because hundreds of thousands of people want to take part year after year after year. Broadcasts exist, but participation is the engine.

Could the same be true for gravel?

For Gravel Worlds' Lead Promoter, Jason Strohbehn, the hierarchy is clear.

"The success of gravel revolves around the success of the 99%, not the pros. Our event is fully lifted by the 99%. Because of the 99%, we're able to get sponsors that want to cover the pro race."

In road cycling, the professional race is the product, and spectators are the audience. In gravel, the participants are the audience, the customer base and much of the economic engine all at once.

Do people really want to watch a 200-mile race live?

The numbers suggest they do.

In 2025, the Life Time Grand Prix generated 3.6 million YouTube views, more than 145,000 event attendees and 25.2 million social media impressions.

Livestreams of Unbound, Leadville and Big Sugar averaged almost 200,000 views in their first 96 hours online, while Unbound alone attracted more than 337,000. Peak concurrent viewership across the broadcasts reached 17,242.

Those figures may not rival the Tour de France, but they are substantial for a discipline whose professional ecosystem barely existed a few years ago.

Gravel Worlds has seen a similar appetite. The event began investing seriously in livestreaming two years ago and, according to Strohbehn, has yet to spend money promoting those broadcasts. Viewers have come largely through riders and followers sharing the streams themselves.

"Literally people, before the stream starts or as it starts, are sharing it on their social media and [that's how we're] getting views," he says. "For me, that means there are a lot of people very interested, very organically."

Last year’s broadcast reached viewers in 51 countries. South Africa made the event’s top-ten markets, something Strohbehn suspects has everything to do with South African off-road powerhouse Matt Beers.

But while gravel’s audience may be sizeable, it does not resemble a conventional sports fanbase, and shouldn't be treated as such. Unlike the Tour de France viewers, gravel watchers are past, current or future participants of the event they're watching.

Julie Dunkle is a good example. The 59-year-old from Encinitas, California, didn’t discover gravel by watching it or reading about it. She raced first.

"I got into gravel through racing and riding first, and the content followed naturally," she says. "Once I started racing in 2023, I wanted to better understand the scene – the key athletes, the big events, the tactics – so I began consuming more gravel content."

Participation changed what watching meant.

"Being a participant makes the viewing experience more engaging because you understand how hard the courses are, what the terrain feels like, and what the race dynamics actually mean," she says.

Her entry point was social media and podcasts rather than television. Today she also watches livestreams of the biggest races and follows particular riders, drawn more to personalities and racing styles than team allegiances.

"I tend to follow riders with strong personalities or interesting racing styles, not just results."

Oregonian Tucker White, 34, followed a similar path. He was introduced to gravel by his father and took part in gravel grinder events long before paying much attention to professional racing.

When he did start to consume content, it was the gear side of things that drew him in.

"As a tech and product nerd I am always keeping a keen eye to what is going on in the pro racing ranks when it comes to innovation," he says. "Because gravel has historically been significantly less regulated than road, it is always interesting to see how different riders and teams may approach the same event from a different perspective when it comes to bike setup, or how that setup varies by parcours, weather, sponsor obligations, and so on"

Now fully sucked into gravel, White says he tries "to watch or follow as many races as I can, the big ones being Lifetime Grand Prix, Gravel Earth Series and gravel world champs. It’ll be interesting to see how things continue to change with more race teams investing in gravel."

Dunkle and White may be just two individuals, but their paths are strikingly similar. Neither began as a spectator who later decided to try gravel. They rode first. Riding gave them a reason to care about the athletes, tactics, technology and stories surrounding it.

The fan emerged from the participant. And both want more coverage.

Dunkle would like stronger season-long narratives, better live data, more pre- and post-race analysis and more consistent coverage of the women’s field. White wants races that are easier to find and commentators capable of explaining what viewers are seeing.

Gravel’s participatory audience is not an argument against investing in media, but rather, an argument for thinking differently about who that media is for and what they're looking for.

Gravel Worlds has made accessibility central to its coverage, distributing it for free through YouTube and social media. A partnership with the active lifestyle media company Outside also put the race on the cycling website Velo without a paywall, and onto platforms including Roku and Samsung TV.

But the most revealing part of its broadcast may have little to do with the professional race at all.

Sofia Gibson, the Assistant Lead Promoter and Outreach Coordinator at Gravel Worlds, says one priority when introducing live coverage was making sure it served the rest of the field, too.

“We really care about the 99% of participants,” she says. That is why Gravel Worlds also created a finish-line livestream: friends and family can estimate when their rider will arrive, tune in and watch them cross the line. Thousands do.

It is a small detail, but perhaps the clearest illustration of what makes gravel fandom different. The professional race creates stories, heroes and spectacle. But the heart of gravel still sits much deeper in the field.

That may be where gravel’s media opportunity lies: not in building a vast audience of viewers at home, but in serving the participants who already sustain the sport.

The Tour de France needs spectators. Gravel needs participants. Increasingly, when it comes to gravel, they can be the same people.

The Seka ExAero GR frame aims to compete with the best gravel bikes. It bears a striking resemblance to the Chinese brand's Spear aero race bike, its answer to the Specialized Tarmac SL8. There is good reason for this. When developing the Spear, Seka introduced the WindEye aero element at the rear of the bike, designed in conjunction with AeroCoach. Not only does this result in lower drag figures, especially with a rider fitted to the bike, but it also boosts rear compliance significantly, which is important for gravel riding.

Design details

Seka states it has designed the frame using a mix of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and wind tunnel testing. We can confirm that the Seka Spear performs well in the wind tunnel, at 40km/h anyway, as tested by our sister publication Cyclingnews. Seka also provides a highly transparent White Paper on the design and testing of the frame, something refreshing to see. Testing in the wind tunnel was conducted at yaw angles from -20 to +20 degrees in 2.5-degree increments at a speed of 40km/h, the upper-end average for professional gravel races based on post-race analysis. Using the aero bottles, which are claimed to save 4.6w at 39km/h compared to round bottles, tested against a Seka Spear with round bottles, similar-width bars, but with road wheels and tyres vs the ExAero GR with 45mm tyres, the ExAero GR was only 9.9w slower. This increased to 14.5w once you account for the bottles, but then some of that added drag will be the 45mm tyres. Regardless, impressive for a gravel bike.

When designing the frame, Seka first looked at the speeds and equipment used at the world's biggest gravel races. This led to the quoted tyre clearance of 56mm at the front and 52mm rear. Based on the measured widths of the tyres fitted, this rings true with 4mm clearance either side to account for excessive mud to avoid any frame rub. Impressively, the chainstays are so thin that, as well as accepting 52mm tyres, they also allow for a crank-based power meter such as a 4iiii; on a gravel frame like the Cannondale Topstone, for example, the wider chainstays don’t allow for this without frame rub on the power pod.

I will add that Seka also tested tyre widths and the effect on aero performance and found the difference between a 45mm F/R vs a 50mm F/R was only 2.5w across all yaw angles.

In terms of frame design, some narrowing of tubes, such as the chainstays, did require additional structural support. Seka claims that the lateral stiffness in this area is slightly better than the Spear. Actual numbers quoted are 25.63Nm/mm (force required to deflect the frame by 1mm laterally), while rear triangle vertical compliance is quoted at 106Nm/mm.

Added to the frame is a magnetic internal frame storage. This unlatches easily, and inside a zip-up pouch can accommodate various tools and spares. There is also mounting for bottle cages or bags on the top tube, under the down tube, or behind the seat post. The seatpost itself is clamped with two small bolts at the rear of the seat tube and comes in 0 mm and 15mm offsets. I would advise covering these with tape when gravel racing to avoid them filling with dirt. Finally, frame protectors are fitted to the down tube and BB, as well as to the drive-side chainstay.

Complementing the frame is the Gladius GR one-piece handlebar. This features a 16˚ flare, three width options, and five length options, allowing adjustability at the point of purchase. Without hardware and a computer mount, the 400/460 x 90mm combination weighs a claimed 395g. Reach is 69mm, and drop is 118mm. A rearward flare on the tops, along with an anti-slip coating, is aimed at boosting comfort and control off-road.

Six frame sizes are available, from 49 to 61cm. As the wheelbase increases with size, the trail drops to maintain a balance between stability and agility.

Quoted weight is 980g for an unpainted frame without hardware in size 54cm, but of course, once the internal storage, seatpost, fork, and bars are added, that increases. For comparison, the Cannondale SuperX Lab71 is quoted at sub-900g for a painted size 56cm and ~1,000g for the non-Lab71 spec, while the new Specialized S-Works Crux 5 is quoted at 789g for a 56cm painted frame but 897g for the S-Level frame.

Specifications

For finishing the build, I opted for the Shimano GRX RX820 2x12 groupset (the frame is SRAM UDH-compatible, too). This was mainly to achieve a wide gear range without large jumps between gears so I could keep at my preferred cadence across a range of terrains, and all my wheels use a Shimano freehub. It’s not as light as SRAM Red AXS XPLR, but it costs a lot less, and functionality-wise I do enjoy Shimano. Additionally, this latest groupset includes more features in the E-Tube app as well as hardware-wise.

The bottom bracket is a T47 External BB from WolfTooth. With external and internal seals, it offers lots of protection against dirt and dust typically encountered during gravel races.

The wheels on test are the No.6 G45R 45mm deep gravel wheelset shod with Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M tyres.

Performance

Riding the Seka ExAero GR has been quite a joy in most regards. The geometry of the bike suits me very well, and my biggest plus is the customisation at the point of purchase. I do not ride in a conventional position because I have a long torso and arms and relatively short femurs. This means on larger frames I need an inline seatpost, and a long stem. However, I prefer narrower bars. If I were to get a Specialized for example, it would come with 172.5mm cranks, setback seatpost, and 42cm bars if I was lucky. Here, I can select zero off-set post, and the 120mm x 38cm bars.

Position-wise, the Seka offers a setup that feels more like modern race geometry. The stack is relatively high, but the reach is plenty long enough. It strikes a good balance between stable handling and not being either aggressively long and low or excessively short and high, which would otherwise require a super-long stem to achieve a more race-focused position. Having a 120mm stem is a nice sweet spot for me between the more relaxed steering at higher speeds and the nimbler changes in direction at lower velocities. Around the technical trails in the Forest of Dean, it proved to be snappy and agile yet stable and fast across the fire roads.

The flared bars blend a narrow, aerodynamic hood position with a wider, more controlled, high-leverage position in the drops. The drop is quite shallow, so while not best suited for high-speed cornering on the road, off-road it gives you a great position of stability and strength. I also really like the semi-textured tops, which are useful over bumpy terrain in wet conditions. From my testing to date, the bars aren’t excessively stiff as to be uncomfortable, yet sprinting hard in the drops yields no tangible degree of flex.

The biggest bonus of this bike is the WindEye, which, as mentioned, is designed to offer aerodynamic benefits (I’ll get onto that later) but also add compliance. Racing the Gralloch, a notoriously bumpy gravel race, I was pleasantly surprised that by the end of the event, I frankly had no rear end discomfort, which I have had in previous gravel events while using identical width and pressures on the rear tyre. I’m comparing this to my Cannondale Topstone, a bike with a small suspension pin at the rear. The fact that the Seka feels more comfortable is impressive, but it lacks the compressed squish sensation when putting down power that the Topstone can deliver.

As for tyre clearance, the 45mm tyres I raced with measured 47mm actual, and the the 50mm tyres I fitted measured 53mm. This did cause some rub, due in part to the more aggressive tyre knobs as well as exceeding the recommended clearance. Impressively, these tyres can be accommodated along with a 2x chainring, and even the aforementioned crank arm power pod.

Seka has achieved this with razor-thin chainstays, but it appears to come at a compromise. I am admittedly riding a larger frame, so longer tubes allow for greater movement at the end of the ‘lever’ or tube. Seka assured me that the new chainstays were designed to be stiffer than those on the Spear, while the frame geometries were adjusted to account for different frame sizes and stresses. However, I still found that the lateral stiffness at the rear was lacking. At a more regular power and pace, this was not an issue. Riding at 200-270w everything felt good and shifting worked well. However, when upping the power to higher levels, such as 360 watts and above, I found that shifting quality deteriorated; the lateral flex at the rear of the bike was so pronounced that the chainline was disrupted.

I tested this with four sets of wheels to ensure it wasn’t a wheel-stiffness or hub-bearing issue, and it occurred each time in the same manner. It is more likely to happen on a gravel frame than on a road frame, as longer chainstays mean that, for example, one degree of flex at the BB end of the chainstay results in a larger lateral distance traveled than on a shorter tube. I think the reason for this flex is, firstly, that I am a larger and more powerful rider relative to the overall cyclist population, and secondly, that the aggressively profiled downtube into the BB and the thin chainstays result in a kinetic chain that lacks lateral stiffness. Some bolstering of the BB junctions and increasing chainstay stiffness would likely go some way toward solving this, especially since lateral stiffness has limited impact on the vertical compliance associated with comfort.

I have also been using this bike on the road a lot. I generally use a gravel bike for winter riding thanks to mudguard mounts, large tyre clearances, and frame storage for added spares. No mudguard mounts here though. What has been impressive about the Seka ExAero GR is that, when riding at 30-40km/h, it really does roll along like an absolute rocket. For fast-paced group rides and longer slogs, it holds speed very well. Handling is obviously not as sharp as a dedicated road bike, but I won’t criticise it for not being as good at something it has not been designed for. Indeed, this has now become my preferred bike for riding on the road. I have a Factor Ostro VAM (Gen 1), but based on my experience, the Seka feels faster at my average ride speeds. For a bike that can be used for gravel riding and racing, as well as on the road come rain or shine, the Seka ExAero GR is an attractive offering.

Another super feature of this bike is the fitment points, which give a great degree of flexibility. For flat-out gravel racing, you can limit the use of additional fittings. There is a bolt-on top-tube bag spot, which was common at Unbound this year for aero savings and practical storage. There are also additional bottle mounts on the seat tube (bolts not included) and on the downtube. The downtube features a rubber frame armor fitting, which is perfect for gravel, with an additional one fitted on the top and sides of the drive-side chainstay. These are both areas I have frankly pummelled on my Topstone, so this inclusion is ideal for greater frame longevity. Internally, this downtube fitting also houses the Shimano Di2 battery, which is easily accessible. This lowers the centre of mass slightly compared to the seatpost, and makes it less likely to have an issue where the battery slips down and is a pain to retrieve. This does, however, impact the downtube storage space when the battery is fitted.

As for the storage, it's great. The magnetic clip proved incredibly secure over the roughest terrain. In terms of storage, I have been able to fit a tyre lever, tubeless plugs, TPU gravel tube, and if not for the Di2 battery, I reckon another tube could fit in there as well. It’s neat, it’s aero, and it works well.

The storage also highlights another positive. When getting the bike built up, the mechanic was very impressed by the frame's internal quality. No messy-looking joins at the headtube or around the internal storage. The tolerances around the headset and bottom bracket were all spot on, an area that can often be lacking even in some traditionally higher-end brands. It’s something to consider when doing a frame build, as full bikes from a bike shop only make it to the shop floor if the frame has passed muster.

The frankly stunning paint job has garnered awed looks from riders on the group ride and passers-by. Whereas Chinese brand bikes have traditionally been looked down on (even though many well-established European brand frames are made in Asia), this has been a bike that has attracted interest and turned heads. It looks the part, and for much of my testing, it has played the part, too.

I have loved riding this bike. The lateral stiffness is a limitation for a rider like me in some situations, namely big power attacks or sprints, but, quite frankly, I’m not at the pointy end of UCI races often enough to require these efforts regularly. I’ve still nabbed some Strava KOMs that require efforts of 600w+ for a minute, so although it feels less stiff, it still goes fast. Plus, based on Gralloch, chugging along at 300w average for a day on gravel, it works brilliantly. As a gravel bike that is fast at the speeds it needs to be, comfortable and capable across a broad mix of terrains, and practical for storage, this is superb. A new S-Works Crux 5 will be lighter, and maybe a bit more aero (it might not), but it won’t have adjustment at point of sale, and the frame costs £3,000 more. This entire build costs around that with high-end wheels and an electronic groupset.

I will also add that a previous concern around Chinese frames has been aftermarket customer care. This will likely still not be as straightforward as going to the local bike shop and dealing with the brand through them. However, European dealers are becoming more common for Chinese frames, so customer care should become easier, with spares more readily available without the high shipping costs.

There is a big shift in the industry now, with Chinese brands applying the same engineering skills that have created some of the best bike frames on the market to their 'own brand' frames. Some of these brands are now recruiting aerodynamicists and CFD specialists, testing with pro teams to gather rider input, and marketing aggressively in much the same way established Western brands do. As a result, frames like the Seka ExAero GR will become more commonplace, and at present, they are plenty good enough to compete with the big hitters. Granted, some refinements are still needed, but when you factor in the price, this is a highly competitive offering in the gravel-race market.

Value

At £2,205.19/ $3,299, the Seka ExAero GR is certainly not at the price point that many people would traditionally associate with a Chinese frame, with an additional $539 for the bars and $229 for the seatpost. The Seka features strong quality control, independent research to develop innovative solutions such as the WindEye, and a paint job that puts many established European or American brands to shame.

Other offerings in a similar vein include the Tavelo Grow. As a frameset, it’s a bit cheaper at £1,217/ $1,650 and features equally large clearances and internal storage. You can also get the Winspace G3 gravel frameset for £1,142/ $1,550. However, neither of these frames has quite the same finish quality as the Seka, and while I haven’t tested them, the WindEye has proven to be an impressively comfortable addition for a gravel bike that makes a big difference to performance.

Of course, there are also the high-end brand offerings that the Seka aims to dethrone. The Cannondale SuperX Lab71 (£4,950/ $4,999), Specialized S-Works Crux 5 (£5,249/ $5,799), Cervelo Aspero-5 (£5,000/ $5,500), and Argon18 Antimatter (£4,395/ $4,999) are all at least £2,000/ $2,500 more expensive for just the frameset, even with the seatpost included in those prices. They are also often limited to only the highest specification frame offerings as a frame-only build. If you do buy a complete build, you may need to change the bar width, stem length, seatpost setback, and crank length, so expect additional outlays.

I will say that compared to these bikes, the Seka is quite a close competitor. It is fast. I can’t give a wattage or savings figure, but it’s certainly not lacking compared to other aero-focused gravel race frames. The only area I feel it lacks is lateral stiffness, where even my Cannondale Topstone 3 wins out. But for gravel racing, this has not had a discernible impact on performance, while the quality of the frame, finish, and features are all genuinely up there with the best. Weight is another factor, as many of these £4k+ frames are around 100-150g lighter. But in practical terms, this makes a very small difference to performance, and likely not one worth £2,000/ $2,500 for most people.

