Seemingly cut from a completely different cloth to every other elite cyclist in the modern era, former WorldTour-rider Lachlan Morton has always ridden a unique path, combining wins at major events such as Unbound with original endurance challenges and extreme record-setting rides, often raising funds for charities such as World Bicycle Relief.

But this week, talking to Cycling Weekly after winning the 3-Peaks Cyclo-cross race in Yorkshire, the Australian dropped a bombshell, revealing that he is about to leave EF Education-EasyPost, the team he has been part of since 2019, and that something new is looming on his horizon.

“The 3-Peaks was like my last time pinning on a number with EF,” he told CW. “It was a cool place to do it.”

When we spoke, he couldn’t reveal his exact plans (more about that below), but did give us a little teaser. “I'm doing an endurance ride, starting next Monday. I can't say exactly what it is, but it'll be a long multi-day ride here in the U.S. And then yeah, that will be it.

“I'll still be riding, just not in the pink anymore.”

Even when he was a WorldTour rider, competing in Grand Tours including the Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia, Morton rode in a range of rough and tough off-road races around the world through EF Education First's alternative calendar.

It was during this period that he was exposed to some very British events, including the GBduro (a race he won in 2019) and the 3-Peaks, a challenge Morton didn't win in either of his first two attempts, in 2019 and 2025, but which kept calling him back.

"It's just one of those races that gets under your skin, so I've been back a few times since," he explained. "Every time you do it you learn more, and you realise things you could do differently or better, and that rings true even when you win.”

Morton became completely captivated with British bike racing culture, which led to him doing his last race in the distinctive pink livery of EF Education-EasyPost right here in England.

“I love the UK scene,” he says. “People get very passionate about very specific disciplines and events, and the history of those events and disciplines. And it feels like everything grows from a strong local place, and branches out from there, from club runs and the local racing scene. And experience is passed down from older riders to riders just getting into it.

“This is something I find fascinating, and it's similar to the environment I grew up in – except the British go way harder for the niche element, like hill climbing, and get really passionate. And I think that's very cool.”

Despite his success and popularity, Morton, who now lives in California, has maintained his easy-going Australian attitude to life, and he evidently enjoys the fact that even people with celebrity status in world cycling don’t get special treatment at local bike races in the UK.

“I like that it’s a scene you have to prove yourself in,” he says. “There's always a healthy amount of banter, or people hanging sh*t on you. When you turn up, you really have to earn your spot there. It's like a funny but rewarding thing to go through.

“And it's also a beautiful place to just go and ride. That's always my struggle, going over for the 3-Peaks. I just want to go and do all the riding I can around Yorkshire, because it's so beautiful. I end up riding more than I should before the race.”

Keen-eyed spectators at the 3-Peaks might have noticed Morton had a slightly less hirsute look than we've become used to, with a neatly trimmed 'tache and beard, but he denies that this is part of his new direction.

"My wife drops hints every now and then - she prefers me clean shaven, so every now and then I have a reset… I'm in the reset phase," he explains. "I'll be back to my shaggy-looking self in a couple weeks time. That's how it tends to go. Same with my hair I like grow it until it annoys me and then it just shave off and start again.

So at least we know he's not going corporate. And Morton promises that, whatever his future holds, he’ll be coming back to defend his 3-Peaks crown. “It's not a matter of 'I've done it now', because it's just such a great event,” he tells me. “I'd love to go back as many times as possible.”

And he has no shortage of plans for future adventures, all over the planet. “I'd really love to ride in Pakistan,” he says. “I've been looking at northern Pakistan, where the terrain looks like it lends itself to really crazy adventures.

“Papua New Guinea would be a cool place to go and see on bike. And then in South America I really want to go to Ecuador.”

Right now, though, it seems the Wild West of America is where he is heading for his next adventure.

Update: Morton races the Pony Express

Since we spoke to him, Morton has revealed that his very last adventure with EF Education-EasyPost will be a multi-day ride across the American West along the route of the legendary 19th-century postal service, the Pony Express.

Starting on 5 October, he will attempt to ride the 1,966-mile (3,164km) route faster than the horsemen who carried mail from St. Joseph in Missouri to Sacramento in California, passing through Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada en route.

Founded in 1860, the horsemen of the Pony Express service were tasked with delivering mail across the decidedly untamed West in 10 days or less. It was an extremely perilous journey and the service only last 18 months, after which time it was replaced by the telegraph, but the heroism of the riders made it a legendary part of the American story.

The fastest time was set in 1861, when Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address (which is credited with helping to persuade California to remain in the Union as the Civil War simmered) was carried across the distance in seven days and 17 hours, with horses being changed every 10 miles (16km) and riders changing every 75 to 100 miles (120 to 160km).

Can Morton do it quicker?

He plans to travel light, resupplying and switching bikes from a truck, also carrying his brother Gus, who will be filming the trip.

"The idea is to mimic how they used to switch out horses," says the Australian adventurer. "I'll be swapping between a gravel bike, a road bike, and a mountain bike depending on the terrain. The route I've put together tries to get as close to the original as I could. I'm excited because it'll use all the different disciplines I've raced."

"You start on the plains, essentially, coming across Kansas, then across the basin through Wyoming, into Utah," explains Morton. "The real crux is the Nevada section — the stretch from Salt Lake City across to Carson City – because it's incredibly remote and very exposed. There's a lot that could go wrong there, and you're very much on your own. That's probably the hardest part.

"Then you cross the Sierra Nevada on the southern side of Lake Tahoe and drop through the foothills, which I know well because I live out there now, and finish in Sacramento.”

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

Scott's Addict road and gravel bikes have a 19-year legacy in the peloton, but their latest edition is taking a different route. 'Find yourself, get lost' is the slogan, and given how it rides, it seems fitting.

The new Addict Gravel that we rode at the recent launch in Germany is designed for everyday performance rather than the elite racer. They're better served by the Addict Gravel RC. This means enough versatility to tackle a variety of trails or even a bikepacking trip across a continent. Having said that, we think it's still perfectly capable for anyone who does want to compete.

Compliance is key

While many of the best gravel bikes focus on low weight and greater aero savings, this Scott Addict has placed a premium on compliance. Not that it's heavy. At 8.4kg for the Premium build it’s a reasonably lightweight bike, especially given the huge 50mm wide tyres.

Tyres that size run at a suitable pressure will naturally give compliance, but it was also central to the design of the frame. It has a high degree of vertical flex in the seat tube, with a claimed 60% increase in vertical compliance over its predecessor, and 30% more vertical compliance at the front, thanks to the bowed fork leg design.

Stiffness, pedalling efficiency and confident handling haven't been sacrificed, but both the HMX and HMF fibre builds are around 5% less stiff than on the performance focused Addict road frames.

Scott has pushed the boundaries of carbon tubes with 8.5mm-wide chainstays that house the brake cables. Whereas other frames I have tested with similar design principles have lacked lateral stiffness in this region, the Addict Gravel has retained it well.

The Addict's finishing kit has also been updated with compliance in mind. The seatpost features an impressive degree of deflection, which the team at Scott demonstrated to the gathered press by attaching a weighted rig.

They've done this predominantly with the use of a large cutout at the rear, similar to that of the Scott Foil race bike. This feature alone accounts for the majority of the vertical compliance at the rear of the bike. Quite brilliantly, it also provides attachment for a rear light.

The bars are a brand-new design featuring a forward sweep and outwards flare for better wrist clearance. Their flexion helps absorb some of the vibration we all encounter on the trails. They also have an optimised drop shape that means you can almost roll your hands from hoods to drops to maintain control in hazardous moments, while also better aligning the brake levers, improving on some bars that twist the hoods inwards slightly and thus alter the ergonomics.

Adventure machine

In addition to the compliance, the Addict Gravel has also been created around the use of 50mm tyres. With a claimed 57mm of clearance, it means large 55mm tyres can be fitted while anything less wide will have plenty of clearance when riding in the mud. But this frame goes beyond just having room for larger tyres, basing many elements of its geometry around them.

If you go from riding 30mm road tyres to, say, 55mm, your position is raised, altering the headtube angle in relation to the ground, as well as increasing the trail. In essence, if you design a bike around smaller tyres and then fit larger ones, it will feel excessively slack at slower speeds and lose agility. Meanwhile, switching the other way will lead to a twitchy ride feel, hence why Scott designed the frame geometry around 50-55mm tyres deemed most suitable for the bike’s purpose. To do this, it dropped the bottom bracket and also increased the fork rake to preserve the desired ride characteristics with wider tyres.

I'd agree that the larger-width tyre is well-suited to the sort of riding this bike is designed for. If you’re tackling the ‘road less travelled’ then wider tyres will offer more grip on wet and loose surfaces, provide greater rolling resistance on rough terrain, and much greater levels of comfort for longer and more adventurous rides, which was, according to Scott, the entire purpose of this bike.

Aero isn’t everything

Refreshingly, during the launch presentation, there was not a single mention of aerodynamic savings for this bike compared to the previous version – or any other frame, for that matter. I love aero-optimised equipment, but I despise the current gravel industry standard of providing single-figure aero savings at 45km/h. These are highly imperceptible to almost any user and, frankly, irrelevant to most of us.

The Scott Addict Gravel still features components such as an integrated one-piece handlebar with aero tube profiling and a D-shaped seatpost. Meanwhile, integrated cables and cut-off aerofoil tube shapes will undoubtedly assist aero performance compared with those without. But those design elements were never the focus, and the bike is all the better for it. Compliance and practicality have been sought, along with a bike that is pleasing to the eye, resulting in something that has the necessary performance attributes but, more importantly, is a joy to ride.

In-built and ready to roam

Scott introduced the idea of a single tool to cover most of the bike with the Addict RC. Here, a tool hidden in the bar end with a T25/H6 head could be used to tighten and adjust almost every component of the bike, as well as remove the thru axles. It was a neat, integrated solution that also saved weight compared to carrying a multi-tool. The Addict Gravel takes this a step further.

Firstly, the same T25 multi-tool remains, and I found it wonderfully easy to use. Adjusting the bars or seatpost using the tool was a cinch. For several of the Addict Gravel models, a tubeless repair kit has also been added with plugs and a fitting dart. The seatpost also features the same clip-in light system as seen on the Addict Road and Foil RC bikes.

If that wasn’t enough, the Save the Day kit has been added under the downtube where it meets the bottom bracket. This includes a hand pump, levers, and TPU inner tube for 50mm tyres. It looks smarter than a saddle bag, weighs less, and drops the centre of mass lower for a marginal improvement in stability. The seal for the hatch is also very secure and can be easily opened even when clogged with mud. Fortunately, I didn’t need to use it, but it was there in case the day needed saving.

Finally, Scott has developed size-specific frame bags with S, M, and L offerings that connect directly to the frame. It’s a very neat solution, and similar in design to the Argon18 Anti Matter system. It uses internal zip-up storage, with a flexible pouch on the exterior that’s ideal for stashing food wrappers and the like. The idea is that your jersey pockets remain relatively unburdened while the bike as a whole maintains a sleek, attractive silhouette. Even the fork bottle mounts are hidden internally for aesthetics, while the bottles are mounted farther back to reduce the steering moment force that would be created by fitting them farther outboard.

Scott Addict Gravel - First ride impressions

To really get to grips with the Scott Addict Gravel, I was hosted in Germany's Black Forest for the launch. We had one 70km ride, and then freedom of choice for routes on the other two days.

The big ride took in a mix of fairly classic champagne-style gravel, some rocky climbs and descents, technical terrain, root-infested singletrack, and some truly horrid steep ascents. We were even graced with a shower of rain, which broke up the humid heat nicely.

The Addict Gravel sizing was spot on for me, with a 58cm frame a great fit for my 192cm height. Saddle height and setback were easily achieved, and although the stack was high and stem was short, it was a suitable position for what was to come.

With 50mm tyres fitted as standard, the bike's geometry feels nicely snappy at the front for quick changes of direction, yet slack enough for good stability. Sharp 180-degree turns on trails were a little cumbersome but nothing to cause concern. It is simply a very easy bike to ride off-road, and after I got the pressures sorted, it felt wonderfully smooth across varied terrain.

The enhanced seatpost and handlebar compliance really showed itself by the end of the three-hour loop on my second day in Germany. More often than not, I get a bit of discomfort on the base of my palm after a longer gravel ride. By the end of the loop, my hands felt fine despite the fairly rough terrain. Equally, I had no saddle discomfort, which was impressive given this was a new saddle, which I often find leads to pressure points.

Another area of the bike that really impressed me was the design of the rear end, and the handling as a result. Over some single track with plenty of rocks and roots to avoid, the shorter chainstays allow for some rapid corrections as the front end avoided the obstacles. It’s an impressively lively bike on this type of terrain, unexpectedly so given the stability when going at speed. This was again highlighted by some ad-hoc route planning for the final day, which took me up some questionable trails. Steep, slippy, rocky, and lacking in gravel, the bike was able to be easily manoeuvred up the climbs to find the best traction.

I was initially hesitant of the one-by gearing only on the frame, as I often prefer two-by. However, given the terrain we covered, I never felt I was missing a gear with the SRAM Force XPLR groupset, while the chain retention was fantastic.

As mentioned, I appreciate that the bike does not chase aero performance or watt savings. The lateral frame stiffness at the BB is sufficient to transfer power to the ground effectively, but seeking comfort is itself a performance gain for longer gravel events. It also has the wonderful effect of making the Addict Gravel a joy to ride on pretty much any off-road terrain. It's good enough to use for gravel races, but the focus is on adventure. I would argue it compromises on neither at the speeds most riders will tackle in gravel events.

Let’s see how that holds when I get one to take around the UK and some MTB trails in the Forest of Dean and Wyre Forest.

Builds and pricing

There are four frame options available, with the standard Scott naming convention: the higher-end model referred to as the Premium, and other models progress down from 10 to 40 in intervals of 10.

The Premium HMX frame build comes with SRAM Red XPLR 13-speed and a claimed weight of 8.4kg, with a 794g frame shaving 75g off the previous iteration. This and the Addict 10 HMF frame models, which use Force XPLR, all feature the Save the Day kit, handlebar tool, and tubeless kits. They also come fitted with the Fulcrum Sharq wheelset and Schwalbe G-One RX PRO Evolution 700x50C tyres as standard.

Moving down to the Addict 20, the tubeless kit is removed and the bar and stem become two-piece rather than the one-piece integrated Syncros SYN IC-R501-CF2. Meanwhile, the Addict 30 moves to SRAM Rival XPLR and Syncros Capital GR 35 CF II wheelset and misses out on the power meter and Save the Day kit. Finally, the Addict 40 switches to Shimano GRX 1x12 mechanical gearing, the only non-electronic model in the range.

All models are 1x only and come with a bespoke chain guard designed for the supplied chainring size. Frames range from XXS-XXL sizes.

• Scott Addict Gravel Premium – £7,999 / $10,499 / €8,999
• Scott Addict Gravel 10 – £5,799 / $8,499 / €6,499
• Scott Addict Gravel 20 – £4,999 / $6,499 / €5,449
• Scott Addict Gravel 30 – £3,499 / $4,799 / €3,999
• Scott Addict Gravel 40 – £2,499 / $3,499 / €2,699

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.

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Over the last few years, Unbound Gravel has become the launchpad for the gravel industry’s next big thing. Every year, the Emporia, Kansas, start line and expo area become a rolling tech gallery packed with unreleased wheelsets, tyres, cockpits and bikes ridden by pro athletes under varying degrees of secrecy.

This year appears to be no different.

We already know defending champion Cam Jones will be riding a Scott prototype bike with 32" wheels, and most of the Specialized Off Road athletes will be aboard the brand new Crux 5.

Today, we got a peek at what appears to be brand-new prototype gravel race bikes from Giant and sister brand Liv, machines that we are fairly certain preview a new tier of the Revolt and Devote platforms.