It’s probably not the best value frame you can go for compared to lower-end offerings from the big brands, and customer care is still not as simple as going to the local bike shop. But for a high-end gravel race bike build, I’m genuinely astounded by how good this bike has been when compared to the high-end offerings from the big European and American brands.

Tech spec

• Price: £2,205.19/ $3,299
• Frame: Toray T1100 and M46J carbon fibre
• Fork: Toray T1100 and M46J carbon fibre
• Size: 49, 52, 54, 56, 58, 61cm
• Tyre clearance: 56/52mm front/rear
• Bottom bracket: T47 threaded
• Thru-axle: Front (12 x 100mm), Rear (12 x 142mm)
• Cable routing: Internal
• Weight: 980g (frameset, 54cm)

Quinn Simmons decided to race the Leadville Trail 100 only last Friday. The Lidl-Trek racer was one of the most aggressive riders of the Tour de France, and the announcement that he would be lining up against the top Life Time Grand Prix racers in Colorado was one of the most talked-about narratives ahead of the race.

"I decided on Friday last week," Simmons said. "It was kind of just like I've always talked about coming, and I was home. Trek has a team here, and they can support me. So yeah, I asked if I could do it, and they said sure."

Simmons made it to the largest climb of the day with the lead group of race favourites, including reigning Leadville and world champion Keegan Swenson (Specialized Off-Road), podium contender and ski-mo racer John Gaston (STRAFE-Specialized), and previous world champion Andreas Seewald (Singer KTM Racing).

The only problem, Simmons said, is his training was "non-existent" between the Tour and now.

"We had a pretty big group into the main climb there," Simmons said after crossing the finish line in ninth place. "Then they went really fast, and I didn't. That was the end of the race for me."

Swenson won the race in a two-up sprint against Matthew Wilson (Scott Sports). Simmons rolled through the finish line more than 8 minutes later.

The lead group started to split when Swenson pushed the pace on the Columbine climb, which peaks at more than 12,000 feet above sea level.

"I knew what I had to push to get over it, and I just didn't have the legs to push that," Simmons said of the long climb.

Simmons raced Leadville 100 seven years ago as an 18-year-old, and finished second to 2016 Olympian mountain biker Howard Grotts. Since then, the competition at Leadville has gotten significantly faster and more competitive, with the Life Time Grand Prix attracting top talent. Swenson’s win this year was his sixth in a row, tying the all-time win record of Dave Wiens.

Simmons wasn’t the only Tour de France rider to race Leadville this year. Canyon-SRAM rider Rosa Kloser lined up at Leadville fresh off the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, but the Life Time Grand Prix contender did not factor at the front of Leadville.

The rest of Simmons’ season will see him racing the Philly Cycling Classic, the Canadian one-day classics, and the world championships in Montreal. He said he’d like to come back to Leadville with a bit more preparation.

"It's a little bit tricky because next year it interferes with the Worlds, and the year after is Olympics time. But yeah, I'd like to come back maybe a little more prepared."

The Trek rider has been open about his ambition of racing ski-mo at the 2030 Winter Olympic Games, but any winter pursuits depend on his off-season training, he said.

"I like to train on the skis," he said. "We leave for our winter training camps beginning in December. I need an early November storm if I'm going to ski too much. If we get it, I'll take it."

The gravel sector has exploded with bike options and, while choice can be a good thing, it's created a tricky landscape to navigate – particularly for the new buyer just entering the discipline. One-model gravel lineups are no longer commonplace, with manufacturers now creating distinct lineups with individual bikes aimed at various gravel offshoots. This means you'll see road bike-style options with bigger tyre clearances, inbetweeners that balance pseudo-suspension with weight and speed, and models that closely resemble mountain bikes of yesteryear.

It's confusing to say the least, but the gravel cycling discipline and terrain are so diverse depending on where you live, ride and race; sometimes you need a specific tool for the job at hand – a scissor can prune a tree, but a pair of secateurs will do a better job in less time.

This leads me to Factor’s current gravel bike lineup. It currently spans three distinct models – the Aluto, Ostro Gravel and Sarana pictured here, each of which has a specific use case and function. While the former two are designed with all-round ability and pure speed in mind, the Sarana pushes the gravel concept to the extreme, catering to ultra events and bikepacking, where riders spend days in the saddle, often self-supported in remote areas that require a capable and reliable machine.

To complicate things even further, we also recently spotted a new Factor gravel prototype at Unbound, which appears to adopt a similar wide-set fork as the Factor One aero road bike, and looks designed as an out-and-out racer. This could take Factor's gravel offering up to four models, with two extremes bookending a brace of all-rounders.

The birth of the Sarana was no accident but rather the result of the Factor design and engineering team’s effort to create a brand-new machine, unsullied by current gravel bike trends and capable of supporting Canadian endurance athlete Rob Britton. The project started nearly three years ago and was heavily inspired by real-world feedback from Britton – focusing on speed, comfort, and control – important attributes for when races push past the 20-hour barrier.

While the average customer will never push the Sarana to these extremes, it’s still pretty adept on shorter excursions, too, and does an amazing job of smoothing out rutted terrain, washboard gravel, and mountain trails.

Design details

The Sarana is an intriguing-looking bike – quintessentially Factor, with a blueprint that sticks to the classical form-over-function design philosophy. The aesthetics are divisive though, and you'll either love it or hate it. There are two colour palettes available, the cyan blue pictured here and prismatic gold – both are muted but draw on the natural tones of the outdoors and the various hues experienced when riding from dusk till dawn. The graphic design is bold, with the Factor and Sarana wordmarks positioned prominently on the downtube and seat tube.

The Sarana is manufactured from Toray and Nippon Graphite pan-based fibres, tuned to balance stiffness with comfort and vibration-damping – similar ingredients to the Factor Aluto. The frame architecture comprises three distinct yet seamlessly integrated areas: the front, middle and rear, which represent a departure from how the company developed the Aluto and Ostro Gravel platforms. Like many modern gravel platforms, it’s compatible only with 1x groupsets and comes with a handy 30.9mm external seatpost clamp to accommodate a range of dropper posts.

It draws inspiration from the Monzo road bike, featuring a truncated aero profile and subtle hourglass sculpting on the headtube. It also comes stock with a collection of purpose-built 'aero' bike bags that fit within the triangle and above the top tube to help extend the leading edge of the tube shapes and the sailing effect at certain yaw angles.

The backbone of the Sarana is the down tube area, which has been purposely oversized to add torsional stiffness and hollowed out for optimal internal storage capacity. Factors claims that the downtube sculpting promotes cleaner airflow over the frame and that the centre of gravity is low and balanced when laden with tools.

The rear end is all about terrain management, and tyre clearance is at the forefront. While not the market leader in this instance, the Sarana can accommodate tyres as wide as 57mm (2.2-inch). Our test bike came with Black Inc 46 carbon wheels wrapped in 2.0-inch Continental RaceKing mountain bike tyres.

To accommodate rubber this wide, the Sarana features dropped seat stays and an offset seat tube, which double up as a natural leaf-spring system that flexes while maintaining lateral progress. Clever directional layup techniques have been implemented at the bottom bracket junction to manage fatigue and traction, resulting in an 18 per cent reduction in vibration.

Specifications

Our Sarana test bike came outfitted with SRAM Force XPLR AXS, featuring a 44T up front (the frame does have provision for up to a 52T chainring) and a 10-46T rear cassette. There's nothing wrong with Force – I rate it on par with Red AXS when it comes to performance and aesthetics; it's just heavier.

To ensure better stopping performance when fully rigged, the native 160mm front/rear brake rotor configuration can be flipped if you prefer the added security of larger 180mm disc rotors. The platform was optimised for SRAM but is also able to run various Shimano Di2 groupsets (wired versions, too) - there’s a Di2 exit port above the UDH triangle.

Five frame sizes are available, spanning 49, 52, 54, 56 and 58cm – one less than the Ostro Gravel and Aluto models. The Sarana’s geometry numbers are racier than you’d expect from an endurance-themed machine with a 71.5-degree head angle and 65mm trail figure (identical across all sizes) and a 74- 75.3-degree seat tube angle. The reach (398mm) and stack (573mm) on a size medium are very close to the Ostro Gravel and border on aggressive.

The 425mm chainstays and offset seatpost have made room for up to 57mm tyres, while the 80mm bottom bracket drop sits slightly lower than its rivals and stablemates. While not outrageous, tyre clearance falls between the recently released Specialized Crux (55mm) and Open Wi.De 2.0 (66mm).

Factor also suspension-corrected the geometry to ensure parity when specced with a 30mm RockShox Rudy XPLR fork with sag, evidenced by the 427mm axle-to-crown measurement.

Performance

The Factor Sarana is not your typical racing gravel bike, but it can take you places and traverse terrain many of its rivals can’t. While there are many faster and lighter options on the market, "faster" is contextual, and when the terrain gets rocky or washboard gravel comes into the equation, there aren't many bikes able to match the Sarana for speed and comfort. And it’s in these technical and rough settings that the Sarana should be experienced and ridden in anger, not on champagne gravel and definitely not on tarmac.

A gravel bike as capable as the Sarana also questions the need for a mountain bike – especially where I live in the Surrey Hills – thanks to the front suspension and fairly relaxed head angle. It copes just fine with everything that has come its way – and I’m talking fire roads, twisty singletrack and step-downs. It feels controlled and completely adept when things get gnarly. Don’t get me wrong, a cross-country mountain bike will be faster down rough, negative gradients, but then again, a bike of this nature won't keep up with the Sarana on 80 per cent of the gravel routes in the South East of England.

One bugbear is the narrow clearance around the fork crown and tyre. The back of the crown tends to collect dry leaves and debris, and this rubs against the tyre. I’d like to see how the Sarana deals with mud come wintertime, and whether the crown/tyre clogs up or not – this is a known issue with the RockShox Rudy fork. You can substitute it for a rigid fork, which does nothing to adversely affect the head angle and trail number – the bike was designed to work seamlessly with both options.

At 9.75kg with RockShox Rudy XPLR fitted, the bike isn't the best at climbing, but it holds momentum well and conforms to the terrain, nullifying most vibration-induced speed loss associated with off-road riding. I haven't felt held back by the 2.0-inch Continental RaceKing mountain bike rubber. If anything, the grip offsets any weight or rolling resistance penalties. After all, there’s more time to be lost on the downhills than on the climbs, and this width affords the rider confidence to push harder and not overthink the situation.

Our test bike came fitted with a 44T single chainring, which perhaps holds it back from unlocking an even greater top end, but it’s not often my gravel routes touch speeds of over 50km/h. During my initial testing, I mulled over the idea of trying a 52T ring, but given the final drive ratio of 4.40, the 44T was all I needed, and I never felt my cadence getting too high. The 10-46T cassette provides ample gearing for most vertical excursions. It only really becomes hard work on double-digit gradients with loose surfaces.

It’s no slouch on the tarmac, but it wasn't designed for it and riding it in this setting would be doing the bike a disservice – you’ll get the most enjoyment for your mile off the beaten track.

Value

The gravel bike sector is a tricky space to navigate at present, with bike technology evolving apace – and offshoots focusing on aero gravel, all-round riding and adventure, take your pick. While there’s a lot going on, the upshot is a variety of bike choices, which wasn’t the case just five years ago. At that juncture, Factor had more variety than its rivals with the Vista and LS platforms, and the company has continued this stance with its three (maybe four if the prototype bike we saw at Unbound goes into production) bike approach to gravel.

For many, the Factor Sarana will represent a solid choice – even at £8,299/ $8,499/ €10,199 (7,699/ $7,899 /€9,499, if you spec it sans suspension fork). Owing to its breadth of attributes, I foresee a convergence of curious road riders and mountain bikers. It’s neither road-bike racy nor mountain-bike burly; instead, it blends both disciplines, and the result is one of the most enjoyable drop-bar dirt bikes I've ridden this year.

I didn't want to like the Sarana, but I find myself appreciative of the concept, and the variety of riding it affords me; from road and hardpack gravel to semi-technical mountain bike trails – particularly if it's specced with the suspension fork. I never once felt uncomfortable; if anything, it made sense on the trails I ride from the moment I pressed the pedals for the first time. For the kind of off-road riding found across most of the UK, the Sarana is totally up for the task. It’s accommodating when it comes to storage and luggage capacity, compliant on the rough stuff, nimble enough to satisfy speed merchants, and capable when things get truly challenging.

It’s not as fast as a bona fide gravel racing machine, but that’s not what the Sarana claims to be. If you’re after one bike capable of dismissing all conditions and challenges and going to remote areas far off the beaten track, the Factor Sarana might be the answer.

Tech spec

• Price: £8,299/ $8,499 /€10,199 
• Brand: Factor
• Frame: Factor Sarana (Toray, Nippon Graphite, Pan-Based Fibre)
• Fork: 30mm RockShox Rudy XPLR
  Weight: 7.75kg (actual, 54cm)
• Sizes: 49, 52, 54, 56, 58cm
• Levers: SRAM Force AXS
• Brakes: SRAM Force AXS
• Rear derailleur: SRAM Force XPLR AXS
• Front derailleur: N/A
• Crankset: SRAM Force XPLR Dub Wide, 44T
• Bottom bracket: SRAM Dub Wide press fit
• Cassette: SRAM Force XPLR 10-46T
• Chain: SRAM Force
• Wheels: Black Inc 46
• Tyres: 2.0-inch Continental RaceKing
• Bar/stem: Black Inc Integrated 
• Seatpost: FSA SL-K SB0 (compatible with dropepr post)
• Saddle: Selle Italia SLR

Wolf Tooth sparked an influx of race-specific gravel bike pedals when it launched the DEL pedals in 2025. Featuring a single-sided entry, rather than the traditional two-sided design seen on Shimano SPD pedals, it aimed to lower stack height and increase pedal surface area for a gravel-race-specific pedal.

Our tech editor used the regular Wolf Tooth DEL pedals at Gravel Burn in South Africa last year and was impressed by their performance, durability, and lightweight efficiency over seven days of demanding gravel racing.

With the Mk0 version, things have ramped up considerably in the performance stakes.

Design details

The Wolf Tooth Mk0 DEL pedals are very similar to the standard DEL pedals. A wider platform design means that with the tread of most gravel shoes or a pontoon system on the Shimano RX910, the pedals have a contact surface area of 559mm². Shimano XTR 9200, for example, sits at 144mm². More contact is only part of the equation; the other is the total area this contact patch covers, and the wide platform of the DEL pedals means there is minimal float when clipped in.

Wolf Tooth has also designed this pedal to be resilient. A five-year warranty is included, while every component of the pedal can be replaced, should you damage it. There are also user service tutorials to ensure maintenance is easy and that the life of the pedal is prolonged.

Other notable attributes include the “igus bushing with a custom radial seal that protects internal components from debris”, effectively limiting the chance that dirt will get into the axles and reduce bearing performance.

Although functionally the same as the regular DEL pedals, a lot of work has gone into reducing the weight to 174g (172g on my scales) for the pair. DLC-coated Ti axles, PVD-coated Ti hardware, and aggressive machining have saved 43g compared to the standard DEL pedals. Just the one colour is available, rather than the coloured variety Wolf Tooth usually offers. The 6061 aluminium pedal bodies are machined in-house by Wolf Tooth, and do give a premium feel.

Wolf Tooth has also carried over the adjustable Q-factor of these pedals. There are 51, 55, and 59mm options available, and the swapping process is fairly straightforward; you unscrew the spindle, then adjust the three inner bearings and two spacers to set your width.

At just 14.5mm, the pedal is also very thin, which aids ground clearance through corners, while the open design helps shed mud. Stack height is also just 14.7mm, making it comparable to most road-race pedal systems and lower than pretty much any other gravel-specific pedal system available.

The SPD-style cleats are included, along with shims so that shoes with taller tread can still be used; however, the shims do not grip the shoe soles perfectly and can twist and move out of position when unclipping. The cleats have five degrees of float, and retention is adjustable via a hex screw.

The pedals are rated at a max rider weight of 90kg owing to the lightweight hardware used in the construction.

Performance

The Wolf Tooth Mk0 DEL pedals are, in terms of shape and functionality, identical to the standard DEL pedals, so the single-sided entry remains.

First and foremost, fitting the pedals is very easy. As with all pedals, you need to grease the thread, even more so when it comes to titanium, to avoid any binding. (It is recommended not to use these with titanium cranks). Clipping in using the supplied SPD-compatible stainless steel cleats, or standard Shimano ones, is effortless. There is no need to catch the pedal lip as such - instead it’s an easy stamp-in job.

There is some concern that removing the second side of the pedal makes clipping in more difficult, but fortunately the pedal remains in place and doesn't spin too freely on its axles. Additionally, riding on proper gravel trails rather than single track or more technical terrain, there is virtually no situation where I ever unclip, so the potential time lost from the single-sided element is negated in other ways.

The improved ground clearance is a great feature. Riding in ruts or even over large stony terrain, having a bit more clearance for the pedal to avoid strikes is handy. It also means you can pedal through corners a bit more easily, which is useful for maintaining traction over loose terrain.

That huge contact patch of the pedals is also exceptionally good for pedalling performance. On standard Shimano pedals, I have felt that my foot moves around somewhat when putting the power down. On the DEL pedals, there is no such issue. I have found these comparable to the stability of road pedals and exceptional for power transfer.

I used them together with Nimbl Urano shoes, which worked a treat as the tread sits nicely on the pedals while the cleat is engaged. However, using the Northwave Extreme X shoes, the tread was higher, so I needed the plastic shims under the cleat. The problem here is that the plate has less bite against the sole of the shoe than just the cleat, so when unclipping from the pedals I found the cleat often twisted. This meant I needed to loosen the retention a fair bit for these shoes or plane the tread off.

I’ve not actually needed to adjust the Q factor, but it is very easy to carry out. Simply unscrew the spindle and adjust the spacers and bearings. This carries over to all the individual parts of the pedal should they get damaged and require replacement. Given the price of the pedals, it is great that each individual part can be purchased and replaced rather than requiring an entirely new set of pedals.

Weight is a big area where these pedals are impressive. At just 172g for the pair, and the cleats adding only a small amount of weight, these are lighter than a few road systems. It’s not noticeable when riding, admittedly, but for those cutting weight everywhere on the bike, there is scope to reduce a large amount of rotational mass. I also have to say that these pedals are an absolute work of art in terms of aesthetics. The machined aluminium is just brilliant, and the single colour choice is also not a bad thing, given the DEL pedals tend to lose some color after exposure to the elements and from shoe scuffs. In this gunmetal colour, wear and tear is far less noticeable.

My only real gripe with these pedals is that most of the performance and functionality of the Mk0 DEL is identical to the standard DEL, save for the lighter weight.

Value

Unfortunately, the Mk0 DEL pedals don't represent great value at £310/ $365. In terms of performance and functionality, there is virtually nothing separating the Mk0 pedals from the standard DEL offering, which is also fairly expensive at £189/ $220. I have been using the Shimano M520 pedals for years, and they do the job well enough at £49.99.

The Wolf Tooth MK0 are a classic case of diminishing returns on investment, but the fact is there is a return. This is the lightest, highest-contact gravel pedal on the market, and for those looking at cutting every gram possible, there isn't a pedal that comes close.

The replacement parts, warranty, and serviceability all improve the value of these pedals, as you are unlikely to ever require a replacement set. But the same is true of the standard DEL pedals, which offer better value at a slightly higher weight.

If you want the best gravel options on the market, you can't go wrong with the standard DEL pedals, but if you're looking to unlock marginal performance gains and have the money to burn, the MK0 makes a convincing case.

Tech spec

• Price: £310/ $365
• Weight: 172g (pair, actual)
• Q-factor: 51 mm/ 55 mm/ 59 mm (user adjustable)
• Body: CNC-machined 6061-T6 aluminum
• Spindle: Titanium with DLC coating
• Bearings: Low-friction cartridge bearings x3
• Float and release: 5 degrees/ 12 degrees
• Cleat Compatibility: SPD

Cyclists are always chasing personal bests. Can you eke out a faster climb? Can you push a bit more power? Or can you beat your mate to the town sign?

For Charles Hall, who finished as the fastest amateur rider on the brutal 200km Icelandic gravel race The Rift last weekend, his PB was something else entirely. “The event was sponsored by a hot dog factory, so it was essentially just endless hot dogs [at the finish]. So, I said hello to nine hot dogs,” he explains confirming he’s never eaten that many in one sitting before. “I think that's got to be near an entire jar of hot dogs.”

“I don't really think sports nutritionists around the world would advise it for recovery fuel. But, I think my body was craving something and it saw that and it thought that's what I needed,” he says.

Hall, who has a full time job working in a market research firm, wasn’t even meant to be in Iceland that weekend, let alone trying to refuel from burning 7,000 calories in seven hours.

“The Rift were running a competition on Instagram. It was very much, comment, share, put something on your story for a chance to get in… I was like, no one ever wins them, but I thought, you know what, why not?”

But Hall, who rides for Rule 28 Factory Racing, did win. With just three weeks to go he had to book a flight to Iceland. But all the accommodation in and around the start town of Hvolsvöllur, home to just over 1,000 people, was booked, so in less than ideal race preparation he’d sleep in a tent.

Luckily for Hall he had been due to be in Essex for the ACME Grand West audax which takes them from Essex to the Welsh coast and so already had the day booked off work. “I left work on the Thursday evening, arrived there basically midnight, pitched the tent, and then just kind of went from there. It was all quite a whirlwind of a weekend,” he recalled.

Hall wasn’t totally unprepared. He tries to get at least two hours riding in each day, mostly on his way to and from work, and four hours a day at the weekend. But his hopes weren’t high.

“Obviously, I go into each race thinking you've got to give it your all, especially when you spend so much money and time to go away. But I was feeling a bit rough. So I called my parents, and my girlfriend was like, you know what? It's such pretty scenery. I'll just [take my] time and enjoy what's around me."

“But as soon as I got in the bunch amongst the other riders, riding shoulder-to-shoulder against some of the pros you can't. I just thought I'd see how long I can hold on to the front group.”

Contributing turns alongside a group of pros he recognised from their social media profiles Hall lasted much longer than he expected, only dropping from the front group 130km into the 200km race. “I surprised myself quite a lot. My normalized power for the first two hours, was over 350 watts. I set an average power for 20 minutes near 370 watts,” he says.

By the time he dropped back, the race had climbed most of its 2,600m of ascent up onto the plains of the Fjallabak Nature Reserve and was descending slowly back towards the start. “I was kind of in no man's land, like the next 70km. I was constantly looking over my shoulder, not really knowing where anybody was,” he recalls. “Occasionally, a rider would pass through, but they were an elite rider, not an age group rider. So, the last bit was quite tense.”

The terrain was also starting to take its toll. “The terrain itself was by far the hardest terrain I've ever ridden. I train in around Richmond Park, so it's fairly champagne gravel in Richmond Park, so this was very much just like a surreal experience.

“It was quite open farm roads not like the fire roads that you would get up in [gravel race] The Gralloch in Scotland, no tricky single track, just hard terrain. Also, you had to constantly look out for big hard volcanic rocks because they were very much hiding in the soil. There would just be flat gravel, and suddenly a massive rock,” he says. “At the end, my hands were just covered with blisters from the constant vibrations.”

Having wrapped up an impressive result, he was also 22^nd among the pro riders, it was time for a quick beer, nine hotdogs and packing his stuff up ready for an early morning flight back to the UK ready for a hero’s welcome in the office the next day.

“In the Monday morning meeting they ask, ‘How's everybody's weekend? What did people get up to?’ I said, ‘I went to Iceland and won a bike race’," he recalls. "They said, ‘Oh, nice. That's interesting.’ And then the conversation moves on.”

The British bike charity Cycling UK announced the opening of a brand new, multi-day bikepacking trail this week, called Gallovidian Gravel, which traverses the terrain of Dumfries and Galloway in the south of Scotland.

Cycling UK has established a growing network of riding trails across the country, including the Royal Chilterns Way, King Alfred’s Way, Rebellion Way and Traws Eryri - but this is its first route located entirely north of the border, in Scotland.

The circular route, which starts and finishes in Dumfries, offers adventure-seeking gravel bike and MTB riders 330km of off-road cycling with a total of 4,002 metres of climbing, as it rolls around the wild region's rugged and history sodden landscapes, exploring remote mountains, secret lochs, ancient abbeys, volcanic coastlines, evocative ruined churches, iron age hill forts and character-filled Lowland towns and villages as it wends along forest tracks and coastal back lanes.

Designed to be done over a long weekend or half a week, riders can arrange B&B or pub-based accommodation along the way or punctuate days on the trail with wild camping experiences under star-strewn skies.

The trail, which has been designed and implemented with the help of route designers and bike-tour guides Guy Kesteven and Kieran Foster, includes unique highlights such as the artistic fishing town of Kirkcudbright, and (apparently) the world’s fanciest cow shed. Cyclists can also encounter all kinds of wildlife beside and above the trail - from eagles and ospreys to majestic red deer and wild goats.

“We’ve worked hard to create a moving story of an adventure that takes in traffic free paths and quiet back lanes, linking trail centres, craggy coasts, smugglers coves, seemingly endless forests and wild mountainscapes," said Guy Kesteven.

“Despite being the closest part of Scotland to England, the area remains largely overlooked and undiscovered," he continued. "It’s somewhere you can experience the wild solitude of Scotland’s dark sky parks, whilst also taking in deep history, delightful towns, villages, remote farms and stunning scenery at every turn.

“In short, it really has been the perfect biking area to build a route in. Similar to when we made Royal Chilterns Way, we’ve built in three distinct sections that are linked. That makes Gallovidian Gravel one of our most accessible routes yet for those without the time to tackle the full adventure in one go. We guarantee even the shortest ride in Galloway will grab your heart and make you want to return as soon as possible though.”

According to stats collected by the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), cycling tourism generates more than €44 billion annually, and supports myriad small businesses across Britain and the continent, from B&Bs to bike shops.

Survey data collected by Cycling UK along its King Alfred’s Way route in 2020 backs this up, revealing that on average each person riding the route spends £107.61 per day. With some 1.23 million overnight biking trips being made by adventure cyclists annually, the charity estimates that backcountry riders generate £520m per year.

“Cycling can be the best way to truly experience a place, because you’re travelling slowly enough to take everything in but fast enough to cover great distances," said Cycling UK's commercial director, Katie Hammond. "It’s always exciting to be able to unveil a new route, knowing that at the same time, it’ll boost the local businesses and communities, connecting more of our cities, towns and villages.

“Multi-day routes also offer a much greener and healthier way to travel. You get to see incredible places that are often inaccessible by car, and I’m so pleased to be revealing our first Scottish route. By joining Cycling UK, anyone can help support the creation of even more routes that make cycle adventures accessible to everyone. You’ll also be the first to know when we launch something new.”

While Pirelli is perhaps best known for its involvement in motorsports, specifically as the tyre sponsor and supplier of Formula One, the company also makes a range of tyres for bicycles. The Italian multinational company offers a wide range of road, MTB, city and gravel tyres. Cars and bicycles may have very different requirements when it comes to tyres, but the two share many of the same design elements: puncture resistance, blending speed and traction, as well as resilience against degradation.

The Cinturato range of tyres comprises Pirelli’s gravel catalogue and offers a particularly wide variety of different treads and compounds available at multiple price points. The Cinturato Gravel H, as tested here, is available in both 700c and 650b diameters in several widths, tread compounds, casings and colours.

Determining the right type of tyre for you largely comes down to where you live and the specific terrain you have access to. There is no best single option across the board. Trial and error is often the best way to find what works for you and your riding, but Pirelli does have a helpful tyre configurator on its website. By inputting your monthly mileage, the type of riding you do, and whether you prefer speed or control, the tool will make suggestions as to which product within the line is best suited to your choices. There is also an interactive tyre pressure tool to assist in setup, though more refined third-party options may provide more useful guidance.

Design and construction

The Cinturato Gravel H SmartEVO GR is part of Pirelli’s newly updated High Performance line, made in Italy at the company’s Milan-Bollate plant with certified FSCTM natural rubber. Other tyres Pirelli offers with this same designation have tread options ranging from a semi-slick (RH) to hardpack-specific (H), a tread designed for mixed terrain (M) and one for muddy/soft conditions (S). The High Performance line, as one would expect, is designed for racing. Pirelli also offers the same tread patterns in its Performance line, which uses a different rubber compound and costs less.

The Gravel H tyre tested here is intended for riding on hard-packed, dry surfaces.

Per the company’s internal testing, the methodology of which it has not shared, the HP “offers 20% better puncture resistance and reduces rolling resistance by 10%” over the previous iteration.

The tread design, which is directional, features low-profile knobs in a tightly spaced chevron pattern. The side knobs are slightly taller and more widely spaced. Also of note is the fact that these tyres have an unusually high number of nibs (the little vestigial hairs on a tyre leftover from manufacture, also called sprues), which gives them a furry aspect. This tread pattern is unchanged from previous iterations, but the tyres feature the new SmartEVO GR compound, 120 TPI casing and a new protective sidewall, previously used on Pirelli’s MTB tyres.

My test tyres weighed in at 579 grams per slightly more than the listed weight of 570 g.

They measured out to precisely 45 mm on 25 mm internal width rims. The Gravel H is available as a 650b tyre in 45 or 50 mm, or as a 700c tyre in 35, 40, 45 and 50 mm options.

On the road

For this test, Pirelli provided me with a set of Cinturato High Performance Gravel H tyres in 45mm. Not so long ago, this would have been a common size, but in 2026, it is decidedly on the smaller side. If your gravel bike has the clearance, the current trend is to opt for 50-55 mm tyres, and sometimes more. On my own bikes, I typically go as wide as I can unless conditions are especially muddy.

I have previously spent time on Pirelli’s PZero road tyres, but this was my first time putting an extended amount of time on the company’s gravel tyres. The Cinturato Gravel H isn’t designed for technical off-road riding, and while it can be pressed into use for such terrain, it works much better for mixed terrain with generally compact surfaces.

The paved roads where I live are fairly rough (high volumes of chip seal and concrete panels), and I like to mix some mild off-road riding into most of my regular riding loops. I also have access to more remote crushed gravel pathways within a reasonable distance of home, and these spots provided an excellent place for testing these tyres.

While Pirelli classifies the Gravel H as a gravel tyre, I think they are better categorised as an all-road tyre. They performed at their best on sandy gravel roads or paths of crushed rock. In looser conditions, or where the road was bumpier, the lack of volume caused the tyres to get bogged down and jostled around more than I liked. They also lack the tread to perform well in the mud. These tyres encourage you to venture off-road, just not too far off.

For someone who lives in an area with relatively smooth gravel options, this is a tyre that will shine. For those in wetter places, or with bumpier terrain, a knobbier, higher-volume tyre would be a better choice.

I was quite impressed with how the Gravel H tyres felt on smoother pavement. They roll well and corner evenly, thanks to the uniform tread shape, which has a rounded profile. At high speeds, I found them to be quite noisy, something I chalk up to the amount of furry nibs, but they maintain speed well. I have not tried the Gravel RH model, which is Pirelli’s dedicated semi-slick tread pattern, but a combo of these two models could make for a very fast all-road setup.

This is a good tyre for a rider who rides pavement often but wants more grip than a slick tyre for when they venture off-road.

In my time testing them, I didn't have any punctures, but then I also didn’t push it on terrain. I will say that these were fairly challenging tyres to mount and set up tubeless. I’ve had worse experiences, but these weren’t easy to get seated. Be prepared for some wrestling!

Specifications

• Price: $97.90 USD
• Sizes: 45 mm as tested; available in 35-50 mm
• Weight: 579g as tested, 570g listed

Value and conclusion

When choosing a tyre, I would argue that size is the most critical metric to consider, but it’s not as simple as simply choosing an option based on the stated width; it is also necessary to assess height, shape and the impact of rim width. All of these things will impact how the tyre performs, and thus your riding experience.

My usual suggestion, when asked, is to ride the widest tyres you can fit on your bike with a tread pattern you feel confident on in all conditions. We are lucky to have so many good tyre gravel options available at the moment, and finding one that works for you will make your riding all the better.

The Cinturato Gravel H SmartEVO GR is designed as a racing tyre for hardpack conditions. Other popular tyres in this category include the Specialized Pathfinder TLR, Schwalbe G-One RS PRO, Hutchinson Caracal Race, and the Vittoria Terreno T30. Of the lot, the Pirellis are the most expensive by $10-25 per tyre.

I have spent time riding all of these, save for the Hutchinsons, and have good things to say about each of them. The Gravel H stacks up favourably against all of them, but perhaps with a slightly narrower use window—it's not the best on tarmac or rough gravel, but does well enough on both, and exceptionally well on smooth dirt and crushed stone surfaces.

I’ll start out this review by admitting that I've rarely been so confused by a bike.

"What exactly is this?" was my immediate reaction when I first saw the Salsa Wanderosa, and that question lingered far longer than I expected.

When Salsa Cycles unveiled the Wanderosa in January, I knew it'd be an oddity. But it was the kind of oddity I was excited to ride..

A self-proclaimed industry first, the Wanderosa is a Class 3 full-suspension gravel e-bike. It’s got a carbon frame, 120mm of suspension up front, 110mm at the rear, a long reach, short stem and very wide drop bars. It’s also got a dropper post and tyre clearance up to 2.35 inches.

Salsa calls this "a genre-bending blend of full-suspension capability, progressive drop-bar geometry, and motorised assistance for a radical ride experience."

At the time, I called it a “cross-country e-mountain bike with drop bars. All off-road versus all-road.”

I tend to gravitate toward bikes that reward effort. I like underbiking. I like finding the limits of a bike and occasionally crossing them. Looking at the Wanderosa, I assumed that it would be a drop-bar shred machine, and imagined riding the 23 miles to my nearest trailhead, ripping a few mountain bike laps, then riding home with just enough battery.

One ride on the Wanderosa and I came to a very different conclusion.

The bike isn't a drop-bar e-MTB at all. And to Salsa’s credit, the brand insists it was never intended to be one. Instead, it's something much more, well, “radical.” No, not in the “let’s get rad” kind of way. But in its uniqueness: a full-suspension gravel bike built around comfort, confidence and exploration.

“This is not developed to be a drop bar eMTB. It is truly meant as a gravel bike that can travel further, faster. The full suspension is there to serve the speed; making the faster ride more comfortable,” Salsa told me. “It’s for riders seeking to explore and gain more confidence in whatever terrain they encounter.”

Salsa knew exactly what this bike was about. It also knew it was taking a gamble.

Only a limited number of Wanderosas were produced, in part because Salsa anticipated that riders—myself included—might misunderstand the bike's intent. At first glance, it certainly looks like one thing. On the trail, however, it reveals itself to be something entirely different.

Meet the Wanderosa

The Wanderosa is what Salsa calls a "light electric full-suspension gravel bike."

At its core sits a high-modulus carbon frame paired with a flex-stay rear suspension design delivering 110mm of travel. Up front, a RockShox SID fork provides 120mm. For comparison, that’s the same amount of travel you’ll find on, say, the Specialized Chisel Full Suspension XC mountain bike.

From here, the gravel aspect becomes a tad more apparent with (very wide) drop bar handlebars and, on this review bike, a SRAM Apex Eagle mechanical drivetrain and disc brakes. Bar widths range from 44cm to a remarkably wide 52cm depending on frame size.

The geometry follows the modern "progressive" playbook with a slack front end, steep seat angle, long wheelbase and short stem.

Power comes from the FAZUA Ride 60 system paired with a 480Wh integrated battery. The motor produces 60Nm of torque and can reach assisted speeds of 28mph.

Specifications as reviewed

• Carbon frame with flex-stay rear suspension
• 120mm RockShox SID fork
• RockShox SIDLuxe Select+ 3P, 110mm travel
• FAZUA Ride 60 motor
• 480Wh integrated battery
• Class 3 e-bike
  • 28mph
  • Up to 55 miles of range
• Tyre clearance up to 2.35in
• Progressive gravel geometry
• TranzX YSP18 Dropper post
• Drivetrain: SRAM Apex Eagle
• Cassette: SRAM PG-1210, 10-50T, 12-speed
• Wheels: WTB ST i27, 29 in.
• Bars: 44cm Salsa Cowchipper
• Weight: 40 lbs
• Price: from $7,999

The ride

The Wanderosa's biggest challenge may be managing expectations.

Mine certainly got in the way.

When I first picked up the bike, with its beautiful seafoam green carbon frame, towering front end, wide bars and generous suspension travel, it looked, in one word, shreddy.

Parked next to my full-suspension trail bike, the Wanderosa was just as long and perhaps even a smidge taller at the front. And, for the first several rides, I treated it like a mountain bike.

I pulled on a pair of cut-off jean shorts, enjoyed the wind-at-my-back feeling of the electric assist on the ride to the trails, dropped the seatpost and pointed it downhill.

I rode it like a drop-bar e-MTB because that's exactly what its silhouette suggested. But while I had an absolute blast powering up fire roads and grinding effortlessly to the top of climbs, the Wanderosa remained disappointingly muted on the way back down.

It was planted, stable and composed. But not playful. It didn't seem particularly interested in getting airborne or being flicked aggressively through corners.

I also struggled to get comfortable.

The front end is exceptionally tall for a gravel bike, and the reach felt relatively compact. I swapped the stock stem for something longer and lowered the bars as much as possible. Even then, I never quite found that forward-leaning, aggressive position I instinctively wanted.

The harder I pushed the bike toward my usual, somewhat aggressive, riding, the more I felt like I was fighting it.

What is this thing? I kept asking myself.

And then I realized that the issue wasn’t the bike. It was the rider. I was getting in its way, not the other way around.