They were hard to miss, in fact, with the Liv prototype in a bold fuchsia pink with gold detailing, and the Giant version featuring a monochrome black-and-white graphic treatment.

It wasn’t all that long ago that we first spotted prototype versions of the current-generation Giant Revolt Advanced Pro right here at Unbound Gravel, months before launch. Now, almost exactly two years later, Giant and Liv appear to be back in Emporia with another pair of unreleased gravel race machines, and this time, there appears to have been a significant transformation: a move away from the “do-it-all” gravel side.

Both prototype bikes show a clear shift toward race specialisation. Where the outgoing Revolt and Devote platforms were proudly versatile, with multiple mounts, fork bosses, flip-chips and seatpost options, these new bikes look far more singular in purpose.

The fork blades have been stripped of the fork mounts and accessory bosses. Cable routing is now fully integrated through the cockpit, rather than neatly tucked beneath the handlebars as on previous models. The overall silhouette is cleaner, sharper and more aero in appearance.

Both bikes also appear to be designed around 1x drivetrains only, and, of course, tyre clearance appears to have been beefed up.

Australian Liv athlete Peta Mullens outfitted her new steed with yet-to-be-released Maxxis Aspen tyres with a HYPR-X|EXO casing in a 55mm, although actual frame clearance will likely be slightly tighter if following strict ETRTO recommendations. And with the projected mud for Saturday, those 55mm will likely be swapped to something narrower as well.

The finishing kit hints at a closer collaboration with CADEX for complete-package aero savings.

Some of the prototype bikes were fitted with what appeared to be unreleased top-tier CADEX components, including deep-section carbon wheels and integrated one-piece cockpits. The wheelsets in particular looked similar to CADEX’s MAX-level race products, hinting these bikes are aimed squarely at the sharp end of elite gravel competition.

Despite the brands’ strong racing heritage and support of elite gravel athletes, neither currently offers a true "Advanced SL" gravel race bike equivalent to their top-tier road machines such as the Propel Advanced SL or Langma Advanced SL.

That could be about to change.

And according to the athletes riding them, the changes go beyond aesthetics.

Liv athlete Melisa Rollins described the bike as noticeably stiffer and more responsive than the outgoing top-level Devote.

Meanwhile, Mullens highlighted the bike’s more aggressive fit and lower front end.

Mullens is also running an unusually long 140mm stem on her one-piece cockpit, paired with narrow 36cm handlebars.

"I’ve had a bad back for probably 10 years and I’ve always gone shorter [on the stem], but this year I saw a new bike fitter and he actually pushed me longer and I haven’t had back problems for several months," she explained.

Across the industry, brands increasingly appear to be splitting gravel bikes into two camps: the Swiss Army knives and the scalpels.

When we reviewed the top-end Revolt Advanced Pro 0, we praised it for being a highly versatile bike that could comfortably handle racing duties while remaining capable for bikepacking and mixed-terrain adventure riding.

These prototypes, however, suggest Giant and Liv are leaning harder into pure speed.

That mirrors what we’ve seen elsewhere in the market recently, with several brands moving toward lighter, stiffer and aero-optimised gravel race platforms focused purely on getting their rider to the finish line fastest.

For now, the Giant and Liv bikes remain firmly under wraps, but history suggests prototypes spotted at Unbound rarely stay hidden for long.

Come Saturday, the fuchsia pink Liv bikes will be raced by Tessa Neefjes and Peta Mullens. The Giant prototype will see action in the 200-mile pro men's race under Brendan Johnston and Cole Paton.

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.

Just under a month after winning The Traka 560 on her first attempt, British gravel rider, Maddy Nutt (Q36.5 Off Road Racing), has announced her ambitions for the US’s biggest gravel race – the Unbound XL.

“After some careful thought and consideration, I have decided to not race Unbound 200 this year,” Nutt teased her Instagram followers, before following up: “I will in fact be racing Unbound XL.”

In late April, Nutt finished Girona’s ultra-endurance race, the Traka 560, in a time of 26 hours and 31 minutes - fast enough to break the course record by over two hours, and put an hour between her and the next fastest woman. Now she's looking ahead to her next challenge: 350 miles through the Flint Hills.

“This decision was a tough one,” Nutt said of her choice to swap her wildcard invite to the Unbound 200 for a spot in the XL. “I don’t feel fully myself again after The Traka 560, but I feel healthy and recovered enough to give another ultra a whack and see what my body can do.”

Nutt’s caution is warranted. In an interview with Cycling Weekly after her success in The Traka, she described her experience of racing Unbound 200 last year as, “the most afraid on a bike I’ve ever been.”

“The bunch was just really sketchy and people were taking rash lines and decisions,” she continued.

The XL, on the other hand, feels more like The Traka 560 for Nutt, who enjoys the challenge of pre-event planning, working out where she will stop and how she’ll pace herself.

“I need to think about bike setup,” Nutt continued, “because you can draft, but also it's so flat that I probably need aero bars. It’s less technical than The Traka, so there's lots of things to think about, and that really excites me.”

Long distances suit the 28-year-old, who is increasingly turning her attention to longer races. She attributes her ability to enter a “flow state” on long rides in part to her autism. Not only is she able to plug away at the miles distraction-free, but she is also less susceptible to pain.

“Last year in The Traka 360, I tore my AC joint 100km in but was able to finish,” she said. “I feel like that definitely helps in a 560km race!”

And yet Nutt has stayed consistently cautious about her recovery from The Traka, ahead of another gruelling endurance race.

“I feel very physically recovered,” she said, “but I'm aware that my nervous system might not be fully recovered, and as soon as I put myself in that racing situation, I don't know necessarily how my body is going to respond. But I’m definitely up for the challenge, and to see whether I can do the two within a month of each other.”

When I spoke to Nutt on 20 May, she was still recovering from some bike-related wear and tear, and had just gotten over some nerve pain in her back.

“When you sit on a bike for 26 hours, it doesn't do great things to you,” she said. “I've got some physical indications that I'm not fully recovered, although my legs feel good, but yeah, the nervous system's a hard one.

“Often you don't actually find out how recovered you are until you race.”

Nutt will be setting off on 29 May in competition with 2025 winner Heather Jackson, as well as previous race-winner Svenja Betz, before taking a well-earned break after the race.

“Health is number one priority, and so some proper down time and recovery will be the first thing on my agenda after this trip to Kansas," she said in her Instagram post.

"But first things first, I’ve got another 350 mile bike race to do!”

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.

We figured the production cycle was nearing its end. We heard the internet chatter. We’d seen the spy shots and race-day photos. The cat has poked its head out of the bag. Specialized appears to be getting ready to release a new Crux and a completely redesigned one at that.

Just two weeks ago, Specialized Off-Road rider Geerike Schreurs won the Gralloch UCI Gravel World Series race aboard what appears to be this new steed. And it can easily be summed up as a fat-tyred Tarmac. Gone are the classically round tubes, the round seatpost and the visible cables. In their place: sleek, wind-cutting tube profiles; a proprietary aero seatpost; a fully integrated cockpit and, likely, even more tyre clearance.

That, of course, is the direction the industry is headed, both on gravel and on the road: more integrated, more aerodynamic, wider tyres, faster and cleaner-looking bikes.

But before the new Crux officially arrives and the old one gets relegated to "previous generation" product pages and closeout sales, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the outgoing Crux, a bike I have ridden and loved the absolute hell out of. And I'm not alone.

With the 2022 Crux, Specialized pulled off something rare: they built a bike universally loved by almost anyone who rode, raced or reviewed it. And I don’t mean merely liked, respected or admired, but genuinely loved.

Historically, the Crux had been Specialized’s cyclocross race bike. But by 2021, cyclocross was shrinking while gravel was booming, and Specialized wisely repositioned the Crux as the lighter, pared-down alternative to the Diverge. In doing so, they created one of the most versatile drop-bar bikes of the modern era.

The frame's impressively low weight is paired with beautiful ride quality, while the handling strikes a rare balance of agility, playfulness and stability in a way cyclocross bikes should and very few gravel bikes do.

Most gravel bikes ask for compromise somewhere along the line. The Crux asks for very little, happy to please on tarmac, gravel, light singletrack and, of course, the cyclocross course from which it was born.

Since that 2022 overhaul, the Crux has changed very little in silhouette. Later versions gained a UDH, new paint schemes and different finishing kits, but the geometry and layup stayed intact...until now.

I bought an S-Works Crux at the end of 2021 and, since then, it has carried me through thousands upon thousands of miles on gravel, pavement, snow, ice, singletrack and any combination thereof. It became my benchmark bike, the one against which every other gravel bike is measured, while also serving as the primary platform for testing new components.

Over the years, I’ve built her up with multiple SRAM and Shimano drivetrains, more wheelsets than I can remember and enough cockpit combinations to make me deeply appreciate the external routing up front.

And it’s been ridden hard. Sometimes perhaps too hard. I’ve bikepacked on it (despite it really not being intended as a bikepacking rig), ridden mountain bike trails on it and raced on it. It survived a horrendously muddy Unbound XL in 2023 and a T-bone car crash later that year. Yes, it’s had to be carbon-repaired once, but in general, the bike’s strength and versatility belied its low weight.

It’s my favourite bike I’ve ever owned. And while some of that may be sentimental, the bike truly is just that good. The handling, the low weight and, most of all, the versatility.

As I said, I raced 350 miles of Unbound XL on this bike and yet I would happily line up for a local criterium aboard this same steed. And with 32mm tyres and fenders, it makes for a fantastic road bike for long winter miles or summer adventures on sun-cracked roads. Throw on some chunky rubber—I ran 50s at Big Sugar Gravel—and a dropper post, and it rips singletrack with ease. And if you really want to blur categories even further, it’s even compatible with a suspension fork.

This is all thanks to some thoughtful, and apparently outgoing, features like external cable routing up front, a 27.2mm round seatpost, a BSA bottom bracket and already generous tyre clearance. Those details make the bike easy to service, easy to travel with and easy to customise. They also add a certain timelessness, because you won’t need to hunt for proprietary parts on eBay five years from now.

Writing all this feels a little like composing an obituary. And that’s silly because I suspect my 2022 Crux will continue to see plenty of action. And to be clear, I’m not condemning whatever comes next. The new Crux may very well be just as fun to ride, only more aerodynamic and probably faster. But it’s also bound to come with more compromises.

So take this love letter as a hot tip: snag one of the current Crux frames while they’re still available. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

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.

There’s a perfect lunch ride that starts about 15 minutes from my front door.

Depending on the variation, it’s an hour or so of fast gravel roads, punchy climbs and some fun singletrack to keep you on your toes. There’s broken up pavement, roots, loose pitches that nudge beyond 20 percent and, even, a small rock garden. Gravel bike, road bike or MTB, the choice is yours but either way, you’re getting a good bang for your buck in that hour.

This is my testing ground for a lot of products, and since I have a very young baby, where I’ll ride more often than not. With this in mind, I recently put a dropper post on my personal gravel steed, a Specialized S-Works Crux. And a cable-actuated one, no less.

Now, I’m aware this will upset a certain category of cyclist. Likely the same people who leave puke emojis on my Instagram whenever my bike appears sporting fenders/mudguards. How dare I deface a race machine? But, in doing so, they're actually selling the Crux and its beautiful versatility short. Specialized gave it generous tyre clearance, suspension fork compatibility and internal routing for a dropper post. That isn’t accidental. The bike was designed to be ridden, and to be ridden hard. (I may have taken it too far beyond its comfort levels but that’s not my point.)

Now, if your gravel riding consists primarily of the sort of epics we see at Unbound Gravel or SBT GRVL, then this article isn’t for you.

A dropper post absolutely comes with compromises. They add weight, and they’re stiffer than a carbon seatpost. Your lower back will almost certainly prefer a flexy carbon post if your riding is mostly seated pedalling over washboard roads for seven hours straight. And if you’re never riding terrain where a dropper actually matters, then yes, hauling around the extra grams is pointless.

But if your gravel rides regularly involve some “I wonder if I can ride that?” territory, then a dropper post changes everything. Mountain bikers figured this out years ago. At the push of a lever, the saddle is out of the way, giving you more freedom to move around when the terrain gets steep, loose or unpredictable.

With the saddle lowered, you can shift your weight farther backwards to avoid getting pitched over the bars. It also makes it easier to stay balanced when the bike starts bouncing underneath you. And in corners, the bike can lean independently beneath you instead of the saddle locking you into one position. In short, a dropper lets you move independently from the bike, and the bike independently from you. The result is better grip, more control, more speed and more confidence when things get rough. Most importantly, it makes off-road riding a lot more fun, and that’s really the whole argument.

I recently installed Teravail’s 125mm Telec dropper on my bike. I didn’t need it for the lunch loops, but I did immediately start setting PRs on nearly every descent. It also makes me smile every darn time.

But here’s the part where I climb onto my soapbox: if you’re going to put a dropper on your gravel bike, commit properly.

Too many gravel-specific droppers, or those that will fit a 27.2 seatpost, have too little travel. Forty millimetres of drop isn’t a dropper post; that's a mildly adjustable seatpost.

Would I prefer the clean aesthetic of the SRAM’s wireless dropper? Obviously. But to me, 50-to-75mm of travel just doesn’t meaningfully transform the bike on technical terrain. Plus, at nearly $645 and around 560g of added weight (which is more than a mechanical dropper), it’s a tough sell.

The Teravail Telec, meanwhile, does it right. The 27.2mm version comes in either 100mm or 125mm travel, with travel adjustable in 10mm increments up to 30mm, depending on your fit and frame size. Paired with the Telec Drop Bar Remote, the post delivers an impressively fast response time. This is Teravail’s first foray into droppers, and I’m very pleased with this $200, mid-range offer. At around 445 grams, it’s not absurdly heavy either. Compared to the carbon post I removed, the weight penalty is roughly 245 grams.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to like having a dropper post, but I'm enjoying it far more than expected. And now that it’s on there, I see no reason to take it off.

Will I keep playing with the cable routing to achieve a cleaner look, yes, but do I care once the trail points downward? Not even remotely.

When Sarah Sturm rolled across the line at The Traka 100 in Girona, Spain, this past weekend, the result was, for once, beside the point. At 28 weeks pregnant, the American gravel star said the experience was less about racing and more about enjoying the ride and discovering what her body was still capable of.

"It felt OK," Sturm told Cycling Weekly. "I had done a training camp with Rapha the week before, and I think it sort of reset my expectations on what I am capable of doing.

"Lining up with professional athletes, I realise I was obviously much slower, but the effort is still there and it feels really good to push myself within those boundaries,” she said. "It felt really good to move and, specifically, ride. It actually feels a lot better than sitting on an aeroplane, for example."

The American said pregnancy has effectively imposed its own built-in limiter.

"I just have a governor on my system," she said. "My body only lets me push so hard, which is a pretty incredible experience. So I might be going slower, but I think the rate of perceived exertion is kind of the same."

Still, Sturm was quick not to romanticise the reality of being pregnant.

"I’m not racing, and in a lot of ways it felt really good, but also, definitely, uncomfortable. I don’t want to skim past that. Nothing I’m doing now is comfortable. It’s uncomfortable to sleep, to walk, to eat, to ride. But you just live in this state of discomfort, so I was really feeling quite happy to be healthy enough to ride my bike at a bike race in Spain."

Earlier this year, Sturm was instrumental in bringing about Life Time’s new pregnancy policy. Under the policy, athletes who become pregnant after being selected for the prestigious off-road series can defer their roster spot to the following season without penalty, a move widely praised as a big step forward for women in gravel racing.

Sturm’s appearance at gravel events while pregnant also comes amid wider conversations around pregnancy in elite sport and the lack of long-term protections historically afforded to female athletes. For female athletes, there’s often a lot of uncertainty surrounding sponsorship, contracts and competition during pregnancy.

Last season, fellow gravel racer Iz King wrote openly about continuing to race while pregnant, arguing that visibility matters for the future of women’s sport.