Once I stopped trying to ride the Wanderosa like a mountain bike, or even like my usual gravel race bikes, the bike's purpose became much clearer.

Because when used as intended, the Wanderosa may just be among the smoothest gravel bikes I've ever ridden.

On rough gravel roads, washboard surfaces and chunky doubletrack, the suspension shines and the bike feels remarkably composed. Embedded rocks, corrugations and square-edge hits simply disappear beneath you. Instead of constantly searching for the smoothest line or hovering out of the saddle to spare your back and hands, you can stay seated, relax your grip and let the bike float across the terrain.

The result isn't an adrenaline rush. It's comfort, control and confidence.

The Wanderosa encourages the kind of riding where curiosity replaces caution. The kind that invites you to go where you haven't gone before. When you spot an unfamiliar fire road disappearing into the trees, instead of wondering whether you'll have enough energy to investigate, you simply turn onto it. A dotted line on a map becomes an invitation rather than a question mark.

Just pack a lunch and go explore.

The Wanderosa feels less like a performance bike and more like a hiking boot on two wheels. The motor helps you cover greater distances and steeper grades, while the suspension smooths whatever terrain you encounter along the way. Together, they create a bike that constantly asks: "Where do you want to go today?"

The Wanderosa doesn't make you faster in the way a race bike makes you faster. Instead, it expands your riding radius. It makes the world feel a little smaller and your options a little bigger.

The wide tyres and full-suspension chassis contribute as much to that feeling as the motor itself. Knowing the bike can comfortably handle whatever surface appears around the next corner gives a reassuring sense of confidence. Whether the route turns into loose gravel, washboard, rutted forest roads or rocky doubletrack, the Wanderosa remains calm, predictable and unfazed.

Likewise, the FAZUA Ride 60 powers the experience with a smooth, quiet and relatively lightweight system. In its lowest assistance setting, the motor does little more than offset the bike's additional weight. In the middle Blue mode, however, it delivers a steady, natural feeling boost no matter how rough the terrain becomes. Some e-bike systems can feel abrupt or unpredictable when traction is limited, but the FAZUA remains impressively controlled.

Range, however, may be the limiting factor for some riders. While I found the 480Wh battery adequate for most rides, the claimed 55-mile maximum feels somewhat restrictive on a bike whose entire purpose is encouraging bigger adventures. A range extender option would make a lot of sense here.

The handlebar-mounted controls also took some getting used to. Designed more like SRAM Blips than a traditional e-bike remote, they can be difficult to locate and activate on rough terrain. Personally, I'd prefer a more conventional control unit positioned near the stem or top tube, where changing assist modes feels more intuitive.

Value and conclusion

Starting at $7,999, the Wanderosa is certainly an investment. It is also an undeniably niche product.

Which makes reviewing it surprisingly difficult. After all, who else is making a Class 3, full-suspension gravel e-bike?

Nobody.

So rather than measuring the Wanderosa against bikes it was never intended to compete with, it makes more sense to evaluate it for what it is: a category of one.

Viewed through that lens, the Wanderosa succeeds remarkably well.

I looked at the Wanderosa's generous suspension and mountain-bike-inspired silhouette and mistook it for a shreddy e-mtb with drop bars. But I was wrong. This is an exploration bike.

Its greatest strength isn't speed, capability or even comfort, though it offers all three in abundance. It's an invitation to explore and go further. To turn down the unknown road. To investigate that logging track you've always wondered about. To venture farther from home knowing the suspension will smooth the terrain and the motor will help get you back again.

This is a bike for the rider who throws it on the back of the car and spends an entire day wandering logging roads, forest service routes and forgotten connectors. The rider who values comfort and confidence over outright speed. The rider who values comfort and confidence over outright speed. The Wanderosa is a purpose-built machine for riders who simply want to see what's around the next bend and the next and the next.

Yes, that's a surprisingly specific rider. But if that’s you, then the Wanderosa is certainly worth a test ride.

A couple of weeks ago I returned from a ride with a friend in tow. Not the sort of friend who fist-bumps you afterwards and says 'great day, seeya next weekend'. Or even the sort of friend that might say, 'good to see you still have the FTP of an asthmatic ant, Shrubsall', with a conspiratorial wink. No, this was the sort of friend that might suck your blood while giving you Lyme disease. A tick, in other words and, actually, no friend at all.

My proud brandishing of the pin-head sized parasite was met with limited sympathy, or indeed admiration, from family members. Instead they recoiled in disgust and went off, I presume, to find the nearest plague mask. I went off to find the nearest pair of tweezers to get rid of the thing.

The chances are you know about ticks. You may well have had an encounter with one – they're not uncommon. They can be found in every UK county, and there are plenty in the USA too, particularly in the North-East and the West Coast. You may well also know that they can transmit Lyme disease, with one estimate putting the proportion of carrier ticks in the UK at 4%. In the US there's a pronounced variation, depending on where you live, ranging from less than 1% to 50%. There are other delights too, but Lyme is by far the most common.

Small (in some cases minute) spider-like critters, ticks lurk on foliage tips, latching on to humans and pets as they brush by. They'll then spend some time searching for a likely spot before biting on to feed, which is where any potential disease transmission occurs.

If you're part of the gravel fraternity and your rides take you along overgrown paths or through long grass it's worth checking yourself over when you get home. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends showering within two hours, which can wash off any roaming ticks and gives a chance to spot any that have latched on. Covering up as far as possible, avoiding foliage and using tick repellent can also go some way to ensuring you never experience the pleasure of meeting one.

Tick removal involves pulling the offender straight out with tweezers – don't try to burn it or drown it. I can vouch from my own experience that this is easy and painless (though slightly icky). Standard recommendation is then to dispose of the tick by placing it in a sealed container or novelly, folding it in sticky tape and binning it. Not having read this and being of the 'live and let live' persuasion, I chucked my mate out the window. I rather regret this now: I can imagine it waiting in the lavender outside the front door, ready to strike again.

If you get bitten by a tick and are unlucky enough to have been furnished with Lyme disease, there's a good chance you'll notice an expanding red 'bullseye' rash (usually around the bite, but it can be elsewhere) within a few weeks. You may also experience flu-like symptoms. At this point, it's worth getting yourself to your family doctor, who will likely offer a course of antibiotics. Left untreated, it can spread throughout the body over time and cause all sorts of unpleasant symptoms, from severe fatigue to localised paralysis and more.

For me personally, I'm going to spend at least the next couple of weeks looking out for rashes and swiping at the foliage outside my door. But, equally, I feel more alert to the possibility of another bite while out riding, and if I do find another stealing my, quite frankly, precious blood supply, it's going to be in a whole lot of trouble.

Mads Würtz Schmidt is currently the best gravel racer on the planet. In 2026, he is having an almost perfect season: the reigning European Champion has won every race he has entered, bar the Castellon Gravel Race, where he "only" finished second. His wins have been dominant and decisive, culminating in victories at the two biggest gravel races on the calendar: the Traka 360 and Unbound 200.

But what makes the Dane so special? Is it his illustrious hair, or the type of fish he puts on his bread? We spoke to the man himself, as well as a confidential source who knows him well, to uncover the facts about Mads Würtz Schmidt that you may not know, as well as those you never knew you wanted to know.

1. Mads is Danish, which you probably already knew, and comes from the town of Randers, which also happens to be his favourite place in all of Denmark.
   
2. Despite his German-sounding name, Mads has no connection to Germany. His grandfather, however, believes the Würtz traces back to German potato farmers who settled in Midtjylland (Middle Jutland) many years ago.
   
3. On the subject of Germans and their culinary reputation: when racing in Denmark as a junior, Mads was often called pølse, Danish for sausage. The reason? Wurst, the German word for sausage, sounds a lot like Würtz. He has been living that down ever since.
   
4. He has held a race licence since the age of eight, inspired by his cycling-mad family and his semi-pro mountain bike racer father.
   
5. His favourite traditional Danish food is smørrebrød (pronounced SMUR-uh-brod), which translates literally as "buttered bread". The bread itself is dark rye (rugbrød), and Mads takes his with a fried piece of white fish, Danish remoulade, and freshly squeezed lemon.
   

6. Denmark is a famous cycling nation, but it is also the home of Lego. Mads's favourite set, since you're asking, is the Batmobile.
   
7. If you scroll back through photos of Mads, you will find a catalogue of illustrious hairstyles. Contrary to what you might assume, he is a natural blond and does not dye his hair. Consider the record officially set straight.
   
8. That said, according to my confidential source, he currently has a secret mullet project in progress, described as a "big wish" for Mads.
   
9. His favourite road race is Paris-Roubaix, which may go some way to explaining his talent on gravel. His favourite gravel race is the Traka, held in his adopted home city of Girona.
   
10. Mads has lived in Girona with his family since 2016. His Spanish is conversational rather than fluent, something he is, to his credit, genuinely embarrassed about, but his English is perfect. Knowing three languages is still pretty good.
    

11. His standout career win, above all others, is the Elite Road Danish National Championship in 2021. He tells me he would not swap it for a Paris-Roubaix victory. That is how much it means to him.
    
12. Being a professional cyclist, he naturally has his superstitions. The salt must be placed on the table before anyone picks it up; it cannot be passed directly hand to hand. And all numbers must be even: For example, the TV or radio volume.
    
13. That last point may help explain this one. During a power cut in Girona that lasted over five hours, Mads refused to eat lunch because, without power, he could not accurately measure his food or log it in his app. It took his partner's intervention to suggest that, on balance, eating something was probably a good idea. Whether that is dedication, madness, or simply what it takes to win Unbound, you can decide.
    
14. I don't want to be the one who jinxes his season, so to ensure an even number of facts, here is one more. Randers, his hometown, is also home to the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest winner Emmelie de Forest. Mads has never met her. You are welcome.

As I’m sure most of you know, the rule of thumb for brands making a gravel riding jersey seems to be to make it more relaxed and add in some merino wool. Where bib shorts are concerned, gravelisation usually involves the simple addition of a couple of thigh pockets to a pair of Lycra shorts.

Fortunately, the Adventure Cargo Bib Shorts from WorldTour sponsors Q36.5 have rather more to offer than just a bit of thigh storage. The shorts are based on their premium road-going Gregarius Pro Bib Shorts, but this is no bad thing, as these already utilise some interesting tech and fabrics, so they should be a great starting point for some premium gravel bib shorts.

Construction

At the business end of the Adventure Cargo Bib Shorts is a Q Lab Air Chamois. At first glance, this looks a little bit basic, but dig a little deeper and its secrets are revealed.

A large, soft layer sits against the skin, extending both sideways and forwards, underneath which sits a multi-layer pad. This comprises a ‘sliding-effect reduction microfibre’ layer, ‘shock-absorbing high-density foam’ and ‘high-density open cell foam’ for moisture management. The layers aren’t all bonded together, allowing movement between them as you pedal or shift about in the saddle; in particular, the skin-contact layer is actually quite loose to reduce friction against the skin. The padding does feel quite thin compared with some pads, though.

The rear panel of the shorts, as well as the panel that sits underneath the chamois, are both stretch-woven, rather than Lycra, which should greatly improve durability. Q36.5 claims that it also offers lumbar support for enhanced stability and power.

The two thigh pockets, de rigueur on gravel shorts, are 19cm deep with a turned-over inside lip for added security. There is also a small, angled pocket just below the strap attachment on the rear; this is not particularly easy to access and is perhaps a hangover from the Gregarius Pro Bib Shorts, intended for a race radio.

The straps themselves are quite wide and robust with Q36.5 branding.

It’s also worth mentioning that Q36.5 have a big commitment to sustainability. All the materials used in the shorts are recycled, and Q36.5 says that their RaceWear is all ‘exclusively sourced, developed and manufactured with Italian fabrics and hand-crafted within a 350 km radius from [their] Bolzano headquarters in Italy’. They also state that all the components of the shorts are proprietary rather than simply picked off a fabric or seat pad manufacturer’s shelves.

The ride

I confess that after opening the smart white box, I was a little dismayed at the feel of the seat pad. It felt a bit thinner and a bit more ‘basic’ than I’m used to, and I wasn’t convinced that it would suit me for long, bumpy gravel rides. However, a couple of 30+km test rides reassured me that it was at least OK, and so I jumped in at the deep end and took the Adventure Cargo Bib Shorts as my only pair of shorts for a two day, 260km ride around the Yorkshire Wolds.

My backside and I are happy to report that the Q Lab Air Chamois worked very well. Admittedly, I switched the saddle on the Standert Pfadfinder to one of my own, favourite saddles, and the ride was more lanes than trails, but even so, I spent well over 14 hours on the bike with no discomfort.

The fit of the size large shorts was just right, and similar to larges from Castelli, Assos and Santini, whilst the bib straps were just the right length to hold everything in place without being uncomfortable when standing upright. I guess it would have been nice for the straps to be a little lighter and more obviously breathable, but I have no actual complaints about them at all.

I’m never really sure how to judge a short’s compression qualities, but the Adventure Cargo Bib Shorts felt very good, with a nice weight of elasticity - enough to feel well contained but not enough to be restrictive or to be constantly aware of. I’m not sure that I can say whether my lumbar felt more or less supported than with other shorts that I’ve worn, but I do know that what Q36.5 is calling the lumbar area is one which seems to wear out quickly in other shorts, leaving riders on your wheel with an interesting view. By the feel of the stretch-woven fabric in this area (and under the seat pad), I don’t think that this will be an issue with these shorts, as the material feels very durable.

I haven’t used the race radio pocket, but the two thigh pockets were deep and secure - perfect for keeping my phone in between photos (although I’d be wary riding off-road with it there), or ensuring that snacks were within easy reach. Thanks to the nature of the pocket design, they stayed very flat against the thigh when not in use, so the shorts wouldn’t feel out of place on a road ride.

My only real criticism relates to the leg length and hems. Q36.5 hasn’t used any silicone gripper material, instead relying on textured fabric around the bottom of the leg. This worked well when the shorts were fresh on, with the length being broadly similar to other shorts. However, as each ride progressed and I got sweatier and/or the shorts got a little bit stretched, the hem began to drift up my thigh until by the end of the first day in the Yorkshire Wolds, they were 2cm higher than where they started. Not a really big deal, and maybe a non-issue for those with bigger leg muscles, shorter femurs or less tan-line vanity than me, but I did find it a bit annoying.

Value and conclusion

Hmmm. Tricky one. £220 is more than I would generally consider paying for shorts, but the Adventure Cargo Bib Shorts offer more than your average shorts. Pockets, interesting use of different fabrics and generally high-quality construction all add up to a worthwhile package. Add in their probable longevity (thanks to the durable fabric used on the bum), and I might be persuaded that they are not an unreasonable price. Or at least, I might be if they didn’t slowly work their way up my thigh over the course of a ride!

Are they £90 better than the Rab Cinder Cargo Bib Shorts, for instance? Maybe not, but they are better cut and use more targeted fabrics; cost notwithstanding, I would pick the Q36.5s over the Rabs every time.

All of which is to say that the Adventure Cargo Bib Shorts are a bit pricey, but they are also very good.

The 2026 Unbound Gravel delivered victory for some, heartbreak, mechanicals and injuries for others, and mud for everyone. It also brought an end to the battle for the coveted Wild Card spots in the Life Time Grand Prix race series.

The Life Time Grand Prix is North America's most prestigious off-road racing series, consisting of six events across five U.S. states over seven months. In 2026, the series features a 50-rider field competing for a share of a $350,000 overall prize purse, alongside another $240,000 available across the six individual events.

Spots in the series are hand-selected by the organisers and fiercely contested. Ahead of the 2025 season, Life Time introduced a Wild Card programme to give riders who missed out on initial selection another route into the series.

The concept delivered the series' biggest shake-up yet when, in 2025, New Zealand's Cameron Jones rode his way into the series before winning Unbound Gravel and Little Sugar, and ultimately ending Keegan Swenson's dominance to claim the overall series title.

"[The Wild Card process] gave me the chance to prove that a Wild Card entry isn’t just a filler spot, it’s a chance for a genuine contender to shake up the standings. I truly believe that the talent pool is deep enough now that we may well see another Wild Card take the overall title in 2026," Jones said.

For 2026, Life Time reserved three men’s and four women’s places for riders emerging from the Wild Card pool. The fourth spot was added to the women's field after a rider dropped out of the series.

Competition was fierce, with nearly 80 athletes selected for the programme. Riders were scored on their performances at the opening two events of the season — Sea Otter Classic Gravel and Unbound Gravel — with the top performers earning their place in the Grand Prix field.

Now, with the opening two rounds complete, the Wild Card riders have been confirmed.

In the women’s field, familiar faces return in Americans Hannah Shell, Jenna Rinehart and Brit Danni Shrosbree. They're joined by newcomer Charlotte Clarke of New Zealand.

On the men’s side, the series welcomes Latvian Olympic mountain biker Martins Blums, returning riders Matthew Wilson of New Zealand and American Skyler Taylor.

The Unbound 200 may be done for the year, but its riders are still reeling from the tough conditions faced on Saturday’s race.

A combination of rain-exposed rock gardens, torrential pre-race downpours and mud-slick trails took victims throughout the weekend, including 2024’s Unbound 200 winner, Lachlan Morton. The EF Education-EasyPost rider took a hard slam just a quarter of the way into the race, falling heavily on his left hip. Though he managed to pedal to the first aid station, medics diagnosed him with concussion, and he exited the race.

"I had a big slam in one of the rocky sections," Morton said in a post on his team’s Instagram page. "It was of my own doing. Landed on my hip quite hard which is pretty sore right now. The organisers did a great job, they checked me out for concussion once I got back to the aid station. Otherwise, I'm ok, just a little disappointed. The race was going well but [there were] brutal conditions out there."

Morton wasn’t the only rider to abandon early on. Of the 117 riders that started the Unbound 200 elite men’s race, 37 dropped out before its end. In the women’s, 15 of the 62 starters also abandoned. The drop-out rate was even more staggering in the Unbound XL: only 60 riders finished the 350 mile race, of an initial 237 starters.

Huge names joined Morton in an early race exit. In an Instagram post after the race, Romain Bardet praised his fellow riders' ability to manage the mental load of endurance racing as well as the technical skills needed to manage equipment over nine hours: “It was a day for the brave,” he wrote.

Another rider whose dreams of winning Unbound came to an early end was Nicole Frain. After making it into the lead group, the Oceania Champion crashed hard in a mud ridge. After attempting to readjust her handlebars, Frain continued, though riding with crooked handlebars caused back pain enough for her to abandon.

In a post-race Instagram post, she captured the dualism - and brutality - of gravel racing, writing: "Ahhh this race. It was going so good until it wasn’t."

On the other side of a disappointing Unbound, Lachlan Morton echoed Frain's sentiments. "Drove to Kansas , saw some friends, played in the mud [...] got rained out at the rodeo, now I’m driving home," he wrote in an Instagram post. "That’s the game and I’ll keep playing it.”

Mads Würtz Schmidt was the ultimate winner of the men’s 200, with Sofia Gomez Villafañe winning the women’s. In the Unbound XL, Robin Gemperle and Svenja Betz finished first in their categories.

In the three times Geerike Schreurs has raced Unbound Gravel, the race has ended in a bunch finish twice. And both times, she finished second.

Saturday’s finish left the Dutch rider visibly emotional after another near-miss at gravel racing’s marquee event. Despite strong results throughout her career, including success in the UCI Gravel Series and wins at The Gralloch and Gravel Desert, Schreurs is still chasing a breakthrough victory at the sport’s biggest races.

"The dream is to win this race someday," Schreurs said after helping the Specialized Off-Road team secure a one-two finish behind teammate Sophia Gomez Villafañe. "But yeah, two times second place. That’s kind of the story of my life."

Like her second-place finish in 2024, Schreurs again found herself in a reduced group sprint at the end of one of gravel racing’s most demanding events. And like that year, victory narrowly slipped away.

The 2026 edition was made even harder by brutally muddy sectors that turned the race into an attritional battle long before the finish in Emporia.

"It was so hard," Schreurs said. "We encountered mud for the first time about 30 kilometres in, and after that it was relentlessly hard. But I was always well positioned near the front, and at the moments where it mattered most."

Schreurs spent much of the day in the breakaway and eventually took matters into her own hands when cooperation in the front group began to fade.

"At one point, we were riding with a big group, and then half the group didn't work. That’s super annoying," she said. "So then I thought, well, I’m just going to push the pace."

It proved to be one of the defining moves of the race, reducing the front group to a smaller and more committed selection that stayed clear into the finishing chute.

But once the riders made the final left-hand turn onto the finishing straight, the outcome felt almost inevitable.

"Of course I wanted to win," Schreurs said. "But this was agreed beforehand, that the finish would be for Sophia [Gomez Villafañe], and I’m happy she was able to finish it off, and I’m happy I could complete the podium for the one-two."

Schreurs attempted to attack before the sprint but could not make the move stick.

"I was going to try to attack," she said. "But yeah, unfortunately, it didn’t work. Looking back, I think I should have started the sprint a bit earlier, but I got boxed in a little."

Schreurs acknowledged that turning second place into victory may require more progress mentally.

"I’ve worked a lot on the mental side," she said. "But I think I still need to believe in myself a bit more."

Asked whether she would return to Unbound to chase victory again next year, Schreurs was unsure.

"Who knows," she said. "Maybe I’ll come back next year. Who knows."

Still, Schreurs said she was proud of the team result after Specialized dominated the women’s race, and swept the men’s podium aboard the new S-Works Crux.

"It was a super good weekend for the Specialized team," she said. "And I’m incredibly proud to be part of it and involved in it."

Heavy rain and thunderstorms swept across eastern Kansas through Friday and Saturday to deliver another epic edition of Unbound Gravel. Riders battled the infamous peanut butter mud that zapped any leg speed and clogged tyres and drivetrains, while fierce winds turned carefully planned race strategies into a contest of pure attrition and luck.

Midway through the race, a promising three-rider breakaway formed featuring former Unbound winner Keegan Swenson, his Specialized Off-Road teammate Mads Würtz Schmidt, and young Coby Freeburn (Trek Driftless). But Freeburn eventually could not hold the pace, leaving the two Specialized teammates alone off the front with more than six minutes on the chasers and looking firmly in control of the race.

Then came the mechanical that nearly ended everything.

With roughly 80 miles still to race, Würtz Schmidt punctured. In conditions where every stop carried enormous consequences, the race suddenly hung in the balance. The pair pulled over and worked frantically to repair the damage while rivals closed from behind, jamming plug after plug into the tyre.

After the race, Würtz Schmidt said they went through eight plugs trying to save it.

But they still were not making progress.

That was when Swenson made the decision that defined the race.

In a remarkable act of sacrifice, Swenson handed over his wheel, effectively giving up his own shot at victory, and valuable Life Time Grand Prix points, so his teammate could continue.

"[Würtz Schmidt] was riding really well today, and I was kind of buckled, so I just told him to just take my wheel and go," Swenson said afterward.

"I was like 100% confident he would make it and be able to win. And I wasn't so confident I'd be able to make it."

Würtz Schmidt rode away while Swenson was left dealing with the aftermath. He wrestled the damaged tyre off the rim, installed a tube, inflated it, and watched as the first riders from the chase group sped past.

Then, after getting moving again, his wheel would not engage. He was later seen searching through the gravel for lost freehub springs as his own race unravelled in the mud.

Many riders might have abandoned the day altogether. Swenson kept fighting.

"I just had to make sure to get it fixed because otherwise it's a long, long way without walking," he said.

"There were the Grand Prix points, and then in the end I was still fifth."

Meanwhile, the gamble worked perfectly.

As storms continued to roll through the Flint Hills and the mud dismantled the rest of the field, Würtz Schmidt rode clear, looking stronger with every mile. By the final hour, he was alone off the front, surviving what he later described as a brutal effort.

"I felt like I was flying for an hour after [Swenson sacrificed his wheel]. It gave me some adrenaline, and it gave me a kick," Schmidt said. "And then, the headwind on the way back, I think it took eight years out of my life. It was terrible."

"The last hour I was physically dead, but we played an aggressive race like we wanted to."

When he rolled into downtown Emporia, he did so alone, crossing the finish line more than five minutes ahead of his nearest challenger.

Swenson, despite everything, came across the finish line in fifth place, where Würtz Schmidt greeted him warmly.

"Maybe I was the strongest one in the race, but I couldn't have done it without Keegan," Würtz Schmidt said.

Gravel racing has long celebrated individual problem-solving and survival, but on the muddiest Unbound in years, teamwork decided the race.

"[Swenson] sacrificed his chances to win. He's a real champion," Würtz Schmidt. "and a good teammate."

Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Off-Road) mastered a tactical sprint finish at Unbound Gravel to take her second career win at the 200-mile gravel race.

A lead group of five women dominated the majority of the race, with representation from Villafañe, her teammate Geerike Schreurs, Cecily Decker (Pas Racing), Rosa Klöser (Canyon-SRAM), and Trek's Paige Onweller.

It was largely a stalemate until the final miles when Schreurs launched two attacks that hurt the rest of the group but didn't pull out any time. Villafañe waited until the final turn onto the finish straight to open her sprint that none of the other women could match.

Schreurs took second to make it one-two for Specialized.

How the Race Unfolded

Emma Langley (Ventum Racing) and Laurel Quinones (Ride BMC) were the first women to go off the front. At the same time, chaos erupted in the middle of the peloton with Peta Mullens (Liv) and Stella Hobbs (MAAP) hitting the deck but appearing to be uninjured. In an unrelated incident, Michaela Thompson (Allied Cycle Works) suffered an early flat tyre.

The Pas Racing duo of last year’s winner Karolina Migon and Morgan Aguirre were well-positioned for the first mud section but were both forced off their bikes to scrape the peanut butter-like mud off their bikes.

After the mud section, the lead group formed with representation from Danni Shrosbree (Argon 18), Cecily Decker (Pas Racing), Nicole Fraine (Factor Racing), Lauren Stephens (Aegis), Geerike Schreurs (Specialized Off-Road), Carolin Schiff (Canyon ATR), Samara Sheppard (Velocio-SRAM), Rosa Klöser (Canyon-SRAM), and Paige Onweller (Trek Driftless).

Several splits and surges mixed up the lead group over the first 50 miles. Trek’s Cecile Lejeune crashed in a water crossing and forged a fierce chase to rejoin the leaders. Fraine crashed hard after a touch of wheels on a fast section; she was slow to get back started with a bloody leg.

Three hours into the race, the front group consisted of Specialized’s Villafañe and Schreurs, Trek’s Paige Onweller, Lejeune, and Decker, as well as Schiff, Klöser, Sarah Lange (Pivot, Kenda, Hunt), Hayley Preen (Factor Racing ), and Nele Laing (Canyon ATR).

At 150 miles to go, the leaders had settled in with not much aggression. Then an attack reignited the hostilities on one of the courses' only paved sections, with Villafañe Schreurs, Decker, and Klöser going off the front.

The front four rode steady and regrouped after briefly splitting after the second feed zone.

As the women rode through the rain and mud (which stayed wet and mostly did not turn to the dreaded peanut butter consistency), Onweller made a hard effort to bridge from the chase to the leaders, making it a group of five. Onweller contributed to the pace setting, but it was unclear how her legs felt after the chase to get up front. The Trek rider has also been recovering from injury this year.

With 85 miles to go, the leading group of five had a 6-minute advantage, while Mieke Kröger (Rose Racing Circle) mounted a solo chase. Thirty seconds behind the German was Lange, Laing, and Preen.

The technical W Road split the group, with Villafañe, Schreurs, and Decker exiting the section in the lead. Decker hit the deck during a water crossing but quickly remounted her bike. Klöser managed to bridge back up to the group, and Onweller dropped off the back.

As the leaders were navigating W Road, the chasers were stopped by a freight train on a level crossing, allowing the third group on the road to combine into a larger group two.

Onweller continued to yo-yo in and out of the lead group of five. Meanwhile, Kröger held steady in sixth while Lauren De Crescenzo (Argonaut Cycles) joined Lange and Preen in the third group on the road.

Schreurs was the first to let an attack fly on the flats in the final miles. Klöser successfully closed, while Onweller towed Villafañe and Decker back up.

The group then soft pedalled to the final climb on Highland Hill, where Schreurs went again but couldn't get any gap.

Villafañe opened her race-winning sprint after the left turn onto the finishing straight on Commercial Street. Schreurs followed for second place while Decker took third.

Unbound Gravel Women's Top 10

• Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Off-Road)- 10:31:37
• Geerike Schreurs (Specialized Off-Road) - 10:31:38
• Cecily Decker (Pas Racing) - 10:31:38
• Paige Onweller (Trek Driftless) - 10:31:38
• Rosa Klöser (Canyon-SRAM-MAAP) - 10:31:39
• Lauren De Crescenzo - 10:46:27
• Romy Kasper (PAS Racing) - 10:49:28
• Hayley Preen (Factor Racing) - 10:49:28
• Danni Shrosbree  (Rapha-Argon 18) - 10:49:28
• Cecile LeJeune (trek Driftless) - 10:49:28

Mads Würtz Schmidt (Specialized Off-Road) survived rain, lightning, mud and a flat tyre to win Unbound Gravel in a definitive performance from gravel's first super team.

Würtz Schmidt made the first key split after a mud section before going off the front with teammate and previous Unbound Winner Keegan Swenson and Trek Driftless rider Cobe Freeburn. The two dropped Freeburn but then the European Gravel Champion suffered a rear puncture.

Swenson gave Würtz Schmidt his rear wheel in a moment that confirmed team tactics have officially landed in gravel. Beers was not eager to chase his teammate up the road, but he ended up being the strongest man standing to take second place.

Tobias Kongstad of Pas Racing held on for third place, meaning the new Specialized Crux model claimed the first three spots on the podium.

"The plan was to be aggressive on Texaco Hill," Würtz Schmidt said after the finish. "Maybe I got a little bit too excited, but me and Keegan got away with Cobe I think and yeah, we went for it."

Swenson made his way through the field to claim fifth place as the only American rider in the top 10.

How The Race Unfolded

After a brief neutrol roll out of town, John Borstelmann (Ventum Racing) and Connor Sens (Via Racing) established an early two-man breakaway. The first miles of gravel were bone dry, but then an early minimum maintenance road caused muddy chaos.

The mud stalled Sens as well as dozens of other racers who either jumped off of their bikes to run through the peanut butter mud or stopped to clear the mud from their bikes. Swenson was among the racers who were stalled out, perhaps from poor positioning in the group.

Borstelmann successfully navigated the mud section and the following split of the peloton and was joined in the lead group by Würtz Schmidt, Freeburn, Torbjørn Andre Røed (Trek Driftless), Romain Bardet (Rapha), Nils Brun (3T Bikes), Beers, Daxton Mock (Trek Driftless), Daan Seote (Ridley Racing Team), and Frederick Raßmann (Rose Racing Circle).

Previous Unbound winner Lachlan Morton (EF Pro Cycling) led the chase group and brought the likes of Brendan Johnston (Giant Bicycles), Cameron Jones (Scott Sports), and Simon Pellaud (Cervelo) back to the front group of leaders. Morton later pulled out of the race.

Shortly after the groups rejoined, another break tried to form that included last year's second-place finisher Pellaud. However, Beers reeled them in quickly. Pellaud, who has been suffering from knee pain this season, then fell off the back of the leaders before the first feed zone around mile 40.

Despite being out of position after the mud section, Swenson rejoined the group before the first feed. All three Specialized riders (Swenson, Beers, and Würtz Schmidt) stopped in the feed zone to get their bikes power-washed by their support crew, a smart move to keep their bikes running smoothly.

Mock went on a solo attack before the next technical section, gaining upwards of 40 seconds on the group before he got reabsorbed. The next attack to fly was a winning combination of Swenson, Würtz Schmidt, and Freeburn, who gained a quick 30 seconds going on 1 minute.

All three leaders stopped at the second feedzone for bike washes and resupplies. At 113 miles to go, the trio had extended their lead to 3 minutes while working well together.

The group doubled their lead to about 6 minutes, but Freeburn didn’t have the legs and got dropped off the back of the Specialized duo, leaving teammates Swenson and Würtz Schmidt to ride the next 100 miles off the front together.

At one point, Würtz Schmidt took off his shoe to clear out debris. With a clear shoe, he easily rode back to his teammate. Freeburn rode solo in third for a while before getting absorbed by the chasers.

The racers faced constantly changing conditions, but rain, mud, and grey skies were the common theme. Active rain is a benefit because it doesn't allow the mud to dry and turn into the sticky, peanut butter consistency.

As Swenson and Würtz Schmidt pressed on with a 9-minute lead, the second group on the road contained Freeburn, Jones, Johnston, and Tobias Kongstad. Beers and Emil Herzog (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) were in the group too, but were not motivated to chase their Specialized teammates.

“I was pulling through but kind of half-assed because I know what Mads needs to do, and also I like to have breathing room in case he had another puncture and things like that," Beers said after the race. "I was just doing short, kind of half-assed pulls just to keep everyone happy. But yeah, it’s a fine line. It’s a hard game to play.”

Würtz Schmidt then suffered his rear puncture. Swenson stopped to help him, but several tyre plugs did not hold air. Swenson then gave his rear wheel to Würtz Schmidt, confirmation that the European Gravel Champion was the stronger rider in the break. It was also confirmation that team tactics have officially arrived in North American gravel racing.

"I felt like I was flying for an hour after that. It gave me some adrenaline and it gave me a kick," Schmidt said. "And then, I got to say, the headwind on the way back, I think it took eight years out of my life. It was terrible."

Swenson continued to have problems with Schmidt's old wheel and got passed by the chasers. Schmidt forged ahead with a gap of about 7 minutes over Beers, Kongstad and Jones.

Inside 50 miles to go, Jones appeared to completely crack and fell off the pace of Beers and Kongstad. The South African then dropped Kongstad near Lake Kahola, just over 20 miles out from the finish.

The eventual winner began to slow and look behind him in the final miles, revealing after the finish line that he didn't have any time gaps.

"My legs started to hurt more and more," he said, "and I was slowing down more and more. I didn’t bring my phone. I had no time gaps. In the end, when I started to lose the pace, then of course I got nervous that they would come from behind."

But they never caught him.

Unbound Gravel Men's Top 10

1. Mads Würtz Schmidt - 9:14:51
2. Matt Beers - 9:19:54
3. Tobias Kongstad - 9:24:43
4. Brendan Johnston - 9:36:46
5. Keegan Swenson - 9:39:19
6. Daan Soete - 9:39:42
7. Adne Koster - 9:39:42
8. Emil Herzog - 9:39:43
9. Piotr Havik - 9:39:43
10. Cam Jones - 9:39:45

Swiss endurance rider Robin Gemperle won a disastrously mud-clogged 2026 Unbound XL, arriving back in Emporia, Kansas, after 21 hours and 16 minutes.

An increasingly popular alternative to the 200-mile flagship event at Unbound Gravel, the 350-mile XL event remains a completely self-supported ultra-endurance race.

Riders are prohibited from receiving outside assistance of any kind. They must manage their own nutrition, navigation and mechanical repairs while refuelling only at occasional gas stations along the route. There are no support crews and no aid stations.

As rain and thunderstorms rolled through the Flint Hills region on Friday and Saturday, the 2026 edition of the ultra-endurance gravel race brought the muddiest conditions since 2023, forcing riders to hike through ankle-deep mud for dozens of miles.

"I walked probably half a marathon distance," Gemperle told Cycling Weekly post-finish.

The 356-mile race marked Gemperle’s second appearance at Unbound XL after making his debut in 2025, when he finished third in a course-record-breaking year of fast, dry roads.

"It was completely different!" Gemperle said of the two editions.

After racing Unbound XL in 2025, Gemperle went on to the Tour Divide, where he set a new course record by completing the roughly 2,700-mile unsupported race in 11 days, 19 hours and 14 minutes.

This year, Gemperle said he is focusing on shorter ultra-endurance events, and he was not prepared to settle for another third-place finish.

"This time I'm only here for the Unbound, and I kind of felt if there's no second chance, I need to make it count. And to do good," he said. "I did it for myself."

Gemperle also revealed that, in addition to the difficult course conditions, he battled stomach issues severe enough that he feared he might have to abandon the race.

But he persevered, finishing with a comfortable lead over second-place rider Max Agut.

As widely reported ahead of the race, Gemperle competed on a prototype Scott bike built around 32-inch wheels. Scott announced before the event that Gemperle and fellow rider Cam Jones would ride the unreleased platform across the Flint Hills course.

Scott stated the bike “will never be released on the market,” but Gemperle was impressed with its performance.

"I think this bike is just amazing. The wheels rolled so smoothly over everything," Gemperle said.

Asked about mud clearance, Gemperle laughed.

"There's never enough clearance."

At the time of publication, only Agut and Gemperle had reached the finish, while the remaining riders and the women’s race were still ongoing.

Romain Bardet’s Unbound Gravel debut came to an early end on Saturday, with the retired French star abandoning the race at Matfield Green, around 100 miles into the 2026 edition.

The former Tour de France stage winner was seen riding back into the small Kansas town without his helmet after deciding to step off the course during what has become the muddiest editions of Unbound since 2023. Witnesses on the ground reported Bardet appeared physically okay, stopping briefly to clean himself up after battling through the deteriorating conditions.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms swept across the Flint Hills throughout the day, transforming the famous Kansas gravel roads from fast, sun-cracked surfaces into thick, energy-sapping mud. Riders faced relentless bike-clogging clay, standing water and increasingly treacherous conditions deep into the race.