"Racing this season wasn’t about trying to be better or faster than my non-pregnant competitors," King wrote for Cycling Weekly. "It was about setting an example for what it could look like to be a pregnant professional athlete.

"How do you inspire others? How do you prove your value to your sponsors? How do you break down some of the pre-conceived notions about what a pregnant person is capable of? And how do you do all of that while putting your baby’s safety first?"

Sturm echoed much of that sentiment.

"My message for women, female athletes everywhere, is truly just: don’t let other people tell you what you can and can’t do with your body," she said. "Pretty simple, and yet one that we as a society don’t really seem to grasp, especially for women and specifically, female athletes."

She added that while public judgment around pregnant athletes can often be critical, she hadn’t experienced a backlash of her own.

"No one’s really shared their judgment with me, which is really appreciated because I am doing what I can do based on my conversations with my coach and doctor," Sturm explained, stating, "I was cleared to be in Spain and to be riding my bike."

Sturm also stressed that she approached the event conservatively and with safety at the forefront. She started near the back of the field rather than alongside elite racers and rode with support throughout the day.

"I am a professional, so I know how to safely be in a group and I started at the back of the 100 for a reason," she said. "I have no business starting with WorldTour riders at the front.

"And with that, I just gave myself a lot of space on the descents in case someone had a mishap, and I would have time to react. At no point did I feel like it was unsafe for me."

Her husband, Dylan, rode alongside her, as did a friend, and the group had multiple bailout options planned throughout the route.

"I took it hour by hour and, yeah, finished it," Sturm said. "It was really great to get a lot of perspective on a race that I’ve done four times. We started at the same start and the finish was the same, and it was really fun to do that in a very different state."

While the big news from Sea Otter 2026 all pointed to the rise and seemingly industry-wide acceptance of 32-inch wheels, Swiss bike maker Open has once again torn up the script and ruffled feathers with its new gravel bike, the WI.DE 2.0. Originally launched in 2019, the WI.DE made headlines for its then-massive tyre clearance of 2.4 inches (61mm) - something that was considered overkill.

As the gravel cycling genre has developed, so has the technicality of trails and races on offer across the globe - something we've seen at The Traka in Spain and even Gravel Burn in South Africa, where demanding trails have seen riders get creative with their setups. Aside from front suspension, the most popular inclusion we see is the introduction of wider gravel tyres to improve grip, ride quality and comfort. For the most part, 50mm seems to have become the standard, but riders are pushing the envelope even further with 2.1 and even 2.25in tyres coming to the fore.

As early adopters, Open has always been a proponent of radical design, and the original WI.DE is a prime example. For generation two, Open decided to turn the tyre clearance screw even further, not only to expand its range but also to define a new category altogether. This wasn't easy. According to Open, "Fitting tyres this size into a compact, stiff and agile frame was a challenge. The result is marginally lighter than its predecessor and handles even more extreme terrain."

As a result, the Open WI.DE has been designed to traverse terrain others wouldn't deem rideable, thanks to the extreme, wide tyres. Instead of starting with the frame and then thinking about other areas, Open started with the tyres and looked at how the frame could work around wider rubber and accommodate bigger volume - going from 50 to 66mm nearly doubles the air volume inside the tyre.

As expected of the brand, Open had to rethink the norms of contemporary gravel bike design. This meant binning two-by compatibility and constructing the frame around one-by drivetrains, to free up space for tyre clearance in what Open calls a 'double chainstay drop' (the original Open UP had a single dropped chainstay). As such, the WI.DE 2.0 fits up to 700 x 66mm (29 x 2.6in).

Of course, there's also a host of mounting options throughout the frame. The WI.DE 2.0 has more cargo-carrying options than any Open model to date, including bosses on the fork, direct-mount frame-bag compatibility, and provision for two bikepacking bags inside the downtube, secured via a Fidlock bracket. There are also bosses under the BB, two on the toptube and near the seat tube. Interestingly, the WI.DE 2.0 combines both an aero and cargo fork dubbed the 'U-Turn AC/DC+' (Aero Cargo Double Combo). This lets users strap bags directly to the fork legs and use traditional cages and panniers.

The WI.DE also benefits from the 'Open B.A.R. system' - a fully integrated one-piece bar-stem that can be adjusted by 15mm in 5mm steps (there are ten different bar width options available at purchase). The frame comes standard with a UDH hanger, a T47-threaded BB, and internal routing.

The frame melds aero design details with functionality. The headtube is deeper than before, and the tubing is angular and aerodynamic throughout. A nice addition is the 27.2mm round seatpost, which not only allows for one of the best dropper seatposts but also makes it easy to upgrade to other aftermarket posts.

Looking at the geometry, Open has naturally tweaked some of the angles for even greater capability off-road and over technical terrain and features. The chainstays have increased from 420mm to 440mm across all sizes, and the wheelbase has grown by 41mm to 1,055mm on a size medium. The head and seat tube angles are basically unchanged, while the stack has increased slightly, resulting in a more upright riding position.

The Open WI.DE 2.0 will be available in raw, ready-to-paint, and painted framesets priced at $3,200/€3,200, $3,500/€3,500, and $4,000/€4,000, respectively, and two complete builds: SRAM Force AXS/Zipp XPLR at $8,000/€8,000 or SRAM Red AXS/Zipp XPLR at $10,200/€10,200.

Some mornings in winter, Sofia Gomez Villafañe can ride for hours through Tucson and barely be noticed. The desert roads are full of cyclists — pros escaping the cold, retirees spinning along the bike path, locals squeezing in a quick loop before work. On rides like the Shootout, she’s just another cyclist in the pack. Yes, people recognise her, but she often gravitates toward the juniors, chatting with their parents, asking about school or upcoming races. Most of the time, the interactions are simple, friendly and unremarkable.

Which, if you’ve spent much time reading about Gomez Villafañe — or watching the film projects that follow the sport — that might come as a surprise. The version of Gomez Villafañe that sometimes circulates online, intense, relentlessly competitive, doesn’t always match the one people encounter in person.

"The people that know me," she says, “the people I actually interact with — they don’t hate me at all."

Over the past several seasons, Gomez Villafañe has become one of the defining figures of American off-road racing. Since committing fully to gravel in 2022, she has stacked victories at many of the discipline’s marquee events, including wins at Unbound Gravel, Big Sugar Gravel and the Traka. The results have established her as one of the sport’s most consistent winners and a perennial contender in the Life Time Grand Prix series that anchors the U.S. gravel calendar.

But dominance, particularly in a young and rapidly professionalising discipline like gravel, has a way of creating narratives. And for Gomez Villafañe, the one that has followed her is complicated.

Depending on who is telling the story, she can be portrayed as intense, hyper-competitive or intimidating. In the first season of Call of a Lifetime, the docuseries following the Life Time Grand Prix, Gomez Villafañe was cast — fairly or not — as something of a villain: the ruthless racer willing to say out loud what others might only think.

Ask her about that reputation, and she sighs.

"The list of names I haven't been called would be shorter," she says. "I've been told I take my job too seriously. I’ve been told I don’t know how to have fun. I’ve been told I’m a b*tch. I’ve been told I’m too competitive."

Then she shrugs.

"But, yeah, I am super competitive. I do take my job really seriously. It’s just not in the negative light that certain media outlets or film projects have made it out to be."

She admits the criticism hasn’t been easy to ignore.

"It’s gotten to me, that’s for sure. It forces you to look at yourself in the mirror and ask: Is there truth to this?"

Ultimately, though, she doesn’t think the answer lies in trying to correct the narrative from afar. Gomez Villafañe prefers instead to show up and do her job, whether on race day — when the game face is unmistakable — or during long winter training rides in Arizona, where it softens.

"I don’t think there’s a way for me to change people’s minds with film projects," she says. "I think it’s more meeting people in real life, in a real human setting, and letting them realise I’m not what the media has portrayed me to be."

Gomez Villafañe’s intensity didn’t arrive with professional racing. Long before podiums and contracts and docuseries storylines, the 31-year-old had already developed a stubborn kind of independence.

Growing up, Gomez Villafañe was the kind of kid who rarely waited around for help. The fifth of six children, she was born in Argentina and immigrated to the United States with her family as a child. Independence, she says, came early. If she was hungry, she’d climb onto the kitchen counter and cook something herself. If she wanted to go somewhere, she figured out how to get there.

"When I was young, Friday would come around, and I’d call my parents and say, ‘OK, I’m going to this friend’s house tonight. Then we’re going to the lake the next day, then this friend’s parents are picking us up, and Sunday I’m doing this. And I’ll be home at 8 p.m.,’” she recalls. “I had everything planned out.”

After high school in California, where she raced cross-country mountain bikes in the NorCal League, Gomez Villafañe moved to Durango, Colorado, to attend Fort Lewis College. The plan was simple: race bikes and get a degree.

Durango made that plan possible. Between the college program and the town’s deep endurance culture, Gomez Villafañe found herself in an environment where taking racing seriously was the norm. For her, that mindset felt natural.

"To be the best bike racer I can be, I need to be really strong, really fierce," she says. "I need to carry myself with a lot of confidence because if you’re not confident when you’re lining up for a race, it isn’t just gonna magically show up when you start racing."

That mindset has followed her into every phase of her career, from collegiate mountain bike racing to the professional gravel circuit she now dominates. It’s visible in the way she studies courses, the way she trains, the way she races — aggressively and without apology. In a discipline that once prided itself on a more laid-back ethos, Gomez Villafañe’s approach has sometimes stood out.

But to her, the distinction between competitive and overly serious has always felt a little artificial.

"Of course, I try hard," she says. "These brands are giving me the opportunity to focus full-time on racing, and I don’t want them to feel like they’re not getting a return on that investment. It’s a job at the end of the day. I’m really lucky that my job is something a lot of people do as a hobby, but for me it’s about being the best athlete I can be."

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy it. If anything, the structure and focus are part of what she loves most about the sport. The discipline of preparing for a race, the satisfaction of executing a plan, the simple clarity of knowing exactly what the goal is on any given day — those things have always appealed to the independent kid who liked to have the weekend mapped out before it even started.

What she has learned, though, is that seriousness can be interpreted in different ways depending on who’s watching.

Some of that realisation came with experience. Some came with time spent seeing how the sport presents itself to the outside world. And some came simply from meeting people face to face: the riders and fans who show up at races, shake her hand, and realise the person in front of them isn’t quite the character they might have seen online.

In those moments, the narrative tends to fall away. For all the storylines that have followed her in recent years, Gomez Villafañe believes that the simplest version of herself is also the most accurate: She’s competitive. She takes her job seriously. She wants to win.

And outside the race tape, she’s also just another rider rolling through the Tucson winter sun, putting in the miles and saying hello to the people she passes along the way.

The Life Time Grand Prix is back with new riders, fresh livestreams and the biggest prize purse in off-road cycling. Beginning with Sea Otter Classic Gravel on April 16th, the series runs from April through October and stops in five different U.S. states.

The first two races – Sea Otter and Unbound – are both gravel races, whereas the next three stops are MTB races. Big Sugar is once again the series finale, featuring a 100-mile gravel route in Bentonville, Arkansas.

First up is Sea Otter, a plane ride away for much of the Grand Prix field. Of the 44 selected riders (22 men and 22 women), 19 of them are international riders from outside the U.S.

In addition to some new riders, Life Time has made some key rule changes, including the launch of a pregnancy policy. Let’s dive into all the details, including a closer look at the series’ opening round at Sea Otter.

The 2026 Life Time calendar

After some major calendar changes ahead of the 2025 edition, the Life Time Grand Prix returns with an identical calendar in 2026. The Leadville Trail 100 MTB is the only event held at high altitude, but every race features a significant amount of elevation gain. Chequamegon MTB Festival is the shortest event at just 40 miles, while Unbound Gravel is the longest at a staggering 200 miles.

The series finale is once again held in Bentonville, Arkansas – one of the weirdest places I’ve ever been – for an action-packed week that features both Little Sugar MTB and Big Sugar Gravel in the span of six days.

• April 16th: Sea Otter Classic Gravel
• May 30th: Unbound Gravel 200
• August 15th: Leadville Trail 100 MTB
• September 19th: Chequamegon MTB Festival
• October 11th: Little Sugar MTB
• October 17th: Big Sugar Gravel

The drop race rule remains in effect, allowing riders to discard their lowest score (i.e. worst race placing) after Race 4 in Chequamegon. Big Sugar Gravel is the only mandatory race for Grand Prix participants, and it serves as the tie-breaker for overall series points.

Key rule changes for the 2026 Life time Grand Prix

One of the biggest updates to the Life Time Grand Prix is the introduction of a Pregnancy Policy — a landmark move for women's sport. "The policy allows selected athletes to withdraw from the series without penalty and guarantees them a protected roster spot the following season...To qualify, athletes must notify Life Time of their pregnancy in a timely fashion and confirm their intention to return in the subsequent year."

The policy was sparked by an announcement from Grand Prix athlete Sarah Sturm, who said, "When I got pregnant, my first call was to the Life Time Grand Prix to figure out what to do. This sparked a whole conversation, and with the hard work of the people at Life Time, we now have a pregnancy policy. This is a big deal for women in the Grand Prix and for women in sport."

The U23 category returns to the series, with the top male and female finishers earning automatic entry into the 2027 Life Time Grand Prix. There is also the rapidly growing Wild Card roster of 80 athletes who will be attempting to earn their way into the Grand Prix mid-season. More on that in a minute, but first, let’s analyse the contenders.

Contenders for the 2026 life time grand Prix

In 2025, we saw the biggest surprise in Life Time Grand Prix history when New Zealander Cameron Jones won the Men’s Overall Series. Jones wasn’t even in the Grand Prix at the beginning of the season. In fact, he wasn’t even mentioned in our 2025 series preview.

While there are certainly a number of favourites coming into the 2026 Life Time Grand Prix, we have already seen how the series can be turned on its head. Who knows, maybe we will see another Wild Card winner in Bentonville.

It’s difficult to look past three-time LTGP Champion Keegan Swenson and South African powerhouse Matt Beers for the men’s title, especially once you realise that the two have joined forces at Specialized. But as big of favourites as these two might be, you can never count out Cam Jones. While Swenson is recovering from a broken pelvis, Beers is coming off a win at the 2026 Cape Epic, so it’s anyone’s guess what kind of form these riders will be in at Sea Otter.

Swiss rider Simon Pellaud delivered a number of impressive performances last year on his way to finishing second overall in the LTGP. He will face other contenders such as Alexey Vermeulen and Simen Nordahl Svendsen, along with a host of newcomers. Among the biggest names are Andreas Seewald, the reigning European Mountain Bike Champion, and Jan Stöckli, runner-up at The Traka 360 in 2025.

Sofía Gómez Villafañe is the #1 favourite for the women’s LTGP. She has claimed the overall victory three times, taken two victories at Unbound Gravel, and she’s already taken a win in 2026 at Mid South. But the competition will be fierce, featuring riders such as 2025 Unbound winner Karolina Migoń, and 2025 Gravel Earth Series winner Rosa Klöser.

Last year’s runner-up, Cecily Decker, returns for another run at the title, as well as Cécile Lejeune and Paige Onweller. The biggest question marks could be swirling around Melisa Rollins, who suffered a broken elbow just before this year’s Cape Epic. Rollins finished third in the LTGP last year, but her participation at Sea Otter is up in the air following surgery.

Other riders to watch include Cobe Freeburn, Simen Nordahl Svendsen, and U.S. National Gravel Champion Bradyn Lange. On the women’s side, watch out for Lauren Stephens, Alexis Skarda and Lauren De Crescenzo.

Wild card spots still available

You may have noticed that the LTGP has an unusual number of riders: 44, with 22 men and 22 women. That’s because Life Time is leaving space for three Wild Card entries in each gender category. Three additional riders per gender will be added to the LTGP field following Sea Otter and Unbound, offering a last-ditch chance for riders to join the series mid-season.