Bardet had arrived in Emporia at the end of a month-long family road trip across the United States with wife and son, describing his Unbound appearance earlier in the week as a chance to finally experience the event he had heard so much about. The Frenchman stressed before the start that he was "here for fun" rather than chasing a result in his first full season focused on gravel racing after retiring from the WorldTour peloton.

The race remains ongoing with roughly 100 miles still to race at the time of reporting. Specialized Off-Road teammates Keegan Swenson and Mads Würtz Schmidt were leading the men’s event as the brutal conditions continued to shape a dramatic day in Kansas.

It’s prototype-bike galore at Unbound Gravel this year. Some are hiding beneath subtle paint, while others are impossible to miss. There are the oversized 32" wheels on Cam Jones’ and Robin Gemperle’s Scott bikes, the hard-to-ignore fuchsia pink paintjobs on the prototype Liv bikes, and catchy graphics on the prototype from sibling brand Giant.

And then there’s Factor, with a prototype featuring that fork we all have opinions about.

Ridden by celebrated retired WorldTour rider Romain Bardet and several of his Factor teammates, Factor’s latest prototype gravel bike was first spotted at the Traka just weeks ago.

At Unbound, Factor allowed Cycling Weekly to take a closer look and shared some early details through Mike McGinn from its engineering team.

However, the brand would not share any hard numbers; no weights, no aero data, no launch timeline, no price and not even the bike’s eventual name.

Still, there was plenty to learn — and to deduce.

Meet Factor’s next top-tier aero gravel race bike

The design of the prototype bike is unmistakably inspired by Factor’s wildly polarising ONE road bike, complete with the dramatically wide fork intended not merely to cheat the wind, but to actively manage airflow before it reaches the rider’s legs.

And according to Factor, that controversial concept works.

“People are warming up to this wild-looking fork, and we know it’s faster," said Mike McGinn.

McGinn explained that the wide fork is designed to manipulate airflow before it reaches the rider’s legs and frame.

"Aerodynamics works a lot like refraction with light," he said, describing how the fork changes airflow downstream across the bike and rider rather than simply reducing drag at the fork itself.

The new gravel prototype takes that same aero philosophy and adapts it for the realities of modern gravel racing: massive clearances, a balance of compliance and stiffness, and, of course, aerodynamics.

But McGinn admitted that it wasn’t the brand's originally intention to use that ONE-inspired fork design on gravel.

"We already had riders planned to ride the original fork, but this was faster," he said.

And, we’ll admit that when it comes to pure aesthetics, that wide fork filled in with 50mm+ tyres looks more proportional and less radical.

"With this one, we tried to tailor it more to an acceptable visual language," McGinn said. "The result is, like you said, less offensive on the eyes."

Unlike, what McGinn called, a "bayoneted front end" used on the ONE, this gravel bike uses a standard steerer tube and bearing setup, requiring Factor’s engineers to adapt the aero concept into a more conventional package.

Factor says that once the bike is officially launched, most complete builds will ship with 50mm tyres, but the frame itself clears up to 2.2-inch rubber. Yet despite that huge clearance, chainstays remain remarkably short at 420mm, keeping the bike responsive and agile.

"There is nothing that’s even close to that," McGinn claimed, pointing out that many competing 2.2" gravel bikes now stretch to 435mm rear ends and mountain-bike-like wheelbases.

"This bike was meant for core connection to terrain," McGinn said. "You’re meant to feel like it’s a rocket ship."

When we reviewed the ONE, that's exactly what our tester called it: a "spaceship," so that could bode well for this new bike.

That focus on speed has been the topic of conversation at races like Unbound these past few years, and the industry is converging on the same solution: pairing aggressive aerodynamics with ever-wider tyres in the pursuit of outright speed over rough terrain.

Factor’s answer is this: an unapologetically aero gravel race bike designed around sustained high speeds while keeping riders relatively comfortable.

Interestingly, unlike other bikes in this category, Factor is keeping 2x drivetrain compatibility alive as well as downtube storage.

That decision, however, came with major engineering challenges. McGinn explained that packaging short chainstays, 2.2in tyre clearance and a front derailleur into the same frame pushed the limits of what was physically possible.

"You can’t run a 2x with anything over a 47 anyway, so there was a lot of hemming and hawing," he said.

Ultimately, Factor decided to preserve the option and found a way.

“We had to look at creative ways to manage stiffness and structural requirements in that area,” he explained.

The geometry itself was also redesigned around modern oversized gravel tyres. Factor lowered the bottom bracket to compensate for the taller tyre profile and adjusted trail figures to preserve handling characteristics despite the jump in tyre volume.

McGinn also revealed the bike uses size-specific fork offsets — typically 50-51mm on larger sizes and 56mm on smaller frames — helping maintain more consistent handling across the size range while reducing toe overlap on smaller bikes.

“Above 33kph, you get it”

French rider Gustave Orain, who is also racing the prototype at Unbound, described the bike as surprisingly comfortable despite its aggressive intent.

"What I like the most with this bike, it's the exact same geometry as the Aluto fully slammed. So you switch from an all-road gravel bike to an absolute aero bike without losing any comfort or compromise," Orain shared.

"The first thing I've been super surprised about is that it’s actually the exact same [ride quality] as the Aluto, but faster."

That theme kept resurfacing throughout the conversation. The expectation is that a bike this extreme-looking would ride harshly. But McGinn insists modern carbon engineering has moved well beyond that compromise.

"The biggest compliment we got from the ONE was: ‘It rides like a bike'," McGinn said with a laugh. "Because it looks like it doesn’t."

But make no mistake: this bike is designed to come alive at speed.

"Above 33 kilometres an hour, you’re like, ‘Okay. I got it,’" Orain said.

McGinn compared it directly to the ONE’s road-racing personality.

"If you ride the ONE below 40kph, people say it’s hard to manipulate,” he said. “You have to get it to speed for it to really work."

Going above 30kph, or 18mph, should not be a problem at Unbound, where 2025 elite men’s winner Cam Jones averaged 37.8kph (23.49mph) over the 202-mile course, completing it in a record-shattering 8:37:09. On the women’s side, Karolina Migon won with an average speed of 32.4kph (20.1mph).

Unlike Scott’s “never going to market” approach, Factor’s prototype does not appear to be a one-off experimental machine. Quite the contrary

"There is a very, very, very high chance that this is the bike that we come to market with," McGinn said with more than a subtle hint.

And despite the mixed reactions to the aesthetics of its fork, Factor seems increasingly emboldened by the response to the ONE.

"It’s the bike you didn’t know you needed until you tried it," McGinn said.

Time will tell if the gravel market follows suit.

Canadian gravel racer and former professional road rider Rob Britton has spent years racing at the sharp end of cycling. But after a career built on structure, pressure and results, Britton is now chasing something very different: uncertainty.

Over the last few seasons, that philosophy has pushed Britton deeper into ultra-distance racing and further away from gravel’s increasingly polished front end. While he remains capable of competing at elite gravel races, events like Badlands, the Atlas Mountain Race and Unbound XL now hold far more appeal than traditional race formats.

"Gravel racing is becoming more and more like road racing at the front end. And that’s a world I’ve already been part of for a long time," Britton explains.

For Britton, that is not criticism so much as reality. Before gravel exploded into the mainstream, he built his career in professional road racing, winning major North American stage races like the Tour of the Gila, and earned a reputation as one of Canada’s strongest endurance riders.

But after years inside the pressure cooker of professional road cycling, the appeal of this highly controlled environment no longer exists.

"I’ve read that book," he says. "I know all the chapters and how it ends."

Nowhere is that shift clearer than in his relationship with Unbound XL, the 350-mile self-supported ultra through the Flint Hills of Kansas. Britton returns this year as defending champion, but insists the label means less than people might expect.

"That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?" he says. "Normally, I would say it does come with pressure, but so far this season, I haven’t been able to get things right, and every race has been either disappointing or a setback. So yes, I am returning as the defending champion, but I genuinely see myself as a bit of an underdog for the win this year."

Ultra-distance racing offers exactly the kind of unscripted challenge Britton believes modern gravel increasingly struggles to provide. At events like the Unbound XL, riders face not only 350 miles of brutal conditions but also harsh weather, fatigue and sleep deprivation. There are no team cars or carefully controlled race scenarios once darkness arrives and the field begins to splinter apart.

"It’s refreshing," Britton says. "The people at ultras are probably the least egotistical people you’ll ever meet."

That culture is part of what keeps drawing him back. At ultra-distance events, professional riders line up alongside ordinary cyclists using their time off simply to see if they can survive.

"They work nine-to-five jobs," Britton says. “Then they use their vacation days to go bury themselves somewhere for four days without sleep. Honestly, that’s harder than what I do."

Even the scale of the event itself no longer feels quite as intimidating to him as it once did.

"It’s funny, I remember the first time I did Unbound 200, and thought the people who did the XL were crazy," he says. "My mind could not fathom having done 200 miles staying on my bike and doing another 150."

Now, after years spent racing ultras, his perspective has shifted completely.

"In the realm that I operate, 560 kilometres isn’t actually that long, which again is kind of insane."

That change has also altered the way he trains. While ultra-distance racing is getting dramatically faster, Britton says he has actually moved away from the high-intensity structure associated with shorter gravel racing.

"I think it’s kind of the opposite," he explains. "As I’ve done more ultras I’ve started to train with a little less focus on intensity versus when I was training more for regular distance racing."

Instead, he believes the increasing speeds are largely being driven by riders arriving from traditional gravel and road backgrounds.

"You’re seeing riders coming from normal-distance races and bringing some of that speed into ultra-distance events. It’s actually nice not having to do as much intensity and just being able to focus on long, steady bike rides."

At XL, however, fitness alone rarely decides the outcome. Weather and course conditions remain the event’s great equaliser, particularly once Kansas mud enters the equation.

"Plan for the worst and hope for the best," Britton says of his approach to race preparation. "I’ll watch the forecast before the event and see what the projected low temperature is and plan for a couple degrees cooler than that."

But temperatures are only part of the problem.

"The biggest thing with Unbound is always whether or not you’re going to get crazy sections of mud," he says. "I remember in 2023 there was a 10-mile section of mud early on and it blew the race apart. It was like a battle zone out there, absolute carnage."

When conditions deteriorate badly enough, racing almost becomes secondary.

"At a certain point, you’re not riding bikes anymore, it’s a war of attrition as to who wants to hike their bike the longest," he says. "And eventually people crack. Or in some cases, their bike does first."

That uncertainty is precisely what fascinates him about ultra racing. Unlike traditional events, there is no way to fully control the outcome once exhaustion takes hold.

"It takes you into such a dark place," Britton says. "You really find out how your mind reacts when things get difficult."

Sleep deprivation has become one of ultra racing’s defining battlegrounds, although Britton admits the sport’s growing obsession with minimal sleep can sometimes push riders too far.

"Ultra racing has evolved into these sleep deprivation contests," he says. "Whoever sleeps the least usually has the advantage."

Experience, however, has taught him when stopping becomes necessary.

"If you start dazing off and can’t shake it, you have to stop," he says. "Even ten minutes of sleep can completely reset you."

That balance between ambition and survival became painfully clear earlier this season at the Atlas Mountain Race in Morocco. From a results perspective, the race unravelled almost immediately.

"Next question," Britton laughs. "Jokes aside, that was the worst I’ve ever felt on a bike and because the event is so long, I got to feel that agony for days on end."

Yet even in failure, he still found something valuable.

"The silver lining of just trying to get to the finish meant I was sleeping a lot more and riding during daylight hours," he says. "Morocco was one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever ridden my bike."

That perspective perhaps explains why Britton remains such a relatable figure within gravel and ultra racing. He no longer presents himself as an untouchable professional athlete obsessed purely with results. Instead, he talks openly about setbacks, inconsistency and the importance of actually enjoying the experience.

"If you finish fourth somewhere, nobody really remembers," he says. "But people remember stories. They remember things that feel real."

As he lines up to defend his Unbound XL title, Britton knows exactly how brutal ultra racing can become. But that uncertainty is also the attraction.

For all the victories and years spent in professional cycling, curiosity still seems to be the thing driving him forward most. And for now at least, he still seems to be enjoying the ride.

Today, Specialized officially drew back the curtain on one of the most anticipated bike launches of the year: the terribly kept secret that is the all new Crux.

By now, leaked photos had already circulated widely online, especially after Specialized Off-Road athlete Geerike Schreurs raced the new bike to victory at the Gralloch UCI Gravel World Series event.

The main storyline is that the generation 5 Crux has undergone a dramatic transformation. It’s one that, some proponents say, was long overdue, but the more practical riders may bemoan.

Gone is the classic silhouette of round tubing and a standard round 27.2mm seatpost. Gone also are the exposed wires and the build versatility that made the previous generation so easy to live with.

In their place sits a bike that looks very much like a fat-tyred Tarmac SL8, complete with sharp aerodynamic tube profiles, a proprietary aero seatpost and a fully integrated cockpit. The tyre clearance has been beefed up to 55mm (or 2.2inches if you’re running MTB rubber) but drivetrains are now limited to 1x only with a 52t cap on the chainring. Goodbye road gearing, goodbye suspension forks and dropper posts. Hello modern gravel race bike.

This is no longer the "one bike to rule them all." It’s a bike that giveth and taketh. It’s both divisive and inevitable. It meets the demands of modern racing built around long-distance speed, aerodynamics, comfort and high-volume tyres. And in that role, I expect this bike to do very, very well.

But for riders who fell in love with the previous Crux precisely because it resisted over-specialisation, the new direction may feel bittersweet.

The Crux redefined, yet again

The Crux was born in 2010 as a dedicated cyclocross race bike, replacing the TriCross model. It was well-liked and successful too, with riders like Zdenek Stybar and Tom Pidcock racing aboard the bike to rainbow glory in the Elite and U23 UCI Cyclocross World Championships, respectively, over the years.

The Crux 4, launched in 2021, was a truly revolutionary product. Just as cyclocross participation was shrinking and gravel racing exploding globally, Specialized repositioned the Crux platform as the featherweight, stripped-down crossover product, and alternative to the Diverge. In doing so, the American brand created one of the most versatile drop-bar bikes of the modern era. Few bikes in recent years have been so universally loved by riders, racers and reviewers alike.

The Crux 4 struck a rare balance. It blended the playfulness and agility of a cyclocross bike with the stability needed in gravel, and a ride feel, efficiency and raciness appreciated across the board.

It is also a bike that’s easy to live with. The external cable routing on the front end, threaded BSA bottom bracket, compatibility with aftermarket seatposts, suspension forks, dropper posts and both 1x and 2x drivetrains all make it easy to service and travel with.

The same bike could, and did, be ridden to victory in both a 200-mile Unbound Gravel race and a UCI Cyclocross World Cup.

I have no doubt that the new Crux will be any less successful. In fact, I suspect it will become even more successful at the highest levels of racing but in gravel specifically.

Interestingly, throughout all of Specialized’s launch material, cyclocross isn’t even mentioned. Instead, Specialized is very upfront about what this bike was built around: Unbound Gravel.

And that tells you almost everything you need to know.

What’s new

The Crux 5 pivots hard toward the demands of modern racing, borrowing heavily from the Tarmac SL8 playbook while simultaneously increasing tyre clearance and stability for long-distance events on rough terrain.

Headline changes include:

• A claimed 15.2 watt aerodynamic improvement at 45kph
• New aerodynamic tube shaping inspired by the Tarmac SL8
• Fully integrated cable routing and cockpit options
• Clearance for tyres up to 55mm or 2.2in
• 1x-only drivetrain compatibility
• Maximum 52t chainring capacity
• Dropped seatstays and a slightly altered geometry
• Claimed 789g S-Works frame weight (for reference the Crux 4 was 735g)

Despite the aerodynamic redesign, Specialized says the Crux 5 retains the same stiffness and compliance targets as the outgoing model.

The bike is also no longer positioned as an all-road-adjacent gravel bike. This is now a purpose-built race machine first and foremost.

A Fat-Tyred Tarmac

As stated, much of the Crux 5’s design comes from its road siblings. That influence is immediately obvious in the bike’s tube shaping and overall silhouette.

“Drawing directly from Tarmac SL8 learnings and decades of aero research, every tube on Crux 5 was sculpted for speed at elite gravel races," Specialized says. “Crux 5 is the most aerodynamic gravel race bike we’ve ever tested."

The aerodynamic improvements are spread across the entire bike rather than isolated to the frame alone.

Specialized says roughly 50% of the aero gains come from the frame, fork and seatpost, with another 30% coming from the new Roval Terra Aero wheels and the remaining 20% from the integrated Terra cockpit.

Still, aero is only part of the equation.

Rather than chasing isolated benchmark numbers, Specialized says it focused on one overarching metric: total elapsed race time over real-world gravel courses.

The company calls this its “Equation of Speed”, a simulation model combining aerodynamic drag, rider power, rolling resistance, surface roughness, environmental conditions and total system weight into a single prediction: Time to Finish.

“Smoother is Faster” has long been an engineering philosophy at Specialized and that certainly did not go unaddressed in the designing of the Crux 5.

During the 2025 edition of Unbound Gravel, a small telemetry box mounted underneath Matt Beers’ saddle collected accelerometer data throughout the race. Specialized says it has now gathered telemetry across thousands of kilometres and multiple elite gravel events, measuring the roughness and vibration characteristics of different gravel surfaces in real time.

Why? Because gravel racing presents a very different engineering challenge from road racing. At road-race speeds, aerodynamic drag dominates the equation. On gravel, speeds are generally lower and rolling resistance becomes significantly more important, particularly over rough surfaces where tyre deformation and vibration losses increase dramatically.

Specialized says the telemetry data feeds directly into its simulation models, allowing engineers to better understand how tyre volume, wheel design, rider fatigue and frame characteristics interact over events lasting upwards of 10 hours.

Rather than pursuing suspension solutions as it did with the short-lived Diverge STR, Specialized says the Crux 5 achieves comfort primarily through frame shaping, tyre volume and carefully tuned compliance targets.

Dropped seatstays, size-specific layups and the ability to run significantly larger tyres all contribute to reducing rider fatigue over long gravel races without adding the weight or complexity of suspension systems.

Specialized also credits what it calls “Flow State Design”, first introduced with the Aethos road bike. Engineers focused on optimising tube shapes so they carry loads more efficiently, reducing the need for additional carbon material.

The bike’s geometry has evolved alongside those aerodynamic changes. Though in the smaller sizes especially, these differences aren’t large.

Compared to the outgoing Crux, the new bike gets:

• A half-degree slacker head angle
• A lower bottom bracket
• A half-degree steeper seat angle
• Longer reach figures in larger sizes
• Increased tyre clearance to 55mm

Taken together, those updates point toward a bike designed to feel more stable at speed, more planted with larger tyres and more confidence-inspiring over rough terrain.