In fact, there are four Wild Card spots open in the women’s LTGP since Sarah Sturm’s pregnancy announcement. Sturm is listed as part of the 2026 Grand Prix, but it’s safe to assume she will put racing to the side in 2026 and come back next year.

As you might expect, the list of riders looking to join the series is long and strong. A number of big names missed out on Grand Prix selection in 2026, and they will be attempting to ride their way back into the GP through the Wild Card system. The long list of Wild Cards includes Russell Finsterwald, Griffen Easter, Dylan Johnson, Jonas Orset, Adam Roberge, Hannah Shell, Haley Smith and Alex Wild.

2026 season opens at Sea Otter

The 2026 Life Time Grand Prix begins in earnest on a Thursday in Monterey, California. It has been a long time since the LTGP last lined up under thunderous skies in Bentonville, Arkansas. Both, the men and women will race 90 miles at Sea Otter Gravel, a hilly and technical route that utilises sections of singletrack from the Sea Otter MTB course.

Riders will contest three laps of the circuit around Laguna Seca Raceway and more than 8,000 feet of climbing. Swenson won last year’s edition, while non-Grand Prix rider Haley Batten dominated the women’s race, with Villafañe being the top LTGP finisher.

For the first time, Life Time is offering a livestream of Sea Otter Gravel. You can also follow the race via updates on Instagram, and more post-race coverage, including a highlights package on YouTube. Cycling Weekly will report on everything that went down during the race as well.

Life Time has introduced a pregnancy policy for its Grand Prix series, allowing athletes who become pregnant after being selected to defer their roster spot to the following season without penalty.

The new rule was announced after veteran gravel racer Sarah Sturm, a two-time podium finisher in the series, revealed she is pregnant and will step away from competition this season.

"I am so excited to announce this very big news," Sturm wrote in her announcement. “When I got pregnant my first call was to the Life Time Grand Prix to figure out what to do. This sparked a whole conversation and with the hard work of the people at Life Time we now have a pregnancy policy."

Now in its fifth season, the Life Time Grand Prix is the most prestigious racing series in America. The series features the most challenging gravel and mountain bike events across the country, contested by a hand-picked cast of just 44 international athletes.

Getting selected for the series is highly competitive. Under the policy, any athlete accepted into the Life Time Grand Prix who later becomes pregnant can withdraw from the series and retain a protected roster position for the following year.

"This is a big deal for women in the Grand Prix and for women in sport," said Sturm. "There is so much uncertainty as an athlete, especially as a female. This policy shows us respect and trust that we are capable of continuing our careers even after we have children. Of course, we know that’s possible as women, and now we have the support from the biggest off-road race series in America."

According to the official policy, pregnancy protection applies only to athletes who become pregnant after being selected to the Grand Prix roster. Those athletes may withdraw "without penalty" and will receive a protected place for the following season.

To preserve access for other racers, Life Time said it may temporarily expand the number of wildcard invitations in seasons when the policy is used. In practical terms, that means the series could add an extra wildcard slot rather than reducing available opportunities elsewhere in the field.

Pregnancy protection lasts for one subsequent season only. If an athlete chooses not to return in that protected year, the roster protection expires.

Sturm, who finished third overall in the Grand Prix in 2022 and fourth in 2023, said she expects to return to the series in 2027.

"It feels like a long way away, but I’ll see you in 2027 with one extra family member," she said.

As gravel cycling as a discipline has begun to define itself, so has the equipment needed to compete at the highest level. While there are two distinct offshoots forming – race and adventure, it's the former developing apace, particularly when it comes to aerodynamic efficiency. We’ve seen this maximised over the past few years, with everything from framesets to clothing adopting gravel-specific aerodynamic enhancements, but it’s in the best gravel bike wheels department where big gains are being unlocked.

Wheel manufacturers such as Zipp, with its 303 XPLR SW and locally, the Parcours FKT and Strada Gravel Aero Plus, all offer aero gravel wheelsets, and now Specialized’s component arm, Roval, is pushing the envelope even further focussing on aerodynamics and weight reduction with the introduction of two new gravel wheelsets, the Terra CLX III and Terra Aero CLX.

Both wheelsets are completely new, ground-up designs aimed at improving compliance, puncture protection and speed over the challenging courses now underscoring the sharp end of gravel racing. Roval is quick to point out that these are not merely a rehash of an existing model but completely new items: “These aren't modified road wheels. They're purpose-built for gravel reality: rougher surfaces, deeper yaw angles, and bigger tyres.”

Roval Terra Aero CLX wheelset

The goal for Roval was to create the fastest gravel wheelset, which led to over 300 digital rim-shape studies focused on areas such as aerodynamic drag, crosswind stability, structural stress ratios, weight reduction, tyre interface performance (35-60mm), and hook strength. Like the original Terra and Terra II models, the Roval Terra Aero CLX wheels eschew hookless rim architecture in favour of hooked beads for more secure tyre retention. To bolster this and ensure the tyres don’t pinch flat when using lower pressure and hitting a rut, Roval has bolstered the hooked bead profile to 5.38mm.

Unlike some wheel manufacturers, Roval’s CFD studies included the entire wheel system – tyre included- and matched it to a frameset, as shapes that look fast in isolation often produce turbulence at the tyre-rim junction, nullifying any gains. Roval’s tests included carrying out various tests, including monitoring the airflow around 45mm Tracer gravel tyres on a Specialized Crux and other metrics such as bike-fork spacing and wheel offset, expected on-course yaw distribution and yaw fluctuations specific to gravel racing.

This all led to a specific rim shape with a heavily cambered leading edge. As a result, the Terra Aero CLX wheel system delivers the same speed and performance as a 70mm-deep wheel. The result is 50/40mm front/rear ‘Chopped Aero’ shaping that reduces airflow separation behind the tread and keeps it flow attached longer at yaw – aero gains are especially strong from 5- to 12-degrees yaw, a bandwidth where gravel racers spend most of their time.

According to Roval, the Terra Aero CLX wheels were optimised around Specialized Tracer 45 gravel bike tyres and tested 5.84 watts faster than the outgoing Terra CLX II in the wind tunnel. While the wheels are designed to work best with tyres ranging from 35-45mm wide, they can accommodate tyres up to 60mm wide. The CFD studies also examined spoke airflow interactions to assess any aerodynamic advantages of including Arris carbon spokes. The results showed that thinner composite spokes consistently outperformed rounded profiles by 0.5-0.3 watts across realistic yaw angles, prevented aero flutter and provided a better integrated aero system.

In terms of specifications, the Terra Aero CLX are right on the money, weighing 1,340g (640g front, 700g rear) a pair and boasting a 38.5mm external and 27mm internal rim width. The wheels are laced in an 18/24 front/rear spoke configuration and come standard with Sinc ceramic bearings and a Ratchet EXP freehub system with 36 points of engagement.

The wheelset will retail for £2,988 (£1,299 front, £1,699 rear) in the UK and $3,400 ($1,500 front, $1,900) in the US.

Roval Terra CLX III wheelset

Roval has also introduced the lightest gravel race wheels it has ever made, weighing 1,079g for the pair (489g front, 590g rear). The wheels have been developed around a fairly shallow 27mm rim depth, but retain the same 4.86mm hooked bead profile and similar 38mm external and 27mm internal rim widths. To achieve this particular rim shape and depth, over 200 iterative rim shapes were generated using multi-factor modelling and evaluated for weight, lateral stiffness, and hook stress. Like the Terra Aero CLX, during testing, it was found that Arris-developed, wider flat-top carbon spoke delivered a 0.5-0.3 watt savings over the rounded version and were 20% stronger and 96.6g lighter than the steel equivalent.

The Terra CLX III applied lessons learned from high-pressure impact standards on the Roval Control WC MTB and Rapide CLX III wheelsets. This, paired with a tuned carbon-fibre layup, has resulted in a 21.52% reduction in lateral stiffness, providing smoother control and compliance, often compromised by vibration-induced power loss on washboard gravel.

While the Terra CLX III shares much of its hardware and specs with the Terra Aero CLX, such as the DT Swiss 180 hubs with 36T Ratchet EXP internals and Sinc ceramic bearings, the 21/24 front-to-rear spoke configuration differs. Roval quotes a system weight limit of 125g.

They will retail for £2,748 (£1,149 front, £1,599 rear) in the UK and $3,200 ($1,400 front, $1,800) in the US.

We've been sent a pair of Roval Terra Aero CLX for testing and will be publishing our comprehensive review in the coming months, so keep an eye out on the Cycling Weekly homepage.

Gravel cycling continues to carve out its own lane in the professional cycling landscape. While the jury is still out on just how far the discipline will rise, there is little doubt that a growing number of riders around the world are now making a comfortable living racing primarily on gravel.

In recent years, many of the professional gravel "privateers,” as they are known, have been riders who first built their reputations in mountain biking or the WorldTour. On the road side, names like Ted King, Peter Stetina, Ian Boswell and Petr Vakoc swapped slick road tyres for gravel.

A similar pattern has played out among riders arriving from mountain biking, with figures such as Keegan Swenson, Sofia Gomez Villafañe and long-time World Cup veterans like Geoff Kabush, Jeremiah Bishop and Rebecca Rusch bringing their off-road pedigree into the discipline.

That trend isn’t disappearing entirely: Romain Bardet’s arrival on the gravel circuit this year is proof that established road pros still see opportunity in the scene. But signs increasingly point toward a shift. A new generation of riders is beginning to emerge as dedicated gravel professionals, building careers in the discipline without first establishing themselves on the road or in mountain biking.

Here’s a quick guide to some of the new names to watch as the 2026 gravel season gets underway

Cam Jones and Matthew Wilson — The Kiwi Contingent

New Zealand and Australia are increasingly proving to be incubators for top cycling talent. Despite their smaller size, the two countries consistently produce elite riders across the cycling spectrum, and gravel has become an especially fruitful arena for talent from the Southern Hemisphere.

No example illustrates that trend more clearly than Cam Jones, who burst onto the global gravel scene in a way few young, "unproven" riders ever have.

Jones first made his mark in 2024 with strong performances at major summer gravel races like Unbound Gravel and SBT GRVL. Then, in 2025, he took a massive step forward, winning Unbound before unseating Keegan Swenson to claim the Life Time Grand Prix overall title. In the span of a single season, Jones went from a wildcard entry in the series to one of the top gravel specialists in the world.

While Jones is the obvious breakout name to watch, his new Scott teammate and fellow Kiwi Matthew Wilson could also be a major factor on the gravel scene this year. Last season, despite racing largely without significant support, Wilson delivered several eye-catching rides. He played a major role in the action at Sea Otter Gravel, finishing seventh after an aggressive performance, and appeared set to battle Matt Beers to the line at the Big Sugar Classic before a flat tyre ended his chances.

Inexplicably, Wilson was left off the Life Time Grand Prix roster. Still, expect the Kiwi duo to race aggressively together throughout the season, and to make their presence known.

Cecily Decker, Morgan Aguirre, and Karolina Migon — PAS Racing Gravel Team

It feels a tad obvious to say that Karolina Migon is someone to keep your eyes on after winning Unbound Gravel last year, but the soft-spoken Polish rider still feels like she is a bit underrated. Part of that might be due to the team she is on and the many strong riders all in the same kit.

Migon is one of three PAS Racing riders who will be racing the Life Time Grand Prix this season, and the trio looks set to all be on the shortlist of podium favourites. That said, Magon is the obvious one to watch with her win, and Unbound and the Traka are two of the biggest possible wins in the gravel world.

Morgan Aguirre is the other new addition to the Life Time Grand Prix for PAS Racing, as the American has been building a strong resume as she continues to grow into her gravel career. Aguirre is American, but she lives full-time in Girona as she has made competitions like the Gravel Earth Series and other European races a focal point, even though she has made American cameos throughout last year. This year, with the Life Time Grand Prix on the agenda, she will race in the U.S. more frequently and compete for wins throughout the calendar.

Cecily Decker is back in the Life Time Grand Prix after a massive performance throughout the series last year. She netted a second-place finish at Unbound behind her teammate Migon, but the list goes on with a third at Sea Otter, third at Leadville, and fourth at the Traka 200. It is a lot to match, but Decker could use it as a platform to become a prolific winner.

Cobe Freeburn, Cecile Lejune, and Daxton Mock — Trek Driftless

Trek Driftless overhauled its roster for 2026, adding three promising young riders to the lineup. Torbjørn Andre Røed and Paige Onweller return to provide experience, while the team looks to its new additions to inject fresh speed.

On the men’s side, Cobe Freeburn and Daxton Mock step up to Trek’s senior gravel squad after beginning their careers with the Bear Development gravel team. Both riders came from mountain biking and quickly found success on gravel. Freeburn delivered consistent results throughout the season, including third at SBT GRVL, while Mock picked up an early-season win at Valley of Tears. Paired with Andre Røed, who is a perennial podium contender at U.S. gravel races, the duo adds even more firepower to the team.

Cecile Lejeune joins the squad in a slightly different position. Already established among the top riders in the women’s field, she finished fifth overall in the Life Time Grand Prix standings last year. The marquee win has yet to come, but with only one full season as a gravel pro under her belt, Lejeune still has plenty of room to grow. Close followers of the sport may also remember her bold solo bridge attempt at Gravel Worlds, which ended in a race-ending flat just as it looked poised to deliver a breakout result.

Bradyn Lange — Canyon X DT Swiss All-Terrain Racing Team

The Canyon x DT Swiss All-Terrain Racing Team is a broad coalition of international riders. For many, the big name who stands out, especially in North America, is the U.S. Gravel National Champion Bradyn Lange. Lange was the youngest man on the original Life Time Grand Prix roster, coming off an early career as a promising mountain biker.

Since then, Lange has been in the trenches of the privateer world, trying to find his own way through the ranks of gravel and marathon mountain biking before there was a truly established path. Finally, in 2025, the tenacity started to pay off as Lange consistently ranked near the top of the results sheet, culminating in a stars-and-stripes jersey in Minnesota.

The move to Canyon’s revamped gravel team was a bit surprising, as Lange had a solid spectrum of support, including Rapha and Pinnarello, but it is clear that Lange is relishing the opportunity to be a part of a system and focus on performance rather than the multitude of other logistics that all privateers have to worry about. Additionally, with Canyon X DT Swiss bringing Pete Stetina on board as part of its management team, Lange will have a strong technical and intellectual infrastructure to work from as he tackles the new year.

The jury is still out on whether the team gamble will work for Lange and the other Canyon X DT Swiss riders, but expect to see the stars-and-stripes jersey racing a ton of gravel on both sides of the Atlantic.

Kyan Olshove, Ruth Holcomb, and Griffin Hoppin — the young Americans on the rise

The Life Time Grand Prix has created a strong framework for gravel racing to develop as a professional sport. Until recently, however, the series hadn’t clearly established a pathway for young gravel specialists to rise through the ranks. In 2025, the U23 Life Time Grand Prix was introduced to fill that gap, and it quickly produced riders who look capable of stepping up to the elite level.

On the women’s side, Ruth Holcomb won the competition convincingly while also posting strong results in elite fields throughout the season. She not only proved she could contend higher up the results sheet, but she also benefits from sharing a team environment with established gravel stars like Keegan Swenson, Alexis Skarda and Tobin Ortenblad. All of this seems like the perfect breakout recipe.

The same could be said for Griffin Hoppin, who enters the 2026 season as the reigning U23 Life Time Grand Prix champion. Hoppin built his title on consistency in the U23 series while also posting several notable elite results, including fourth at the Unbound 100, 11th at Little Sugar, and top U23 honours at Sea Otter. With that foundation, he looks well-positioned to continue progressing, particularly in hillier gravel races.

The final rider stepping into the elite conversation is Kyan Olshove. Although he did not compete in the U23 series, the Michigan native closed out the Grand Prix season with a surge of strong performances. A second-place finish at Chequamegon was followed by top-10 results at both Big Sugar and Little Sugar, momentum that helped earn him a pro contract with Pinarello and a spot in the 2026 Life Time Grand Prix.

Life Time today unveiled a stacked roster of Wild Card participants, including some familiar names like Russell Finsterwald, Dylan Johnson, Haley Smith and Emily Newsom.

Entering its fifth year, the Life Time Grand Prix is the most prestigious off-road racing series in America. The series features the most challenging gravel and mountain bike events across the country, contested by a hand-picked cast of 44 international contestants vying for the overall series title and a big chunk of change.

Introduced ahead of the 2025 season, the Wild Card process gives riders who were not selected in the initial selection a chance to make their mark. To be selected as a Wild Card, athletes must have applied for the 2026 series, indicated they want to be included in the Wild Card pool, and must compete at both the Sea Otter Classic Gravel and Unbound. Wild Card riders will be scored on their performances at these two events, with the top three women and men being added to the 2026 Grand Prix.

In 2025, the Wild Card race led to a breakout series performance by Cameron Jones, who not only rode himself into the series, but he also won Unbound and Little Sugar before unseating Keegan Swenson for the first time since the series' inception to take the overall series title.

“The Wild Card selection has quickly become one of the most anticipated elements of the Life Time Grand Prix, and the caliber of the 2026 roster reflects the incredible depth we’re seeing in off-road cycling today,” said Kimo Seymour, Senior Vice President of Events at Life Time and Director of the Life Time Grand Prix.

"The Wild Card spots are proof that the Life Time Grand Prix cares about finding the strongest riders on the scene,” added Cameron Jones.“It 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.”

Life Time has reserved six slots in the Grand Prix for Wild Card riders, three in the women’s field and three in the men’s field. But the competition will be stiff as nearly 80 riders have applied to be part of the Wild Card pool.

These hopefuls aren’t unknown names by any means. There’s Dylan Johnson, the prominent YouTuber has participated in the series four consecutive years but missed out on selection due to a 2025 season riddled with bad luck.

Likewise, Russell Finsterwald has participated in every Grand Prix since its inception, finishing in the top 10 of the overall standings three times. He’ll surely be one to watch in the Wild Card race. Other notable names include Lance Haidet, Adam Roberge and Cole Davis.

On the women’s side, the big name in the Wild Card pool is Haley Smith. An Olympian from Canada, Smith is the only other woman besides Sofia Gomez Villafañe to have won the series, and she's been a consistent name in the field. But a below-par season saw her missing out on selection. Other familiar faces include former WorldTour rider Emily Newsom, Deanna Mayles, Hannah Shell and Brit Danni Shrosbree.

The 2026 Life Time Grand Prix kicks off on Thursday, April 16th, at the Sea Otter Classic. Unbound Gravel, the world’s premier gravel race, follows on Saturday, May 30th.

Wild Card Roster - Men

• Carter Anderson
• Martins Blums
• Caleb Bottcher
• Hayden Clarke
• Cole Davis
• Andrew Dillman
• Derek Dotlich
• Griffin Easter
• Nicolò Ferrazzo
• Russell Finsterwald
• Kyle FryJulien Gagné
• Truman Glasgow
• Joe Goettl
• Lance Haidet
• Piotr Havik
• Cole House
• Dylan Johnson
• Yusuf Johnson
• Kyle Kalish
• Nathan Knowles
• Lasse Konecny
• Alban Lakata
• Michael Lambert
• Mathijs Loman
• Sampo Malinen
• Justin McQuerry
• Leandro Messineo
• Daxton Mock
• Lawrence Naesen
• Henry Nelson
• Amaette Nsek
• Gustave Orain
• Jonas Orset
• Ethan Overson
• Ethan Pauly
• Georwill Perez Roman
• Cullen Perkey
• Matt Pike
• David Ramon Rubinat
• Jacob Richards
• Adam Roberge
• Brody Sanderson
• Miguel Santillanes Garcia
• Tim Savre
• Rogan Smart
• Marcus Spratt
• Nathaniel Spratt
• Travis Stedman
• Nathan Surowiec
• Skyler Taylor
• Jose Eduardo Tijerina Cuesta
• Daniel Van Der Walt
• Jacob Velasco
• Cory Wallace
• Chase Wark
• Alex Wild
• Matthew Wilson

Wild Card Roster - Women

• Gabriella Arnold
• Laurie Arseneault
• Anet Barrera
• Charlotte Clarke
• Leslie Ethridge
• Natalia Franco Villegas
• Elizabeth Hermolle
• Siena Hermon
• Michelle Howe
• Caitlyn Kellogg
• MJ Lopez Aguirre
• Colleen Maher
• Deanna Mayles
• Cristina Harner
• Emily Newsom
• Lejla Njemcevic
• Florence Normand
• Laurel Quinones
• Jenna Rinehart
• Hannah Shell
• Danielle Shrosbree
• Sierra Sims
• Haley Smith
• Jen Tavé
• Michaela Thompson
• Sofia Waite

We love to bust open the keyboards and speak our minds when we get pissed off. It's human nature, and increasingly it’s the fuel that powers internet discourse. In gravel racing, the debate around Life Time's recent ban on dropbars in key events shows just how quickly controversy overtakes conversation. Opinions scatter in every direction, but friction and conflict are usually what get the most attention.

Most of the time, we cover the good stuff through straight reporting. Those stories don’t carry a heavy editorial point of view. Instead, they’re built from quotes, context and letting the facts speak for themselves. That approach works for both good news and bad. Opinion pieces are different, though, and they’re far too often resistant to giving credit where it’s due, even when people clearly deserve their flowers.

So consider this a big bouquet for the races that are doing right by their participants and pushing gravel forward, even when the spotlight is pointed elsewhere.

Gravel Worlds makes massive changes to safety while boosting prize money, again

Every year, the original Gravel Worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska, adds another ring to its trunk. A race older than the vast majority of gravel events would be forgiven for standing still now and then. But Gravel Worlds doesn’t do that. It keeps growing and increasingly sets the tone for the rest of the calendar.

In 2024, that meant audacious, wall-to-wall livestream coverage complete with announcers, drones and motos on course. In 2025, the prize money arrived in a big way, with the largest single-day purse in gravel racing. Now, for 2026, the focus shifts to safety, with a major overhaul of on-course protocols, along with even more money flowing into the prize pool.

The live coverage and cash alone would be enough to warrant a tip of the cap. Fundraising at that level and taking those kinds of risks is no small feat. But in terms of progress for the gravel discipline, perhaps the most meaningful change is the decision to guarantee corner marshals at every stop sign on the course. In road racing, that’s considered the bare minimum. In gravel, many major events still haven’t committed this level of emphasis and resources to safety outside large paved intersections.

Mid South sets a tone that could unlock aspects of racing we haven’t seen yet

The key frustration with Life Time’s decision to eliminate drop-bar mountain bikes wasn’t simply the rule change itself, it was the choice to make that change instead of addressing the root safety issue at Leadville: two-way traffic created by mixing professional and amateur fields. That criticism feels especially fair because Mid South has now shown there’s a workable alternative.

Mid South, the traditional season opener for gravel racing, is one of the largest independent events on the U.S. gravel calendar, alongside races like Gravel Worlds, SBT GRVL and Barry Roubaix. It’s a favourite among elite riders, but just as importantly, it’s a foundational event for recreational participants. For many riders, Mid South is a once-a-year pilgrimage, and one of the only races they’ll pin on a number for all season.

That broad appeal, however, has created real safety challenges on race day. The wide range of abilities in a single field led to bottlenecks and risk at the start, the finish and key points on the course. To preserve the event’s balance, and avoid a serious incident, the race needed a structural solution.

Mid South found one by moving the professional race to Friday afternoon, centering its finish around the pre-race party ahead of Saturday’s amateur event. The change gives the pro race a primetime feel while eliminating congestion in critical sectors, reducing two-way traffic, and freeing up police resources for more effective road closures.

From our perspective, it’s an honest and effective step forward, and a clear example of how gravel racing might solve safety concerns without sacrificing inclusivity or its spirit.

Rule of Three doesn’t care what the going rate is for gravel race entries are

When Rule of Three came onto the scene in 2021, it was already a counterpoint to much of the gravel racing landscape. The website featured a poem, a mission statement, and a striking image of a drop-bar cyclist pointed down a trail that perhaps warranted a very different bike. The idea was simple: three types of surfaces in one 115-mile race. What was even more unqiue was the fact that the race entry fee was less than $100.

Five years later, almost nothing has changed beyond the specifics of the course. That consistency itself is what makes it progressive. From the onset, it has centred around community, embraced affordability and delivered a one-of-one experience, unconcerned with the ebbs and flows of the greater cycling calendar.

In an era of almost universal registration price increases, an increased emphasis on the professional side of gravel, and the general big-ness of races, Rule of Three’s resilience against those changes exemplifies a race doing things right.

This is not an exhaustive list, and my apologies to the races I wanted to include but couldn’t. Races like Foco Fondo, the Appalachian Journey, Vermont Overland, and Barry Roubaix are each doing great work in their communities to move the sport forward.

Races like Unbound, Leadville, The Traka, and UCI gravel events will always command the biggest headlines. But it’s often these smaller, independent events that do the real work: testing ideas, prioritising riders and quietly shaping what gravel racing becomes next. So here's to you.

Since the dawn of the sport, gravel has been synonymous with words like “innovation,” “grit,” and “spirit.” Races have become longer, routes have become more challenging, and athletes have become more experimental. While road racing obsesses over marginal gains, gravel racers think of something crazy, an idea so outside-the-box that it just might work.

Do you remember the first time a pro gravel racer put MTB tyres on their gravel bike? We all thought it was ludicrous. Yet, only a few years later, this has become the norm at races like Big Sugar Gravel. This begs the question: what’s coming next? What crazy idea in 2025 will become the norm in 2027?

As we look across the gravel landscape, a few things come to mind: increased speeds, the need for comfort, data-driven riding and battle-tested durability. In this article, we are giving you 6 predictions that could shape the future of gravel tech. Some new, some inevitable, and some just waiting for a brand bold enough to pull the trigger.

1. Gravel Aero Goes Mainstream—Especially at the Pointy End

If you are a gravel racer, you have likely thought about a thousand different ways to make your setup faster. Whether that is an integrated cockpit or a wind tunnel-tested position, you’ve likely had the thought. Despite the arduous 200-300km race distances, gravel has shifted towards race-optimised setups that include deep rim carbon wheels, aero frames, and skin-tight aero suits. What’s coming next will be an expansion on the aero priority, small but decisive refinements and a closer look at the details.

Watch for:

• Aero-optimized forks, tubes and tyre clearance
• Hydration packs stuffed into (rather than on top of) the aero skinsuit
• Lower and narrower riding positions
• Fairing-style bottle cages

2. Tyre Width Stabilizes (Or Decreases)

2025 was the year of tyre expansion, but we may have already reached the peak of the curve. As courses grew more technical, conditions more challenging, and flat tyres more consequential, gravel riders opted for larger and larger tyres. In many races, such as Unbound Gravel and Big Sugar, a significant number of pros mounted 2.2” MTB tyres onto their gravel racing setup.

Larger tyres typically provide more grip and puncture protection, but gravel tyre tech is improving rapidly. It won’t be long before 45-50mm gravel tyres are, once again, faster than MTB tyres, even on technical terrain. Of course, there will still be extreme cases where MTB tyres are faster, but those will be few and far between. And it’s not just tyre tech that is evolving at a rapid rate…

3. You Will See Suspension Forks Everywhere

Like MTB tyres on gravel bikes, suspension forks used to be for ‘extreme cases only.’ But that is changing at a rapid rate, and now you can find suspension forks on the start line of any gravel race. Even the pros are using them, and that means they are fast. While they might add a tiny bit of weight, they can also improve aerodynamics when paired with the right frame and tyre width.

Suspension forks, such as the RockShox Rudy and Lauf Grit, can improve traction and comfort across a wide range of terrain. You might want to go rigid for the fastest, smoothest gravel races, but most gravel routes include some combination of singletrack, washboard descents and wooded tech sections. When you consider the improved aerodynamics of a suspension fork setup, it becomes the go-to option for most gravel events.

4. Suspension Seatposts Become Acceptable (and Fast)

Speaking of suspension, the fork isn’t the only area you could add the bump-numbing stuff to a gravel bike. Suspension seatposts have been around for years, first earning the spotlight at Paris-Roubaix. The bumpy cobblestones begged for an innovation that improved comfort on rough terrain, and thus, suspension seatposts were born. While these bendy and flexible seatposts aren’t for everyone, they could become increasingly popular on road and gravel bikes.

Keep an eye out for:

• 20-40 mm seatposts with new suspension designs
• Adjustable “race mode” stiffness settings
• Gravel frames designed around flex posts

5. Tyre Inserts Become Standard Equipment

As gravel tyres become lighter and faster, they can also become less flat-resistant. It’s a classic negative correlation: the faster and lighter your setup, the more fragile it becomes. Gravel cycling is not the place for fragility. In fact, most pros would probably opt for a heavier and more durable setup if it cut their puncture risk in half.

While tyre tech is improving at a rapid rate, it isn’t enough to eliminate the chances of a flat. Thus, many pros have run tyre inserts to increase protection. Inserts have a bad rap of being heavy and slow. But as the tech improves, they could become a gravel rider’s best friend.

By 2027, expect most gravel setups to include:

• Featherweight tyre inserts
• Inserts enabling lower tyre pressures that increase comfort and speed
• Brands offering tyre+insert systems
• Inserts that add lateral stability for cornering

6. The Rise of “Smart” Gravel Computers

Perhaps this one is a bit of a stretch, a bonus point, and something that I would personally love to see in gravel. We all love tech, and we all love gravel. To truly combine the two, we want to see as much data as possible in real time. How cool would it be if you could see real-time surface conditions, rolling resistance and traction levels on your bike computer?

Imagine coming into a corner, and your bike computer is telling you to what speed you need to slow down to make the corner without losing traction. It’s a bit Black Mirror-esque, like piloting a self-driving car, but it could also be the future of gravel.

Those are some far-fetched ideas, but it would also be nice to have a bike computer that provides safer turn-by-turn cues and auto-rerouting that actually avoids unrideable terrain. Have you ever been rerouted onto a 65mph highway in Arkansas? Because I have.

Final Thoughts

Gravel is the most rapidly evolving segment of cycling. It is part innovation lab, part wild west, and part escape from traditional road culture. While the spirit of gravel may be dead, there is no sign that the sport is slowing down. Races are selling out faster than ever, and there are a million new gravel products every year. We’ll keep a close eye on which ones are marketing attempts and which are here to stay.

The fact of the matter is, gravel isn’t going anywhere. When there are this many talented people in a single space, innovation thrives, and crazy ideas turn into time-tested movements.

Few tyres caused the stir that Continental’s Race Kings made last year.

Sure, tyre discourse is a niche-within-a-niche of cycling culture, but when Dylan Johnson started championing the mountain bike tyre as a gravel-racing option, people took note and conventional wisdom about gravel racing and gravel tech was thrown out the window.

While it seems trivial, the hype around the tyre, specifically the 2.2 Black Chili compound, got to the point where the Continental Race Kings (a popular choice among the gravel pros) were sold out for months on end. Racers like Johnson stockpiled the tyres; others decided against tyre sponsors to get in on the action. For a time, the Race King was the king of the gravel hill, despite being a mountain bike tyre.

Continental built on that momentum in 2025, rolling out a new line of improved mountain bike tyres. The Race King was revamped, with a full range of options for casings, tread patterns, and new model names. The Race Kings are now called Dubnitals, and like their predecessor, they were sold out in the United States within just a few weeks.

We’d hoped to include the Dubnitals in our year-long test of best mountain bike tyres for drop-bar bikes, but persistent supply issues meant we had to publish the story before we got to even try them.

In the end, we found them on a third-party website a nd finally got some time on the rubber. Are the Continental Dubnitals worth the wait if you want to ride the wide-tyre wave?