The wheel and tyre story forms a major part of the package too.

Specialized claims the new Terra Aero CLX wheels allow riders to run larger-volume tyres with effectively no aerodynamic penalty. According to the company, a 50mm Pathfinder or Tracer tyre mounted to the Terra Aero CLX wheel produces similar aerodynamic drag to a 45mm tyre mounted to the previous Terra CLX II wheel.

The result comes with some bold claims.

Using the company’s simulation model, Specialized says former Unbound winner Sofia Gomez Villafañe would have completed the 2025 edition of Unbound Gravel an impressive 9 minutes and 58 seconds faster aboard the new Crux 5 compared to the outgoing Crux 4, assuming identical conditions.

These numbers are impossible to verify, of course, but they do reveal how modern gravel racing is increasingly being approached: not as adventure riding, but as a very long time trial on unforgiving surfaces.

Introducing S-Level

Alongside the new Crux platform, Specialized is also introducing a new “S-Level” designation.

Positioned just below S-Works, S-Level is intended to bring flagship-level race performance to a slightly broader audience.

The Crux 5 S-Level uses a FACT 10r frame paired with a FACT 12r fork, the new Terra cockpit, SRAM RED XPLR and Roval Terra Aero CL wheels. The frame itself is claimed to weigh just 897g, with complete builds coming in at a claimed 7.7kg.

In practical terms, S-Level appears to function as a high-end performance tier sitting between the halo S-Works product and the more attainable Expert and Comp builds.

Builds & Pricing

First Ride Impressions

I’ve ridden the outgoing 2021 Specialized S-Works Crux since December 2021 and, in the years since, I’ve ridden the absolute crap out of it. It remains my favourite bike I’ve ever owned. I won’t go too deep into that here, but you can read my full 1,000-word love letter to the outgoing Crux here.

So I’ll admit that I approached the Crux 5 with a healthy amount of scepticism.

I’ve not yet fully bought into the whole “aero-is-everything” approach to modern bikes. I tinker with bikes far too much to fully embrace integrated everything and proprietary parts. Show of hands for everyone who has ever lost a seatpost wedge.

And so, when I first laid eyes on the Crux 5, it wasn’t love at first sight. It looks beautifully sleek and undeniably fast, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve always loved the timeless look of rounded tubes, a two-piece cockpit and the sheer practicality baked into the whole thing.

And then I swung a leg over the new bike. In my size 49, the geometry changes are so subtle that I immediately felt at home. It fit me like a glove. And within minutes of pedalling, I had my ah-ha moment.

This bike is fast. Not just marketing copy fast. Tangibly fast.

It accelerates like a rocket and carries speed exceptionally well on both dirt and tarmac. And, fortunately, the familiar liveliness of the Crux does indeed remain intact. While the new bike feels more composed than its predecessor, it is by no means over-dampened. On my lunch loop, sprinkled with singletrack, the bike felt unmistakably like a Crux. A smidge taller perhaps, and the ever beefier types certainly don’t help with the toe-overlap, but Crux all the same.

In many ways, it feels like a more mature version of the Crux concept. The old Crux had a carefree do-it-all attitude to it. The new bike feels more focused, more deliberate and more purpose-built.

It is stiff in the places that matter, accelerates eagerly and, importantly, remains remarkably comfortable over long hours.

This is not a harsh aero road bike masquerading as a gravel bike. The Crux 5 still feels refined over rough surfaces, particularly when paired with high-volume tyres, and there’s still enough playfulness in the handling to make it genuinely enjoyable to ride.

Importantly, it also retains some crossover appeal. I would have absolutely no hesitation using this bike as a road bike alongside its gravel duties.

Gravel racing at the sharp end has become increasingly fast, tactical and aero-conscious. Today’s elite gravel racers spend vast stretches riding in tightly packed groups, or even solo, at road race speeds. The spirit of exploration has, at the highest level at least, given way to the pursuit of outright speed.

In that environment, aerodynamic efficiency is everything (aside from preventing race-ending flat tyres, perhaps). The Crux 5 reflects that evolution perfectly.

The outgoing Crux became beloved because it blurred categories. The new Crux 5 will succeed because it embraces specialisation instead.

Of course, that comes with trade-offs.

The integrated cockpit and proprietary seatpost undoubtedly improve aerodynamics and visual cleanliness, but they also reduce the ease of adjustment, customisation, travel and maintenance that made the previous bike so easy to live with.

The bike is now 1x-only and designed specifically around gravel-wide chainlines. Mechanical drivetrains remain possible, though riders using the one-piece Roval cockpit will need to stick with electronic shifting.

Whether riders embrace those compromises will depend entirely on what they want from gravel riding.

For elite racers chasing every marginal gain at gravel events like Unbound, SBT GRVL or the Gravel Earth Series, the Crux 5 makes complete sense.

After riding the new bike, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: I don’t want one or the other. I want both.

Last year, Karolina Migoń arrived at Unbound Gravel as one of Europe’s strongest gravel racers, but not yet a marked rider on the other side of the Atlantic.

That anonymity is gone now.

"All the eyes will be on me," Migoń told Cycling Weekly ahead of her return to Emporia. "If I try to break away, everyone will try to chase me."

It’s not arrogance. It’s the new tactical reality facing the defending champion.

Twelve months ago, Migoń, a two-time Traka 360 winner, stunned the women’s race with a bold and dominant ride, spending more than 130 miles in the decisive move before soloing to victory across the Kansas Flint Hills. The performance instantly elevated her profile in gravel racing, and changed her life off the bike, too.

"I’m a full-time pro now," she said. "I earn money because of winning Unbound. I could manage good contracts, and I can make a living, so that’s pretty huge."

For years, Migoń balanced elite racing with a career as a software engineer. Now, Unbound has turned gravel racing into her profession.

"I have time to recover. I have time to train more. I can do more races," she said of the transformation. "I don't have to take time off, I can go somewhere ahead of races to do recon and prepare my bike better according to the course. There are a lot of advantages for sure."

So does that make her even more dangerous this year?

Not necessarily.

"I know the characteristics of the race, and it's a gamble to win it," she said. "It's not easy to win it, and there are so many circumstances that you don't have influence over. I think it's really hard to target this race, and it's something that you can't win just by preparing physically."

She knows that better than most. Her Unbound debut was derailed by mechanicals, and even last year, she punctured a tyre and narrowly avoided several crashes on her way to victory.

This year, Migoń’s ambitions stretch beyond Emporia. She is contesting the Life Time Grand Prix, a six-race off-road series spread across seven months and five U.S. states.

"The pressure is off because I won [Unbound] once already," Migoń said. "But it does matter because I'm in the Life Time Grand Prix. So my approach this year is to try my chances, of course, and do good in [the series]."

Increasingly, modern gravel racing has become as tactical as it is physical. What was once a pure survival contest has evolved into something closer to road racing on dirt. Beyond the course, the weather and sheer luck, there are now calculated attacks, team tactics and shifting alliances.

Migoń sits in a particularly interesting place within that evolution. She races alongside several PAS Racing teammates, including fellow top contender Cecily Decker, but the structure is looser than more unified squads such as Canyon All-Terrain Racing Team or Specialized Off Road.

"We are not really a team," Migoń explained. "We have different main sponsors that we get bonuses from."

Put more bluntly: she does not get paid if another PAS rider wins. That means cooperation only goes so far.

"If someone from your team is in the front, I won’t pull," she said. "So it is an advantage. But on the other hand, it’s also my position in the Life Time Grand Prix [that's at stake]."

And unlike a one-day target such as Unbound, the series rewards consistency across two disciplines and wildly varied terrain.

"For someone from Europe, the whole series is pretty hard," she said. "Last year, there were not many Europeans that even finished the whole series."

The challenge extends well beyond racing itself. Travel, jet lag, altitude and unfamiliar courses all complicate matters for European riders attempting a full U.S. campaign.

Still, Migoń seems excited by the opportunity rather than intimidated by it.

"I’ve done just Unbound before, so for me it’s also an opportunity to see all the races in the U.S.," she said.

After Unbound, she plans to head to altitude in preparation for the Leadville Trail 100, including racing the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder and spending time training in the mountains.

But first comes the chaos of Emporia once again.

Forecasts heading into this year’s Unbound suggest warm and muggy temperatures, with the possibility of rain and that notoriously sticky Flint Hills mud capable of destroying drivetrains and race aspirations.

"I really like racing warm conditions," she said. "But if it gets muddy, then it’s more survival than racing."

Whatever the conditions, Migoń returns to Unbound in a very different position than a year ago: no longer an under-the-radar European contender, but the defending champion and one of the riders the rest of the women’s field will be watching most closely.

Migoń and the rest of the pro racers will tackle the 200-mile course at 6 a.m. CDT on Saturday, May 30. There will be free live coverage on the Life Time Grand Prix YouTube channel. For the start lists, course info and more, please visit our 2026 Unbound Gravel guide.

Come Saturday, all eyes will be on New Zealander Cam Jones (Scott), the defending Unbound 200 champion, who smashed the competition in last year's race with a 150-mile breakaway effort alongside Tudor rider Simon Pellaud.

Not only will we be watching to see if he can out-power the competition again, but also what he’ll be riding.

Scott today announced that Jones, as well as Swiss ultra-cyclist Robin Gemperle, will tackle the unforgiving terrain of the Kansas Flint Hills aboard a prototype bike built around 32" wheels. And one that, Scott emphasised, "will never be released on the market."

While cycling’s governing body, the UCI, dictates that all equipment used by its pro riders must be made commercially available within 12 months of it appearing in competition, gravel racing largely exists outside UCI governance. This means there are far fewer restrictions on equipment and much more freedom for manufacturers to experiment.

For years now, Unbound and its notoriously unforgiving terrain have served as both testing ground and launching pad for the latest gravel tech.

"Our athletes don’t just race; they test, challenge, and refine," says Scott. "Cameron Jones and Robin Gemperle have been riding a 32” prototype gravel race bike since last year. What began as a theoretical concept — a 'what if' — was quickly brought to life by Scott's R&D team."

Thirty-two-inch wheels have become one of the industry’s biggest talking points this season, with nearly every tyre manufacturer showcasing products in the size at April's Sea Otter Classic. Proponents of the new platform argue that a bigger wheel has greater momentum and therefore carries more speed. And, as we've learned with the emergence of the 29ers in mountain biking, larger wheels can roll over obstacles more easily. And then there are the tyres that go on them: more tyre means more contact patch, which translates into more grip, while a larger tyre also enables riders to run lower pressures without sacrificing traction.

But while tyre manufacturers appear fully committed to the format, we haven’t yet seen too many bike manufacturers roll out bikes in this new size aside from a handful of smaller custom builders. Scott is therefore among the first major brands to publicly back the concept.

According to the brand, it took just one test ride for Jones and Gemperle to be convinced that this would be their bike of choice for Unbound Gravel.

"This bike makes you feel like you're levitating over the surface. I'll be experiencing a road race while everybody else is racing gravel," said Jones about his Scott RC Gravel 32" bike.

"The driving traction and cornering grip is revolutionary. I'm genuinely scared how fast I'll be able to corner once on a course with proper descents."

Gemperle, who won the 2025 Tour Divide and Silkroad Mountain Race, said that the 32" wheel platform is just what gravel racing has been waiting for.

"We started by riding an unfinished bike, with crucial parts still developing. But ever since, I've known that even if there wouldn’t be a single additional test ride, I’d immediately take it to racing once granted permission," he said. "There were plenty of additional rides, and the project found its final shape, which cemented the feeling that this big boy is the actual size gravel racing and especially Unbound Gravel was waiting for."

Cam Jones' Scott RC Gravel 32" Bike Prototype

• Frame: Scott RC Gravel 32" Bike Prototype
• Handlebar: Syncros ST-R100-AL Stem 110mm, ENVE Aero Road bars 370mm
• Groupset: Shimano XTR with Dura Ace shifters and GRX Cranks
• Crankset: Shimano GRX with 4iiii Power meter and 160mm Crankset
• Wheelset: I9 Wheels (Custom Wheels Prototype)
• Tyres: 32“ Schwalbe RX 50mm

Robin Gemperle's Scott RC Gravel 32" Bike Prototype

• Frame: Scott RC Gravel 32" Bike Prototype
• Handlebar: Syncros HB-R 100 Alloy Handlebar 80/360mm
• Groupset: RED AXS XPLR 13 Speed Electric group set
• Crankset: SRAM RED XPLR Power Meter Crankset, 46T
• Wheelset: 32“ Prototype Wheels
• Tyres: 32“ Schwalbe RX 50mm

The countdown has begun for the biggest event in gravel as thousands board planes and pack into vans bound for Emporia, Kansas. Typically home to 24,000 residents, Emporia’s population will explode over the next week as gravel riders, sponsors, fans and media converge on the Kansan town in the middle of nowhere.

On Saturday, May 30, some 5,000 cyclists will line up in the dark, staring down hundreds of miles of tyre-shredding Flint Hills gravel. Some riders will take on shorter distances, while the premier event remains the Unbound 200 (which is 207 miles long, this year). The biggest event in gravel turns 20 this year, and Life Time is not being subtle about it. As part of the Life Time Grand Prix, the 2026 Unbound course pulls from two decades of race history, threading iconic sectors from past editions into a single route that begins by heading south from Emporia.

The forecast is ominous, with a chance of rain nearly every day leading up to the race. Unbound’s ‘south’ route has been known for mud, and many riders will be praying for dry weather. A busy spring season has seen thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes pass through Kansas, but there is an equal chance that the race could be hot and muggy.

What began in 2006 with 34 riders has become the biggest event in gravel, drawing WorldTour veterans, MTB Olympians, Classics winners and first-timers from over 50 countries. The 200-mile race is the flagship, but distances run from 25 to 350 miles for those who feel the 200 isn't quite enough suffering. Unbound is also the second round of the Life Time Grand Prix — a six-event series that has more than half a million dollars on the line in 2026. If that wasn’t enough, Unbound’s 200-mile elite race carries a standalone $60,000 prize purse, one of the richest payouts in off-road racing.

In addition to the mammoth distance, Unbound is made even more difficult by the tyre-slicing rocks of the Flint Hills. The area surrounding Emporia is littered with sharp rocks that destroy even the best equipment. Any rider who can complete Unbound without having a mechanical can thank their lucky stars.

Unbound Gravel: Riders to watch

Unbound Gravel always attracts an international field of current and former professionals from across cycling disciplines, and this year is no different. Sofía Gómez Villafañe is the favourite for the women’s Elite race, having taken the first round of the Life Time Grand Prix at Sea Otter Gravel, plus the Traka 200 a few weeks ago. Karolina Migoń is the defending champion at Unbound, but the Pole had a more difficult time at Traka, crashing out of the 360 and just missing the podium in the 200. Other female riders to watch include Cecily Decker, Lauren De Crescenzo, Rosa Klöser and Carolin Schiff.

New Zealander Cameron Jones won last year’s Unbound 200 as a wildcard in the Life Time Grand Prix, and he’ll take on an incredibly strong field that includes the Specialized Off-Road Team. Keegan Swenson and Matthew Beers have teamed up in 2026, and they are two of the biggest favourites in the men’s Elite 200. Last year’s runner-up, Simon Pellaud, returns for another crack at the title, along with a long list of non-Grand Prix riders that cannot be overlooked. The headliner is Romain Bardet, the former WorldTour pro who has already taken a number of big wins in gravel. Lukas Pöstlberger arrives on the back of a Traka 200 win, while Lachlan Morton — the 2024 Unbound champion — is always a factor in a race as long as this. There are countless strong riders on the start line, including but not limited to Thomas De Gendt, Ivar Slik and Mads Würtz Schmidt.

For a deeper dive into this year's contenders, please visit our startlist analysis here >>

The 2026 course

This year's course first heads south from Emporia, a flip in direction from previous years, but not an entirely new terrain for Unbound. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Unbound is revisiting the roads that gave the race its identity. After a neutral rollout from the Granada Theater in downtown Emporia at 5:50 AM, the 207-mile race will begin in earnest.

The peloton will face a five-mile rolling uphill that locals call "the Towers climb," as well as the well-known Texaco Hill and Teter Hill. Organisers also decided to revisit the 10-mile Sharpes Creek Road, last used in 2015 during Unbound's most notorious mud year, the DD rollers and the Kahola Hill climb.

There are three elite feed zones along the course at miles 43.5, 82.2 and 148.9, and the riders are on their own during the stretches in between.

For a more in-depth look at this year's course, visit our coverage of the route announcement here >>

How to watch

For a second year running, Life Time will provide free live coverage of the 2026 Unbound Gravel presented by Shimano beginning at 5:35 AM CDT on Saturday, May 30. You can find the live stream on the Life Time Grand Prix YouTube channel, as well as the pre-race show — The Leadout — on Thursday, May 28 at noon CDT. Live updates from the course will run on the Life Time Grand Prix and Unbound Gravel Instagram pages throughout race day.

Commentary will be provided by longtime announcer Bill Elliston, Mountain Bike Hall of Famer Nat Ross and former pro Lauren Hall. In addition to the full broadcast, you’ll be able to watch extended highlights of both the men’s and women’s elite races on the Life Time Grand Prix YouTube channel in the days following the event.

The world’s biggest gravel-racing event, Unbound Gravel, is just around the corner and once again riders are readying their best bikes and preparing to take on the rough and remote gravel roads that stripe the Flint Hills region of east-central Kansas.

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of Unbound, and with the route having just been announced, excitement is mounting. It’s also the second event of the hotly contested six-race 2026 Life Time Grand Prix series. But who, exactly, is likely to be lining up for the 200-mile marquee race? We’ve been scouring the start list to seek out some of the most exciting riders in the pack, which includes several of the gravel world’s new young guns.

Men

Come Saturday, May 30th, all eyes will be Cam Jones (Scott), the defending champion who smashed last year’s race, taking victory in the Unbound Gravel 200 in imperious fashion after mounting a 150-mile breakaway effort with Swiss rider Simon Pellaud from Tudor Pro. The New Zealander emerged from the mountain biking scene to take people by surprise with the 2025 win, but now his cover is well and truly blown, and he’ll be on everyone’s radar this year. As should Pellaud be.

Also in the mix is Bradyn Lange, surprise winner of the 2025 US Gravel Nationals and the opening event of the 2026 Life Time Grand Prix series, the Sea Otter Classic Gravel race in April. With that victory, he is currently leading the Life Time GP rankings

Another very familiar name is, of course, Keegan Swenson, former winner of the 200-mile event and the dominant Grand Prix racer until Jones showed up.

One of the most exciting things to break last month was news that American legend Taylor Phinney was coming out of retirement to have a crack at a spot on the US pursuit team for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. An all-round rider, Phinney said that his route back after seven years away from pro riding had begun with gravel racing, and the Giro stage winner and 2009 individual pursuit track world champion has signed up for Unbound.