Tyre specs

• Product reviewed: Continental Dubnital Race Rapid 2.2
• Actual weight: 690 grams
• Tread: Elevated knob pattern
• Hookless and tubeless compatible
• Size options: 27.5x2.2, 27.5x2.4, 29x2.2, 29x2.4
• Balck or tan side wall options
• MSRP: $87. 99 / £59.95

Ride impression

Right off the bat, the Dubnitals were easy to work with. Due to the nature of my job, I ended up swapping the tyres onto three different rims within two weeks. And each time I was able to seat the tyres with just a floor pump, making the task easy. Nothing is more frustrating than a challenging install requiring an air compressor or a run to the local bike shop.

Once riding, the Dubnitals were equally easy to get along. Some competitors, like the Maxxis Aspen ST or the older Vittoria Terreno XC, have a very small window of PSI where the tyre feels optimal. Pleasantly, the Dubnitals have a larger window that works, allowing for a higher PSI on hard surfaces and a lower PSI on loose terrain. The Dubnitals are incredibly responsive to different setups.

The tyres' prominent knobs compared to other mountain-bike-tyres-turned-gravel-options certainly didn’t make it the fastest going to and from the gravel roads and trails. The noise of the tyre on the road was louder than I was used to, which is not necessarily a test of speed, but it is still part of what makes tyres feel slow. Yet on fast, sharp corners, the sidewalls were sturdy enough to hold and prevent the tyre from diving, which happens with other, lighter sidewalls.

It's not until you hit the dirt that the Dubnitals come into their own; it almost feels like the tyres accelerate. The tyre's power and popularity comes from those elevated knobs, which add traction and ensure incredibly predictable handling, even on very loose desert terrain. Stopping power is quite pronounced as well. Sure, the knobs might hinder the tyre's pure speed, but anecdotally, that speed delta is hard to parse out.

According to those who do put the tyres through rigorous quantitative testing, the data agree. The speed penalty is not nearly as steep as the handling benefit suggests. Here is data from John Karrasch, whose method of testing is widely seen as top of the class in terms of quantitative outdoor field testing:

While it’s natural for racers to fixate on outright speed, gravel racing is rarely a pure speed equation. It’s an efficiency problem. On gravel, efficiency isn’t earned solely through low straight-line rolling resistance (though the Dubnital holds its own with the top contenders there), but also through braking traction, cornering control and the confidence to maintain momentum across broken, unpredictable terrain.

That broader definition of efficiency is where the Dubnital becomes a genuinely compelling race option. Compared with narrower, gravel-specific tyres, and even established mountain bike benchmarks like the Race King, the Dubnital consistently preserved speed through corners, rough sections and technical features. Instead of forcing riders to scrub speed and re-accelerate, it rewarded commitment and stability.

Over the duration of a race, those gains can outweigh marginal watt savings from rolling resistance alone. While several of the leading mountain bike tyres in our comparison test performed well in this regard, the Dubnital clearly stands out for its handling and composure.

Additionally, where I feel the Dubnital could outpace the other top options is around its long-term durability. I am still early in the tyre's lifetime, but I have ridden the same rubber compound on my mountain bike with the Continental Trinotal tyre. That option held its tread on the rocky trails around Phoenix, Arizona, far longer than previous tyres I have tried. It should follow that the Dubnitals may also have a long lifespan.

With that said, I did have a flat on the Dubnitals while riding rugged terrain. I sliced one on some sharp rocks badly enough that a quick plug wouldn't do the trick. I've also heard of riders experiencing punctures with these tyres on the rougher gravel terrain of Kansas and Arkansas. That very well could be a case of the prominent knobs catching smaller, sharp rocks and slicing tyres along the base of the tyre knobs, but that is speculation. It is just something I am monitoring.

Value & Verdict

Ultimately, the Continental Dubnital is a very strong all-around tyre that thrives across a wide range of surfaces and terrain. It may not be the lightest or the fastest in its category, but in real-world gravel racing and riding, those metrics tell only part of the story. What the Dubnital delivers, exceptionally well, is efficiency through control. Its predictable handling and braking traction through rough sections allow riders to maintain momentum rather than constantly shedding and rebuilding speed. That confidence is worth far more over the course of a long race or demanding ride than marginal watt savings on smooth ground.

It's this balance that makes the Dubnital one of the best mountain bike tyre options for drop-bar gravel bikes currently available. Going forward, I could easily see myself using it for racing, rowdy off-road rides, and even a bikepacking adventure or two.

Value only strengthens the case. While availability has been inconsistent, current pricing sits around an $88 / £60. Compared with the most direct competitors like the Vittoria Peyote, Schwalbe Rick and Maxxis Aspen ST, the Dubnital matches, and sometimes even undercuts, the field. Given its performance, handling advantage, versatility and expected durability, the Dubnitals' value arguably places it at the top of the growing category of extra-large gravel tyres.

For me, it doesn’t get much better than the Dubnital. They were well worth the wait, and they set a high bar for what this emerging segment should deliver.

By the time Pete Stetina says the words out loud, it is clear he has been living with them for some time.

At 38, the former WorldTour climber and one of gravel racing’s earliest true converts is stepping away from the pursuit that has defined his life since he was 16: the relentless chase of performance, results and podiums. Not from the bike itself, but from the version of cycling that demands everything, all the time.

“There’s this notion of feeding the rat,” Stetina says. “You have to keep feeding it, and it almost becomes an addiction at one point.”

For a rider who has spent his career challenging conventional paths, from the WorldTour peloton to the self-built world of gravel privateering, Stetina is determined to step away on his own terms as well. For him, retirement does not mean disappearing; it means reshaping his relationship with the sport that has shaped his life.

A full year in the making, Stetina announces his retirement today alongside the release of Feeding the Rat, a short documentary centred on his last full commitment to speed: one final, all-in effort up the slopes of Mount Washington.

A life shaped by the bike

Stetina grew up inside the sport. He is the son of former U.S. national champion and two-time Coors Classic winner Dale Stetina, and the nephew of Wayne Stetina, another national champion and Olympian. Brothers whom Stetina describes as the “dynamic duo” of American racing in the 1970s and 1980s. And by the time U.S. road cycling surged in popularity during the Lance Armstrong years, Stetina was already firmly on a path of his own.

He rose quickly through the American development system, earning national-team selections and spending his formative years racing in Europe. As an under-23, he got a taste of the yellow leader’s jersey at the Tour de l’Avenir, an early signal of his promise as a climber and stage racer. By his early twenties, Stetina had reached the WorldTour, carving out a long career with Garmin-Sharp, BMC Racing Team and Trek-Segafredo, valued for his ability to survive deep into the mountains on cycling’s biggest stages.

His WorldTour years were defined less by headline wins than by trust and durability. He raced all the Grand Tours and was a key mountain lieutenant in Ryder Hesjedal’s 2012 Giro d’Italia victory. And when opportunities did arise, he showed his own depth with podiums and top-tens at the Tour of California, Tour of Utah and Tour of Colorado.

Some less-glorious moments reshaped him just as deeply, he says, pointing to a horrific crash in the Basque Country, which left him with a broken leg and a long road back.

All told, Stetina enjoyed a solid, respected WorldTour career, one that ended not through necessity but opportunity. Rather than step away quietly or chase marginal contracts, he built a future in the then-little-known world of gravel racing, helping to define what the discipline could become.

"When I left the WorldTour, I didn't retire. I said, This is a discipline in its own right, and I’m going to come race it. It deserves to have its own professionals," Stetina recalls.

In 2019, gravel racing was still a loosely defined space. There were must-do events and some personalities, but little structure and no clear professional pathway. Stetina built his own, coining the term “privateering” to describe a one-man operation that combined racing, sponsorship, logistics and promotion.

“I based my career on gravel,” he says. “I was going to sink or swim with this ship.”

And the leap was rewarded on the results sheet. Stetina emerged as one of gravel racing’s early standard-bearers, winning Traka in Europe and the Crusher in the Tushar in the U.S., while consistently featuring at the front of events like Unbound Gravel, Belgian Waffle Ride California and Leadville. In a discipline still defining itself, he proved that a full-time gravel career was not only possible, but sustainable and fulfilling.

Six years on, the landscape is barely recognisable. Gravel racing is global, hyper-competitive and increasingly professionalised. For Stetina, that evolution has been both a gift and a mirror.

“I came to gravel to have a more fulfilling and fun experience,” he says. “And I almost feel like I’m back in the WorldTour that I left. That’s not a negative thing, but it’s so high-performance now. It extended my career even more than I ever thought possible.”

It also delayed the reckoning. “I never really did retire,” he says. “I just transitioned disciplines. Now it's time."

Why now?

Asked what made this the moment, Stetina pauses. “It’s a lot of things,” he says. “It’s complicated.”

Age plays its part, as does motivation. The hunger that once defined him no longer burns in quite the same way. “The endless pursuit of another race, another performance; it’s starting to get tiresome and not fulfilling,” he says. “Winning doesn’t mean the same anymore.”

Family plays a factor, too. “A big part of it is not having the bike dictate every angle of family life,” Stetina explains. “The bike would have to come on every family vacation. That’s not fair to my wife, to my kids growing up. I want to be more present at home.”

And then there is the sport itself. Gravel, the space that once gave him freedom, has evolved into something far sharper-edged. “I love it,” he says. “But it’s changed from what it was in 2019.”

This year was always meant to be the end. And for his last hoorah, Stetina had planned his 2025 season around one final target: the Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb.

The Mount Washington climb is short, brutal and steeped in American bike racing history. Contested and won by Tour de France veterans, Olympians and national champions such as Tyler Hamilton, Tom Danielson, Ned Overend and Jeannie Longo, the event covers just 7.4 miles (11.9 km) but climbs 4,678 feet (1,425 m) at an average 12.6% gradient, with ramps that pitch up to 22%.

His father, Dale, held the record on the climb for 17 years. When organisers reset the record books in 2022 after paving the final gravel section, Stetina saw an opportunity to reconnect with that family legacy.

“My overriding desire was to do it all right, one last time,” he says. “So that I could put myself to pasture at peace.”

He committed fully. “I went all in this year,” Stetina says, from dieting and altitude camps to bike modifications. “I wanted no regrets.”

There was also the hope that Mount Washington might provide a "beautiful moment" to close this competitive chapter: a victory, a final high point, a place to announce his retirement.

But the beautiful moment never came. Illness struck at the wrong time, and on race day Stetina could only watch as his close friend Ian Boswell rode away and claimed the win.

“This was one of the poorest seasons of my career,” he admits. “Something went wrong every race. And Mount Washington was the epitome of that. I put so much into that record and that family legacy. Looking back, I was trying to control and write my own destiny, and no one gets to do that.”

That tension is what Feeding the Rat, the documentary that accompanies Stetina’s retirement announcement, is really about. The short film captures the reckoning that comes at the end of an athletic career: knowing when to let go and how much purpose to attach to performance.

For Stetina, the bike has been his career, his community, his second life partner, and he admits he is nervous about what comes next.

One Last Lap

“I’m nervous,” Stetina says plainly. “When you retire as an athlete, it can be a midlife crisis.”

After more than two decades of measuring life in training blocks, race calendars and marginal gains, he is acutely aware of what can happen when that structure disappears overnight. “When this is all you’ve done since you were 16, you need to put that intensity somewhere else,” he says. “And if you don’t, you can spiral.”

That awareness has shaped the way he is choosing to step away. Rather than draw a hard line under his racing career, Stetina is opting for a long, deliberate exit. One that allows space to adjust, reflect and redirect. “I like the long tail,” he explains. “I think when riders just stop, you see people get in trouble. They don’t know what’s next.”

Part of that process is a farewell tour: a limited series of races that matter to him personally. “There’s no pinnacle,” he says. “It’s just a collection.” Levi’s GranFondo in his hometown of Santa Rosa, Belgian Waffle Ride California, Mid South, Oregon Trail and Steamboat. All places that shaped his gravel career and still hold meaning beyond results.

“I’m really grateful that I get to do it on my terms,” Stetina says. “It’s so rare in this sport. Usually, the sport decides when you’re done.”

Alongside that gradual goodbye, he is stepping into a new role that keeps him close to the sport without being consumed by it. Stetina will extend his relationship with Canyon and several long-time partners, attending races not as a podium hunter but as a Spielertrainer, a player-coach helping guide the next generation of gravel professionals.

“I’m truly just retiring from the pursuit of pro podiums and being a professional athlete and what that entails,” he says. "I want to keep going to these events and explore them in different ways. Maybe sometimes I’ll be quick, but that’s not the objective.”

The motivation now lies in helping others navigate a world he helped build. “When I started in gravel, there wasn’t a formula,” he says. “Now it’s a thing, which is awesome, but there’s this whole subset of younger pros who don’t know how to do it yet.”

Drawing on his WorldTour background and years of privateering, Stetina hopes to help younger riders learn not just how to race, but how to build a sustainable career.

"At this point, I feel like I've had a Master's in sports marketing just from having to privateer...so I'm going to help these young talents truly excel, especially Canyon's current and soon-to-be-announced new signings," he shares.

Still, the habits of a lifetime do not disappear overnight. “It’s weird,” he admits. “Even today, I went out and did a really hard ride, because it’s fun, but it’s also a habit. But I’m done living for speed on the bike, you know?"

It always seemed inevitable, and now it has finally happened – in the space of a few frustrated business meetings, the course of what is arguably the most important gravel race in the UK has taken a major and irrevocable steer.

You may have seen the news earlier this week that the British Gravel Championships will be run, or at least overseen, by British Cycling from now on. The original organiser, Red On Sports, has walked away from the event after failing to agree terms with BC, and while it could continue to run its own separate championships, Red On understandably decided that having two competing events (and champions) is not in anyone's best interests.

Contracts, tendering processes, money – this wasn't what gravel was supposed to be about, was it?

The unfortunate truth is that it's not easy to run any major event without money poking its ugly nose in. Even at club level you'll need to pay levees to cover insurance, while for those who work for events companies such as Red On Sports or Life Time, which runs Unbound and the Life Time Grand Prix series in the US, it's how they put food on the table.

So does this mean the so-called spirit of gravel is on its way out, if indeed it ever really existed? I would argue not – although when it comes to racing, that spirit tends to dissipate on a par with how big the event is. Take the UCI World Championships, with its road WorldTour protagonists universally riding bikes with five figure swing-tags around courses designed to satisfy any number of business concerns.

Then again, take the Tour Divide. This ultra-bikepacking event, which bisects the USA from north to south, is a completely different offering to the UCI Worlds. No entry fees or qualifications, no prizes, no support, no fancy jersey for the winner and no specific bike requirement. And yet, if you exist in the gravel sphere, you might even consider this the event with more cachet.

When it comes to what most of us think of as the spirit of gravel, Tour Divide's 'come one, come-all' approach ticks almost every box.

Tour Divide is still a race though, with winners, losers and an extremely arduous 4,400km parcours. Perhaps gravel's true spirit lies well away from finish lines and bib numbers, and can instead be found in the world of group rides, solo rides, and phone pictures of landscapes and friends with bikes leaning against gates, trees and bridges.

The onlookers who argue that Britain has no 'real gravel', or that gravel bikes are just glorified 90s mountain bikes, or a cyclo-cross bike badged differently, are missing the point, because this is the beauty of the 'discipline'. A gravel ride can encompass any surface, from tarmac, to muddy singletrack, canal towpaths to the one we all see in our dreams – that famous 'champagne gravel'.

What's more, it can be undertaken on any kind of bike. Whether it's a brand new, fully fledged gravel machine, your old CX bike, or indeed a Nineties mountain bike. Turn up to the group gravel ride on any of these and nobody will look at you funny – and that, I'd say, is the spirit of gravel.

Having inaugurated and organised the British Gravel Championships for the past five seasons, Red On Sports has walked away from the event after British Cycling opted to begin running its own version.

Red On, which also organises The Gralloch gravel event, said in a statement that it had been unable to reach an agreement with British Cycling that "protects the integrity, ambition, and sustainability of the Championships."

It added: "After choosing not to be involved during the British Gravel Championships' formative five years of growth and delivery, British Cycling is now looking to take the Championships forward under their own structure."

It went on to say it had failed to secure "key guarantees" from British Cycling that would ensure "fair and safe racing delivery, long-term [media] investment, racing for all age groups, and sustainable event growth".

Red On's Maximilian Wussler told Cycling Weekly this was largely due to age group racing that was set to be in 10-year brackets rather than the current five years, as well as difficulty funding things such as exclusive-use environments and control rooms, because of the loss of "50% of commercial rights".

Explaining the points about investment, Wussler said that BC had only offered Red On a one-year contract

"You can't invest in something if there's no guarantee of a future addition, because that's the idea of investing – you reap the rewards down the line," he said. "One would hope there's a realisation on British Cycling's front that it's going to require investment, and that can only happen if there's multi-year commitments."

Wussler added that Red On Sports had nevertheless been invited to take part in the tendering process as BC searched for an organiser, but said its plans were uninspiring and seemed like a "rinse and repeat" from other disciplines. "I think it's just more of the same, really. And I think a thriving discipline like gravel needs an approach that is appropriate for it, rather than a bit of a rinse and repeat from other disciplines."

"It's obviously not the news we were hoping to share at this point in the year," Wussler said. "It's been a long process, and it's come to what is, on the whole, a rather sad conclusion."

Red On could feasibly, and legally, continue to run its own version of the championships, but decided it would not make sense for riders or organisers.

"It would not be in anyone's interest for there to be two competing championships," Wussler said. "And that's also why, from the get-go, we've been very open to to working with British Cycling. In 2021 when the first event launched, and we did approach British Cycling about this, but at the time, it was not something they believed in or wanted to support.

"So obviously, over those sort of formative years, we made the investment and put in the time and effort and dedication to grow it," he said. "Now we're here five years later. It's a thriving discipline, and it's become a thriving discipline without British Cycling involvement. Obviously it was probably a bit of a turning point for British Cycling to say they want in."

Responding to Red On's statement, a British Cycling spokesman rejected the idea that there would be any issues over safety and fairness, saying in a statement:

“Gravel is an ever-growing and popular discipline, and we are excited to be expanding our delivery moving forward. We are currently out to tender for a sanctioned British Gravel Championships for the first time in 2026 with lots of interest from enthusiastic and knowledgeable event providers.

“We are committed to ensuring events work for everyone involved, from riders to event organisers, from volunteers to the wider cycling network, and this is central to our strategic work in modernising the sport. Fair and safe racing is paramount to our delivery of events across disciplines and is critical in our decision making when collaborating with event providers to deliver competition.”

For its part Red On remained optimistic about the future, Wussler said, with the imminent announcement of a new event, which would "essentially take The Gralloch-type format without the UCI brand to a venue in England".

"We've seen the success of The Gralloch and we're trying to bring that to more venues," he added. "And as we've seen with Dalby Forest and other venues we've looked at over the past, there's some beautiful gravel available across Britain."

The Life Time Grand Prix has announced its 2026 roster, with a cast of 22 men and 22 women hand-selected for the world’s premier endurance off-road series.

The field once again will feature top gravel and mountain bike talent from North America and around the world as the series continues to grow into an institution on the global cycling calendar. While other series have emerged, Life Time remains the biggest fish in the gravel pond.

A big change heading into the 2026 season was both an increase in the overall prize purse, with $590,000 in total winnings up for grabs, and a refined selection process. Before today, five men and five women were already guaranteed a spot in the 2026 roster by virtue of their top five finishes in the 2025 overall.

This includes the returning champions Sofia Gomez Villafañe, a former mountain bike Olympian and three-time Life Time Grand Prix winner, and Cam Jones, the first international winner of the men’s competition. Keegan Swenson will also be returning, with a marathon world championship under his belt, as will Melisa Rollins, who has shown that her potential is only growing in the off-road space.

Additionally, Griffin Hoppin and Ruth Holcomb earned their tickets to the series by winning the U23 series this year, providing a much-needed boost to the series' credentials as a viable platform to develop American talent in true professional, international competitions.

As for the other spots? Here is the breakdown of who made the cut, what that means for the series, and who might be in the mix for the key wildcard places:

Klöser, Migón, and Aguirre bring international talent to the women’s field

On the women’s side, the big new additions are, first and foremost, the past two champions of Unbound Gravel: Rosa Klöser, the 2024 champion, and Karolina Migoń, the 2025 champion.

Both riders are from Europe, which is a significant development for the women, as the female side of the LTGP has typically skewed more toward North American riders than the men's field. This year, with the inclusion of those two Europeans as well as South African Hayley Preen, Frenchwoman Cecile Lejeune, Kiwi Samara Sheppard, and Australian Courtney Sherwell, the competition is suddenly much more global.

If Unbound is anything to go by, this should be a significant boon to the competitive balance of the women’s season-long battle. While Sofia Gomez Villafañe has won the last three Life Time Grand Prix editions, she last won Unbound in 2022, the only year she didn’t win the Grand Prix overall.

That being said, the North American contingent remains strong, with Sarah Sturm returning to the series, along with US national gravel champion Lauren Stephens, after a season away from the competition. Those riders, plus the likes of Cecily Decker, Lauren De Crescenzo, Melisa Rollins, and Gomez Villafañe, should deliver a fiercely competitive 2026 season.

2026 Life Time Grand Prix women’s roster

• Morgan Aguirre – 32, USA
• Lauren De Crescenzo – 35, USA
• Cecily Decker – 27, USA
• Maude Farrell – 34, USA
• Sofía Gómez Villafañe – 31, Argentina
• Stella Hobbs – 32, USA
• Ruth Holcomb – 22, USA
• Rosa Klöser – 29, Germany
• Sarah Lange – 34, USA
• Emma Langley – 30, USA
• Cecile Lejeune – 27, France
• Karolina Migoń – 29, Poland
• Paige Onweller – 36, USA
• Hannah Otto – 30, USA
• Hayley Preen – 27, South Africa
• Melisa Rollins – 30, USA
• Ruby Ryan – 24, USA
• Samara Sheppard – 35, New Zealand
• Courtney Sherwell – 37, Australia
• Alexis Skarda – 36, USA
• Lauren Stephens – 39, USA
• Sarah Sturm – 36, USA

Merit and youth bolster the 2026 men's roster

While the Life Time Grand Prix has had a successful run in its first four seasons, one of the nagging criticisms was it did a poor job of giving young riders the best opportunity to survive. From the outside, the vague selection process and the tendency to favour established names from other disciplines rather than homegrown talent were consistent questions.

In 2026, it seems as if the organisation is making a concerted effort, as the roster seems to be oriented much more toward emerging talent as well as recent gravel and mountain bike results. These moves were made to reinforce the series as a true professional sports league rather than a series that puts selection value on things like social media following and pre-established stature.

The youth additions to the roster are a clear example of this revamped emphasis on merit, as Griffin Hoppin earned his way through this year's tough season-long competition, Kyan Olshove found his way on the podium at a Life Time Grand Prix stop and a top-10 at another one, and Cobe Freeburn has consistently been touted as one of the biggest talents in the gravel pipeline in the United States. All three of those athletes are also under the age of 25.

Additionally, of the international selections, five of the six new riders from overseas are 26 and under. Add to that this season's breakout star Cam Jones, who is only 25, and the international talent is magnitudes younger than in previous years. Once again, this is a huge stride Life Time is making to craft a series that is significantly more professional and global.

• Matthew Beers – 31, South Africa
• Zach Calton – 28, USA
• Cobe Freeburn – 24, USA
• Griffin Hoppin – 22, USA
• Brendan Johnston – 34, Australia
• Cameron Jones – 25, New Zealand
• Andrew L’Esperance – 34, Canada
• Bradyn Lange – 26, USA
• Payson McElveen – 32, USA
• Simen Nordahl Svendsen – 26, Norway
• Kyan Olshove – 23, USA
• Cole Paton – 28, USA
• Simon Pellaud – 33, Switzerland
• Marc Pritzen – 26, South Africa
• Torbjørn Røed – 28, Norway
• Andreas Seewald – 34, Germany
• Felix Stehli – 25, Switzerland
• Anton Stensby – 24, Norway
• Jan Stöckli – 26, Switzerland
• Caleb Swartz – 26, USA
• Keegan Swenson – 31, USA
• Alexey Vermeulen – 31, USA

The battle for the wild cards

The 2026 season will see a return of the wild card process, in which three men and women will be added to the roster after Unbound Gravel based on cumulative results at the first two races of the series.

With the restructuring of the selection process, the biggest name who will presumably be in this bucket is Dylan Johnson. The prominent YouTuber and a top-10 finisher at Unbound in 2024, had terrible luck in 2025, with his season disrupted when he was hit by a truck and seriously injured. While he managed to miss only one race, it no doubt caused a massive disruption in his season. The new selection criteria explicitly state only results from the past year are considered, so that meant Johnson was out of luck, especially with his major early-season goal, Midsouth, disrupted by wildfires.

Nevertheless, he knows what it will take to earn his way into the series in 2026.

Potential men’s wild card contenders:

• Dylan Johnson
• Russell Finsterwald
• Michael Garrison
• Matthew Wilson

The big name missing on the women's roster is Haley Smith. Smith, an Olympian from Canada, is the only other woman besides Sofia Gomez Villafañe to have won the series and she's been a consistent face in the field. However, besides a big win at the Migration Gravel Race, 2025 was a below-par year for the Canadian. Still, it is a surprise to see her not on the roster. It is also another testimony to the depth of the 2026 selections.

With Smith, there is no question she can be in the mix for a wild-card nod. The bigger question will be, does she want to try? The gravel calendar is broad, and after a few seasons in the Grand Prix, some riders, like Peter Stetina and Heather Jackson, have left the series behind for a schedule on their own terms.

Potential women’s wild card contenders:

• Haley Smith
• Dani Shrosbree
• Ellen Campbell
• Michaela Thompson

I knew Gravel Burn was going to be a tough race. As a South African, I have a deep understanding of the terrain, not to mention the harsh, hostile environment and weather; yet, nothing could have prepared me for what unfolded over seven days in the Great Karoo.

At dinner before Stage 1 and even in the start chute, I overheard riders chatting about their training camps and recon rides conducted on the route – something I couldn’t do, being based in the UK. Some of you may recall reading about my Gravel Burn bike check from last month. I put a lot of thought into my bike and equipment setup, testing numerous tyre configurations with various inserts. The terrain I used for testing was far from tame – I did a lot of training on rocky trails, mountain bike trails, open and exposed gravel roads, not forgetting sand. There’s a lot of sand in the South Downs over summer.

I felt confident with my equipment and my fitness, but there was one thing I couldn’t train for here in the Surrey Hills: the duration and technicality of the descents. Even if I managed a training camp in South Africa and spent time on the exact route and descents, the level of erosion from just one hour of heavy rain would render the terrain unrecognisable. I guess what I needed was long descents where I could test my equipment compliance and body fatigue.

There was a lot of washboard (corrugated ridges) on the route, which was hard and energy-sapping on the body, especially for someone like me at 60kg. I wouldn’t say I expected archetypal European or American gravel for 800km, but I did at least think there'd be periods of smoother stretches. There wasn't much of that, I'm afraid. See, African gravel is on a whole other level and needs to be respected; otherwise, you’ll pay for your transgressions in punctures, broken wheels, a wrecked body, tears, and a dwindling bank balance.

While my Cannondale SuperX Lab71 did the job, and I feel many of my equipment and component choices were correct, in retrospect, the complete setup might have been too racy for the 800km route.

What did I get right?

The Avec Aer grips I fitted a few weeks before Gravel Burn were a Godsend. I spent most of the race in the drops, as this provided added control and grip, allowing me to utilise the cushioning of the grips when the terrain became really bumpy. They also helped on the really long descents. I highly recommend the Avec Aer grips for all gravel racers looking for improved control and comfort from the front end. I finished the race with no blisters or bruising on my hands.

A chain catcher is a non-negotiable on this terrain. Every day, riders would drop their chains and lose the group, resulting in hours spent in the wilderness, often against a headwind. Every day, I’d hear the chain catcher working – even with the narrow-wide SRAM X-Sync chainring and super-stiff direct-mount rear derailleur. The terrain was bumpy and relentless, and this simple addition prevented the chain from jumping off the chainring. This gave me the confidence to push through the corrugated sections and maintain the power.

The Wolf Tooth DEL Gravel Race pedals were a last-minute addition, but an upgrade that was worth every penny. It saved me a total of 100g for the pair compared to the Shimano XTR equivalent, and that was all I needed for the race. I used them for six of the seven stages, opting for the Look Keo Blade Carbon Ceramic Ti pedals for the tarmac-heavy Stage 5. While there were moments where rock strikes and flying debris were concerns, the Wolf Tooth pedals never let me down, providing an aerodynamic and supportive platform from which to pedal effectively. They are highly robust, nicely weighted for easy clipping in at the start, and durable enough to withstand the harsh African terrain. In fact, a post-race examination revealed a few scuffs but no damage whatsoever.

The SRAM Red XPLR AXS groupset is usually rock solid and reliable. The braking modulation and precision are unmatched, and the ergonomics proved exceptional over the unforgiving terrain. I did have one unusual issue on the morning of Stage 3, where the rear mech stopped working 20 minutes before the start. In fear and panic, I barreled down to the bike mechanic station and asked for help. To my surprise, Devon Katzen from SRAM South Africa (Cape Cycle Systems) warrantied the part, fitted it in five minutes, and sent me on my way. Devon is, without a doubt, one of the unsung heroes of the event, and many riders will agree with me.

My gearing was spot on. The 42T, 10-46T proved ideal for the route profile, with enough climbing gears for the steep, mountainous stages and plenty of top speed for fast tarmac-heavy days where speed was the priority. I considered a 44 or 46T, but the stock gearing was all I needed.

I'm super happy with my decision to use the Tacx Deva bottle cage. Bottle cages are often overlooked details, but a reliable option will keep your bottle secure and look after it. I didn't lose any bottles on the course, and although on one occasion the corrugations partially dislodged it, there was enough grip to prevent it from ejecting. I highly recommend the Tacx Deva bottle cage.

My USWE hydration pack was a game-changer. Not long ago, hydration packs were frowned upon by mountain bike marathon racers, but they’re now valuable for ultra-endurance stage races such as Gravel Burn. The 1.5-litre bladder coupled with my 700ml bottle was all I needed every day and ensured my hands stayed on the bars.

What did I get wrong?

Okay, I know – I got my tyre choice wrong. I think the tread pattern of the Vittoria Terreno T30 (previously called Terreno Dry) wasn’t suited ideally to the race, especially Stage 1, which was a mud bath. In hindsight, I’d have gone with a mixed gravel Vittoria Terreno T50 with reinforced sidewalls and 50mm width front/rear. The 47mm width was a good shout, but 50mm is probably the minimum width for Gravel Burn; extra volume will do wonders for boosting grip and comfort.

I punctured on Stage 3 and Stage 7, both times at the rear. Stage 3 was a 10cm sidewall tear, which necessitated replacing the tyre completely; as a result, I lost a lot of time. Stage 7 was a small gash that I managed to plug and nurse to the next aid station. So what went wrong with my choices? Well, I wanted 47mm tyres from the start as this width proved the best in terms of plushness, grip, speed and durability. The only Terreno model that met this criterion was the Terreno Dry with Gravel Race construction and limited sidewall protection. Looking back, I should have opted for the new Gravel Endurance construction of the Terreno T30, and gone with either the 45 or 50mm width options and boosted sidewall protection - but that's hindsight for you. My choice had nothing to do with weight savings but rather the feel, grip and ride quality afforded by the 47mm width. I raced the majority of the Gravel Burn with a 50mm Specialized Tracer up front and 47mm Vittoria Terreno Dry at the rear.