As always, there will be some European ex-WorldTour riders in the mix. From Peter Sagan to Greg Avermaet and Matej Mohoric, WorldTour retirees have seen varied success at the event, with most coming away a tad shell-shocked. Perhaps former Picnic PostNL rider Romain Bardet will fare better. The Frenchman retired from professional road cycling to take up gravel riding in the middle of last season and quickly showed his grit with an impressive win at RADL GRVL in Australia at the start of the year, riding with his new Factor Racing-Rapha CC team.

But he's far from the only poutsider who could disrupt the race, with several very capable European riders already registered to race. High on this list is Danish rider Mads Würtz Schmidt (Specialized Off-Road), who is enjoying an extraordinary season, with his successes including a win the Traka 360 in April, where he set an impressive new men's course record.

And Traka 200 winner Lucas Pöstlberger (Rose Racing) is also on the start list, a contender who, like Bardet, has some impressive road riding victories to his name, including a stage win at the Giro d'Italia, where he wore the coveted maglia rosa for a spell. The Austrian all-rounder started off as a mountain biker before switching to road, and then gravel, so he can certainly handle technical dirt.

Back in 2022, Ivar Slik became the first non-American to win the men's 200 race at Unbound, and although he missed subsequent races through serious injury suffered after a collision with a car in 2024, the Dutch powerhouse is back in action, and he will be back this year, taking on the elite distance once again.

A fan favourite and winner of Unbound Gravel in 2024, having competed in the event multiple times, Australian rider Lachlan Morton is coming back for another crack this year.

And speaking of Australians, one dark horse worth an outside bet is the British-born Aussie pro Freddy Ovett, who happens to be Mathieu van der Poel’s training partner and knows how to turn a wheel on the rough stuff.

Women

Last year's Unbound Gravel 200 winner, Karolina Migoń, will be back to defend her title. The Polish rider won in impressive fashion in 2025, going it alone for 130 miles once it became clear that her PAS teammate Cecily Decker and American national gravel champion Lauren Stephens (see below) were unable to match her pace, after the trio staged an early breakaway. The win was one of three big victories for Migoń last season, along with The Traka 360 and Gravel Locos.

She may have struggled to go toe-to-toe with Migoń at last year’s race, but Lauren Stephens has been crowned US National Gravel Champion three years in a row now and has tasted victory at Unbound in the 100- mile race. Last year, the former road pro came third in the 200-mile elite event, and she is returning for more this year.

German gravel rider Rosa Klöser, who seemed to emerge from nowhere to win Unbound in 2024, is returning this year for another stab at the race that got away from her last year, when a crash and a wrong turn meant she finished fourth. Incredibly, Klöser was a PhD student who had only been racing for a couple of years when she won the elite race in 2024 - now she has twice as much experience to bring to the party, she promises to be doubly deadly.

Lauren De Crescenzo, who first tasted victory at Unbound Gravel in 2021 and finished runner-up the following year, is back and will be contesting the elite 200-mile event this month. The American pro, who overcame a traumatic brain injury suffered during a race in 2016, also has wins to her name at the Tour of the Gila stage race, The Mid South (three times) and The Rad Dirt Fest, plus podiums at Crusher in the Tushar and Big Sugar Gravel.

Super competitor Sofia Gómez Villafañe, who took victory at Unbound in 2022 and finished runner-up last year, is always a contender in the Life Time Grand Prix series, and she will be one to watch at Unbound this year. The 31-year-old Argentina-born athlete has a hard-earned reputation as a fierce competitor, and has Big Sugar Gravel and the Traka wins to her name, too.

A full start list of elites competing in this year's Unbound Gravel 200 race is available on the event website.

Most defending champions spend the month before Unbound Gravel dialling in equipment, sharpening fitness and obsessing over recovery.

Heather Jackson spent hers running 250 miles across Arizona.

Less than a month before returning to Emporia to defend her Unbound XL title, Jackson finished fourth at the Cocodona 250, a punishing ultramarathon running race that stretches across the Arizona desert. She hallucinated ravens during the final night, survived on a pair of 15-minute naps, and emerged physically intact but mentally rattled after nearly 70 hours without sleep.

For Jackson, though, Cocodona wasn’t a detour from her cycling season. It was part of it.

While the former professional triathlete first built her post-Ironman career around gravel racing, Jackson’s ambitions have drifted steadily toward the outer edges of endurance sport: ultrarunning, self-supported bikepacking, and multi-day races where sleep deprivation matters nearly as much as fitness. This summer, Unbound XL sits between two enormous objectives: Cocodona and the Tour Divide. And Jackson openly admits she isn’t sure whether it’s possible to perform at a high level in both ultra running and ultra cycling, at the same time.

"I have no idea," she told Cycling Weekly with a laugh. "That’s what we’re gonna find out."

Jackson is still recovering from Cocodona — physically, mentally and neurologically.

"The comedown was pretty crazy. It’s only been the last three days that I’m seeing the light again," she said roughly 10 days after finishing the race.

She's also just now getting back on the bike with Unbound XL looming nine days away.

There was a time in Jackson’s life when that timing would have caused major stress. During her years as a professional triathlete, she said, she became "super caught up in data and numbers and all that stuff." But Jackson’s approach to endurance sports has changed alongside her goals.

Rather than chasing perfect freshness for Unbound, Jackson and her coach are treating the race as part of a much larger ultra-endurance build centred around a Tour Divide attempt later this summer.

This final week before Emporia will consist mostly of long rides to reacclimate to the bike after weeks spent focused on running and strength work.

"At this point, it’s more like making sure the touchpoints are trained," Jackson said. "Your legs know what they need to know. It’ll be in them or not. It’s making sure I can be in the saddle and in the position for that long."

This philosophy represents a sharp departure from the highly structured specificity that once defined Jackson’s training. Preparing for Cocodona and the Tour Divide at the same time forced her to rethink what ultra-endurance fitness actually looks like.

"I would have thought I needed to run so much more than I did," she explained.

Instead of logging mega running miles ahead of the 250-mile race, Jackson spent much of the spring balancing 60-to-70-mile running weeks with heavy blocks of endurance riding, strength training and hill repeats wearing a 30-pound vest. The goal was less about maximising mileage than building durability.

That realisation—that surviving the longest events depends on far more than aerobic fitness—has only pushed Jackson deeper into the world of ultra-endurance racing.

Since stepping away from professional triathlon, Jackson has largely let curiosity guide her athletic evolution. Gravel initially offered the sense of exploration and adventure she felt Ironman had lost. But over the last several years, she has watched gravel become increasingly professionalised and tactical — familiar territory for someone who spent 15 years in elite triathlon.

She also realised that pure gravel racing never fully matched her strengths as an athlete.

"If you want me to TT all day long, I love that," she said, laughing. "Sometimes the antics of gravel racing just aren’t for me."

The longer the events became, the more naturally they suited her. Last year’s Unbound XL victory and a successful ride at Traka 360 only accelerated her interest in races that extend through the night and into sleep deprivation territory.

Running followed a similar progression. After racing one-day ultras like Western States and UTMB, Jackson became increasingly fascinated by multi-day events like Cocodona.

"It was like, ‘holy sh$t, how do people do this?’ And because I’d done all the other things, it’s been sort of a natural shift of now I want to try this," Jackson said.

So this year, rather than targeting a traditional gravel season, Jackson built her calendar around the events that intrigued her most. Cocodona was high on the list, as was the Tour Divide bikepacking race.

Which leaves Jackson heading into Unbound XL in an unusual position: defending champion, but also an athlete recovering from one ultra and looking toward the next.

"If it goes well, that’s amazing," Jackson said. "If not, it’s still a solid day out."

Before Fred Schmid even made it to Emporia this year, his 25-year-old diesel truck broke down on the highway.

A radiator hose failed, the engine overheated, a tow truck was needed, along with a night at an RV park and eventually a borrowed Suburban just to make the annual trek to the Unbound Gravel event.

At 93 years old, even getting to the start line has become an endurance event. And yet Fred came anyway, as he has done on and off since 2015.

After completing the Unbound 100 three times, the Texan has returned to Emporia again and again chasing the Unbound 200 finish line, enduring sickness, exhaustion and unfinished miles along the way. One attempt ended after 110 miles when, as Fred put it, he was "puking and crapping and just feeling like hell." Another attempt ended at 120 miles because he missed the time cutoff. Last year, at 92, the adventure stopped at the first checkpoint after Fred decided that the prospect of another 130 miles, half of it in the dark, was simply "not intriguing."

When asked why he’s come back at all, Fred jokes: "Because I’m a dumbass."

But one doesn’t rack up 54 national championship titles and two world titles by being dumb. That kind of longevity comes from loving the sport and being unable to resist the draw of a distant finish line. Maybe all those things can be true at once, but not this year.

This year, Fred is showing a remarkable amount of wisdom and restraint.

"I’ve been training for the 200, but have decided it’s too much for me," Fred tells Cycling Weekly after he’s finally reached Emporia.

"I don't think I'm qualified to do the 200. Traditionally, for the last, oh, 10 years or so, I've been riding a distance equivalent to my birthday age. So I rode 93 miles on the 20th of April, and, um, I was pretty worn out by the end of that, to tell you the truth about it. So I've downsized to the 100."

What’s more, Fred revealed that this may be his very last Unbound, of any length.

"I think this is the last time I’m gonna do this. The old body’s beginning to show signs of wear," he admits.

But the Unbound 200 still lingers as unfinished business.

"I’ve said I would do it," Fred says, revealing that he’d seriously considered sleeping on the side of the road for rest if need be. "But I’ve never gotten myself to do that."

His wife, Suzanne, reminds him that "the whole point of it is to have fun."

And "fun" is what has kept Fred going all these years.

Long before the national championships and world titles, before the gravel races and mountain bike starts, Fred simply liked being outside. He spent his career working as a surveyor, hiking riverbanks and carrying heavy equipment across rough terrain in Louisiana and Texas.

"I never did let myself get in bad shape," Fred says. "I worked outdoors all my life."

At 61, Suzanne bought him his first mountain bike. At the time, the couple lived near Cameron Park in Waco, the host of several state and national championship events. But Fred’s original ambition didn't lie in racing at all.

"What I wanted a bicycle for was to do gravel riding," he says. "I enjoy riding and looking at ranches and farms."

As a child, Fred had lived on a plantation and developed a lifelong fascination with land, agriculture and open country. A bicycle became the best way to move through it all, slowly enough to appreciate it.

Racing happened almost accidentally. After some encouragement from another rider, Fred entered a beginner mountain bike race in South Texas and won. He kept moving up categories from there, collecting national and world titles across mountain biking, road, cyclocross and gravel racing.

These days, though, Fred no longer mountain bikes. Glaucoma has damaged his vision enough that shadows and technical terrain have become difficult to process safely. But gravel still works, especially on the long ranch roads outside Waco, where Fred regularly rides with his friend Whitney Fanning, an 80-year-old fellow Unbound racer who loaned the couple the Suburban that got them to Kansas this year.

"Biking to me is fun," Fred says, and credits the exercise for his physical and mental well-being. "If you enjoy it, you want to keep doing it."

At 93, Fred still drives long distances, still keeps up with cycling trends—he was swapping his gravel tyres from 42s to 50s when we spoke—and still texts, emojis and all. His cardiologist recently told him he has "the heart of a 33-year-old," and his mind remains sharp, even if, as Fred puts it, "the blade is getting a little dull."

Suzanne, whose background is in neuropsychology, believes the connection is undeniable.

"Fitness is the best way to maintain your memory and mental capacity, period," she says.

Fred has seen the contrast firsthand. Some of his peers and siblings, he says, stopped staying active as they aged and later struggled with severe health problems and dementia.

"Just keep going,” Fred says simply when asked for advice. "And maybe you can keep going a little longer."

Last year at Masters Nationals in Milwaukee, Fred met a 97-year-old rider who ‘kicked his butt’ in the time trial. Fred asked him what advice he gives people about ageing.

“He said, ‘Keep pedalling,’” Fred recalls.

And for now, Fred intends to keep doing exactly that, even if the rides are getting shorter. Even if the body is beginning to protest. Even if the unfinished Unbound 200 remains unfinished forever. There are endless gravel roads left to explore, ranches to admire and horizons worth chasing.

What appears to be a new Specialized Crux was spotted at the Gralloch in Scotland this weekend, and ridden to victory in the women's UCI category by Specialized Off Road athlete Geerike Schreurs.

The new bike represents a massive departure from the traditional double-diamond, round-tubed frame of the outgoing Crux, with a facade inspired by the road-going Tarmac platform. The most notable attribute comes in the form of an aerodynamic frame and the apparent larger tyre clearance - not that the outgoing model lacked provision for wider tyres: it could accommodate widths of 47mm, and many riders successfully ran 50mm tyres paired with 1x drivetrains.

While we can't confirm the exact clearances, based on current trends in the category, we can safely assume maximum clearances of around 55-57mm, which should accommodate tyres of up to 2.2 inches wide. We've seen provision for wider tyres at the forefront of contemporary gravel frame design with bikes such as the new Factor Sarana and Open Wi.De 2.0, with the latter offering gargantuan clearances once reserved for cross-country mountain bikes.

The outgoing Specialized Crux has been around in its current incarnation since 2022 and is due for an update. Despite its now-outdated template, it has notched up a long list of victories at virtually every major gravel event, including Unbound Gravel 200, The Traka, Big Sugar Gravel, Gravel Worlds, and Gravel Burn. That's quite a palmares, but as the discipline has evolved, so has the need to go faster, and it appears as though Specialized has caved and given in to the peer pressure of the aero gravel concept.

Visually, the bike ridden by Schreurs this past weekend looks a lot like the Specialized Tarmac SL7. Based on what we know about the new Aethos 2, we can also assume the layup will have taken learnings from the SL8 and applied them to ensure a balance of stiffness and compliance, fashioned into the aerodynamic tube profiles of the SL7. We can clearly see the paucity of a 'speed sniffer' on the headtube, with the basic frame architecture, seat tube, and cutout, and dropped seatstays adopting a silhouette similar to the SL7, but with a few nods to the Tarmac SL8, including the seatpost. It certainly has been designed with aerodynamics at the forefront.

The frame and front end are very clean - no hoses are visible on the entire setup, and the cockpit looks like the one-piece integrated Alpinist 2 setup seen on the new Aethos, but with a much wider flare at the drops. Component-wise, Shreurs' bike was built around an SRAM Red XPLR AXS complete with new Roval Terra Aero CLX wheels and Specialized Pathfinder tyres.

We asked Specialized for a comment and got the following reply:

"Specialized relies on feedback from professional athletes in both developing and testing advanced pre-production products in real-world applications. With this top-level feedback, some of these design elements and products eventually show up in future retail product offerings. We call this Project Black."

Based on the brazen testing in the public eye at the Gralloch, the launch of the new Specialized Crux is imminent. We'll update this story as we receive more information.

While hard to confirm, it seems like half the Lotto-Intermarché team were banjaxed by a bovine bacteria found in manure, in a race in Belgium, but close encounters with cows can result in much worse outcomes than a bout of sickness and diarrhoea (as dreadful as that must be to deal with while attempting to ride a race).

While cyclists in some countries have to contemplate encounters with more serious sounding wildlife, such as bears, for gravel and rural road riders in Britain, the common cow is easily the most dangerous animal around - aside from impatient humans driving a car on rural roads.

Cattle may appear docile, but the risk level is surprisingly high. And cases of cows killing people are much less rare than you might think. There are several fatalities every year in Britain as a result of members of public, including cyclists, getting trampled or gored by cattle.

Spring is particularly dangerous when cows are with calves, and there can bulls in the field at the same time (to get the process started all over again). The animals can be agitated, unpredictable and extremely protective of their young. Farmers are entitled to keep cattle on meadows and fields with public rights of way crossing them, so long as they display signage warning of the risks.

If you’re going out and about in the countryside on your gravel bike at this time of year, or road cycling in rural areas, it’s wise to take those risks extremely seriously.

So, while there might be a bridleway going across farmland, which you are perfectly entitled to use, before you go rolling through the middle of a field of cattle on your gravel bike during calving season (which lasts from February to June), it’s well worth taking a moment to weigh up some factors.

First up: cows are enormous, and bulls even bigger, with the former typically pushing 800kg and the latter tipping the scales at 1300kg or more. I don’t care how tough you are, if it kicks off and you get cornered, you’re going to lose.

Also, cows are much faster than they look. And, even more surprisingly, they can turn on a sixpence. With a top speed of around 25mph, a cow can easily outsprint a human (all humans, including Usain Bolt) and while you might be able to out-pedal one, don’t count on it if the terrain is anyway churned up and technical.

And they don’t fight fair either, and come at you one at a time – while one especially bold or angry animal might lead the way, typically the whole herd will end up harassing you.

We spoke to Jill Graves, a cattle farmer in Norfolk, who explained why cattle can be so dangerous to careless riders and ramblers at this time of year.

“A bull is just doing his job,” she explains. “He is there to put the cows back in calf, but also to protect his herd, and if he thinks you pose a threat, you’re in serious trouble. He might have just serviced a cow, and be especially agitated.”

“As for the cows, you don’t know how long ago they’ve given birth. Besides their natural protective instincts, they might have hormones racing around their system. Or they might even still be in pain or discomfort. Either way, they don’t want you around.

"And cows can be quite naughty,” says Jill. “Especially if they have horns. You don’t want an animal that literally weighs a ton giving you a nudge or swiping you with their horns – you are nothing to them.”

Expert advice on what to do around cows

Following is Jill’s expert advice on how to avoid conflict with cows.

Steer clear. Avoidance is by far the best policy. If there is an alternative route you can take that avoids you having to ride through a field full of cows, take it.

Slow down. Don’t go barrelling straight towards a group of cows and calves on your bike – they will obviously feel threatened and respond accordingly.

Leave your best friend at home. We love a good dog-on-a-bike story as much as anyone, but cows with calves get especially protective when there’s a canine in the mix. It’s their instincts kicking in – you see a dopey cockapoo, they sense a wolf.

Be quiet. If you must ride through a field with cows and calves (and even a bull), don’t go screaming and shouting and ringing your bell – it’s only going to agitate the animals and cause them to come towards you.

Stop flashing. Likewise, if it’s evening or nighttime, turn off as many of your bike lights as possible – cows are curious creatures, and will investigate anything out of the ordinary.

We asked Jill what people should do if all of the above fails, and they find themselves being bullied by a bull or a gang of cows.

“Well, my main advice is don’t put yourself in that situation in the first place,” she says, sagely. “But if it happens, the priority is to get yourself out of the field as fast as you can. If you’ve got a dog with you, forget it – the dog will usually get itself out, without worrying about you, so leave it.

"It’s best not to turn your back and just run or ride, because that will instigate a chase, and they’re fast. Try clapping your hands and moving as purposely and calmly as you can towards the nearest gate or fence. Like all animals, cow can sense your fear and it will only excite them.”