In retrospect, I would have kept the Vittoria AirLiner inserts, too. I eventually refitted my inserts for Stages 4 onwards, and they made a massive difference in terms of comfort and confidence on the downhills. While inserts numb communication and ride feel, there’s more to be lost by ditching them. Make sure you experiment and find the right inserts that work for you.

What I would change

I've given this a lot of thought over the past week, particularly during the flight home. And while the SuperX Lab71 was a pleasure on the climbs and false flats, I felt I was working harder than I needed to on the corrugated flats and technical descents – and this, I believe, contributed to compound fatigue later in the week. I wasn’t alone in this regard, and there were many riders in the same boat as me. I made some adjustments as the week unfolded, but there were certain things I couldn’t change. The SuperX platform is not compatible with a suspension fork, and there’s only so much wider tyres and inserts can do.

I believe that for a race like Gravel Burn, the benefits of a suspension fork are undeniable – and the added weight is compensated for by increased control and comfort. I think a 30mm RockShox Rudy fork with perfectly set compression and rebound is a good starting point, as it will help take the edge off and lessen fatigue. It will also ensure greater control, keeping the front wheel accurately tracking with the surface. This, coupled with a large-volume tyre with inserts, I reckon, will be a popular choice next year.

Would I have been more comfortable on a gravel bike with a suspension fork? Yes, of course. Would I have finished higher up in the GC? That’s debatable and difficult to quantify. I think I would have been less fatigued and perhaps had a little more to give on the final stage, had everything gone smoothly and I hadn't punctured. So while the SuperX Lab71 got me through one of the toughest gravel stage events on the calendar, I’m sure I could have got away with riding a Cannondale Topstone – the geometry isn’t too different, it’s just a little heavier. Not only does it feature rear suspension and a 40mm Lefty Oliver fork, but it also accommodates tyres of up to 52mm. It might just be the ideal weapon for Gravel Burn - perhaps I should test this theory next year?

I also mentioned in my pre-event bike check that the Canyon Grail didn't quite hit the spot for me, but I reckon the Grail CF 8/CF 9 with RIFT or even a Ribble Ultra-Grit with suspension might have helped soften the rhythmical yet painfully perfect corrugations that played on repeat for seven days.

In the first days of November, Alexis Cartier finally rolled up to his doorstep in Montreal, a little leaner, a little dustier and with ten thousand miles in his legs. He’d been gone since April, spending the last seven months racing, camping and pedalling his way across a continent.

“That was a cool ride,” he says, with the understatement of someone describing a weekend spin. “It was a bit more than I planned: about 10,000 miles, 16,000 kilometres, of bikepacking in seven months.”

Ten thousand miles. That's about twice what the average cycling enthusiast logs in a year; roughly the distance from Montreal to Buenos Aires; or, in Cartier’s case, the distance from California to Kansas, to Colorado, to Wisconsin, to Arkansas, and finally back to Quebec.

For Cartier, 34, this wasn’t some bucket-list bike tour or sabbatical adventure; it was his commute.

The Canadian racer spent 2025 contesting the Life Time Grand Prix, America’s premier off-road race series, which spans seven months, six events and the width of the United States. He entered as a Wild Card selection, one of a handful of athletes invited to take on the series without guaranteed spots, but rather than amassing air miles between start lines, Cartier chose to ride to every single one.

Riding with purpose

Cartier’s idea wasn’t born out of wanderlust, but conviction. “I wanted to challenge the environmental impact of bicycle racing,” he says. “That was the plan when I quit road cycling. I felt there was an opportunity to do that in gravel.”

He had tested the concept in 2024, riding between a few smaller events to see if it was even feasible to combine racing with self-supported travel.

“Last year, I got better at bikepacking and tried to train at the same time,” he says. “It was fun, but I realised performance takes a bit of a hit. Still, it was no less fun. In a race, there's still a race a little further back, even if you're not all the way in the front."

When Life Time released its 2025 calendar, Cartier noticed the dates were spaced out in a way that made it possible for him to link them all by bike.

“It was the biggest project I could do,” he says. "But it's also really simple. You just do those races and link them by bike. Not that much logistics in advance: every day, you just map it and go.”

Life on the road

Cartier’s season began on the Pacific Coast, where he landed in San Francisco, California, and rode south to the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey. From there, he turned east and started crossing the continent, a journey that would take him through deserts, plains and high mountains before looping back north for one last cross-continental trek between Arkansas and Quebec.

After finishing Unbound Gravel in Kansas, Cartier boarded his only flight of the season, returning to Canada to stay within U.S. visa limits and to race the Canadian Gravel Nationals, where he finished eighth.

Two months separated Unbound from the next Life Time Grand Prix stop in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, so Cartier spent that midseason gap the best way he knows how: on the bike.

He rode out to the Great Divide, tackling a portion of the cross-continental trail with his girlfriend. He also swung by Bozeman, Montana, for the Belgian Waffle Ride, which was conveniently right off the Divide.

Beyond that “special” break, Cartier was mostly alone, tackling long miles before setting up his tent for the night.

“I carried a good tent because it’s my house,” he says. “It’s sturdy, a bit heavy, but I can get rained on or have wind and it stands up.”

Occasionally, when heat or fatigue demanded it, he checked into a hotel. “Maybe once or twice a week,” he says. “But honestly, I sleep better in the tent now. It’s my little bubble.”

Solitude became part of the rhythm. His screen time plummeted; he planned routes on his phone but otherwise read on an e-reader or simply sat outside his tent, watching the light fade.

“You live with the natural light,” he says. “When the sun goes down, you go to sleep. When the sun comes up, you ride.” And eat whenever you can.

" I've been eating a lot, that's for sure. I just eat all the time."

One bike for racing, commuting...even Leadville

In a year defined by self-sufficiency, Cartier’s equipment told its own story. His main companion was a 3T Ultra gravel bike, modified for the demands of full-time living. He outfitted it with Old Man Mountain racks and Arkel panniers, a nod to his past life as a designer for the Quebec-based bag maker.

“They’re fully waterproof and super solid,” he says. “It's fun, too, because I’m riding some of my own designs.”

Fully loaded, the bike weighed close to 100 pounds. “Heavy, but really stable,” as Cartier puts it, carrying a tent, two sleeping bags, two inflatable pillows, a small stove, extra clothes, and spares.

"Yes, two bags and pillows: to get really cozy, nice and comfortable because it got freezing sometimes," he says.

At most races, he lined up on the same machine he’d just ridden hundreds or thousands of miles to reach. But some events demanded improvisation. For Little Sugar, the mountain-bike race in Arkansas, Cartier rented a bike, something almost unheard of among professionals.

“I hadn’t raced mountain bikes in about fifteen years,” he says. “But it came back.”

At Leadville, one of the most punishing courses in the series, he raced on his gravel bike paired with a short-travel suspension fork and 650b x 2.4” tyres.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” he laughs. “Those bikes aren’t made for suspension, but it worked. The geometry is a bit weird, but I could fit the tyres, and it was fine. Still really bumpy, though.”

That adaptability and the willingness to race with whatever equipment he had became central to his ride-to-the-race ethos. Training followed the same philosophy. Instead of structured sessions on a clean bike and smooth roads, Cartier did his intervals on a machine loaded with camping gear, racks and bags as he pedalled toward the next start line.

Better for the environment, perhaps, but not great for performance

Cartier never expected to dominate the results sheet, but he did expect to stay competitive. Early in the season, he discovered that the constant travel, the fatigue of living outdoors, and the mental effort of daily logistics made racing at his best nearly impossible.

“I thought I could train more and do intervals, but there’s stress living outside and planning stuff," Cartier says "It doesn’t seem like much day to day, but it’s always there, so you’re not in the mindset to go smash yourself because you need to keep some [energy] for decision making and surviving out there."

He still rode close to professional training volumes, around 25 hours a week, but the quality suffered.

“I tried really hard at the beginning of the season to get ready,” he says. “When I saw the results weren’t there, I focused on keeping my mental state steady.”

By midseason, Cartier had accepted that performance wasn’t the measure of success this time, but that he wouldn't try it again next season.

“I really wanted to do it,” he adds, “but I’m still a bike racer at heart, and the racing side was sidelined this year.”

The tradeoff, though, was seeing more of the United States in seven months than most people will in a lifetime. His favourite stretch? “Montana,” he says. “The riding on the Divide trail was amazing, and I had my girlfriend with me to share it.”

The least favourite came in May. “Kansas,” he says, laughing. “It was tornado season. Some days or nights, there’s no way you can sleep outside. The rain goes sideways, and lightning is everywhere. One night, there was a tornado alert, and I was in the corner of a hotel bathroom watching the radar. The tornado went about ten miles from the hotel.”

What surprised him most was the kindness he encountered.

“People are really friendly,” he says. “Maybe you’re treated differently when you have bags on your bike. You look like a traveller, not like you’re just working out.”

Looking ahead

Now home in Montreal, Cartier says he’s not planning a second lap of the continent. Next season, he hopes to spend more time training, less time travelling. He's also eying Europe.

I’m looking at a loop there around The Traka,” he says. “And I’m really looking into the Tour Divide.”

Still, there’s no denying the satisfaction of having finished what he started.

“I really liked my life riding everywhere,” Cartier says. “It’s so simple.”

Two minutes after leaving the start line of the Big Sugar Classic, I was riding towards a line of cars at 25 mph. The riders in front of me were hopping curbs in order to avoid the vehicles, with one rider nearly sliding out on the rain-slick asphalt. We were turning left onto the highway, across four lanes of traffic and towards more oncoming cars. This was supposedly the “neutral zone" of the race, but already we were racing for our lives.

In the confusion, the left side of the peloton had slipped past the pace car, and suddenly, riders were sprinting off the front of the field. In any other race, they’d be disqualified: they’d cut the course, nearly ridden into oncoming traffic, passed the lead vehicle, and launched attacks in the so-called neutral zone.

But no penalties came, so the race went on. Moments later, a race moto drifted off the back of the lead vehicle and into the peloton. Riders hesitated, unsure whether they were overtaking an official race vehicle or just trying to stay upright. By the time the moto lurched forward again, we were already barreling toward a roundabout.

When coming into a roundabout at 25 mph, which side would you choose? Neither side was faster since the race course continued straight. The race moto turned down the left side of the roundabout, so, naturally, we followed what we assumed was a race vehicle. Surely the race moto knew which way to go...

Then: chaos. Riders slammed on their brakes and skidded through the corner. A car – not a race vehicle, but a pedestrian car – sat in the oncoming lane of the left side of the roundabout. We swerved past it, missing it by just a few inches. Thankfully, we made it through safely, but I have seen riders life-flighted to the hospital from this exact scenario.

We hit the first section of gravel at 35 mph, making it through shaken but unscathed (unless you count the screaming pain in our legs). I saw a few crashes throughout the race, but 99% of them were the riders' fault. Most of the time, riders had simply come into a corner too hot.

The aid station, on the other hand, was one of the more dangerous I have experienced. After a technical and off-camber gravel descent (where some of the contenders decided to attack), we raced through the aid station at 30 mph with friends, family and soigneurs scattered across the road. I later heard from my family (who were at the aid station) that they hadn’t seen any Life Time organisers or race officials at the aid station. They just drove in on a steep gravel road and only knew where to go by following everyone else.

There were people standing on both sides of the road, which, from a rider’s perspective, is incredibly dangerous. Feeding is typically only done from the right-hand side of the road (unless you’re racing in a country that rides on the left-hand side of the road) to keep things smooth and safe for everyone. I was amazed to not see any crashes, especially since we were racing past clueless spectators at such high speeds.

Following the aid station, a steep grass climb helped split the field. From there, it was full-on racing for almost an hour before the thunderstorms rolled in. With around 10 miles to go, the rain started falling, and a few minutes later, we were racing through an absolute downpour. I could see the dark clouds in the distance, and it wasn’t long before the lightning was on top of us.

I’ve been in many sporting scenarios where the game/race/match was stopped because of lightning. I don’t know exactly what Life Time’s policy is for a lightning-caused neutralisation, but I was shocked this wasn’t it. At times, the lightning must have been less than five miles away, and we were racing across the wide open fields of Arkansas.

With a few miles to go, the rain still pelting down, we turned left onto a highway lined with hundreds of cars. All vehicle traffic was stopped in the right lane of a two-lane highway, so our group rode on the left side of the road into oncoming traffic. Thankfully, the oncoming lane seemed to be closed, but the oncoming traffic was still present, consisting of hundreds of age-group riders who were embarking on the outbound part of the course.

So there we were, racing on the wrong side of the highway in a thunderstorm, avoiding vehicles on our right and oncoming riders on our left. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as we turned off that nightmare of a road.

There were only five miles to go once we turned off the gravel for good, and then we only had to dodge puddles on the paved roads back into Bentonville. The final climbs were tough but safe, and the final sprint was thankfully clear of all traffic.

Life Time has done an incredible job growing the Grand Prix to what it is today, but I fear for rider safety in races like these.

The organisers had told us the day before the Big Sugar race that a final decision regarding the race distance would be made at 6:30 a.m. With severe thunderstorms in the forecast, they were considering shortening the Elite races from 100 miles to 50.

On race morning, 6:30 a.m. came and went, so we all rolled up to the start line with our pockets full of gels, mentally ready for a 100-mile race. 25 minutes before the Elite Men’s start, Life Time sent out an email that the race would be shortened to 50 miles. Most riders were already on the start line, warming up, or doing their final race preparations – they weren’t checking their email.

There were more than a few riders who only learned about the course change through word of mouth. And because it was so close to the start time, some riders didn’t even have the 50-mile course downloaded to their bike computer.

When it came to the race itself, the same inconsistency applied to the safety of the neutral rollout. Why did the moto lead us into oncoming traffic? Is it illegal to pass the lead vehicle? If so, why were those riders never penalised?

If you never punish those who break the rules, they will continue to break them over and over again.

Of course, without Life Time, gravel wouldn’t have the dominating status that it has today. While other disciplines are struggling to stay afloat, gravel races are selling out in minutes. These events are receiving thousands of entries, and they still have a waitlist that is twice as long.

I loved racing the Big Sugar Classic. At times, the course was sketchy and a bit scary, but it was super fun. I would go and race it again in a heartbeat, and I recommend it to anyone who loves hard gravel racing. And clearly, Life Time is doing something right, but at every race, I hear grumblings from riders about sketchy course features, less-than-pro riders in the elite fields, and other rider safety concerns.

On one hand, I get it. People will complain about anything, and gravel racing is unpredictable. I’m sure there are people in the world who complain about Mother Theresa.

Yet, on the other hand, these are professional gravel racers who fly around the world to race their bike in every condition imaginable. When I hear 20 riders saying the same thing about a sketchy neutral zone, that is when I know that it’s gone too far. Complaining about unpredictable weather is one thing; racing into oncoming traffic in the neutral zone? That is something that needs to be addressed and fixed immediately. Don’t wait until someone gets hurt.

'Tis the season — registration season that is! If you haven't planned out your 2026 cycling season yet, you'd best get to it because the biggest gravel events are selling out fast.

To make things a little easier on you, you can find some of the biggest events of the gravel calendar, their event dates and registration details below.

Get ready, set, register!

Events in North America

Unbound Gravel

Registration: Unbound is a lottery-only event. The lottery for all distances opens November 1 and remains open through the 15th. The lottery winners will be notified on November 21.
Event date: May 29 - May 31, 2026
Location: Emporia, Kansas

Unbound Gravel is a mass-start event held in the Tallgrass Prairie and Flint Hills around Emporia, Kansas, in the middle of the United States. With five race distances on offer and five thousand participants, Unbound has become the world’s marquee gravel event.

The famous 200-mile course is a true test of endurance, self-sufficiency and equipment. In addition to needing to fuel oneself for 11+ hours of riding, the sharp flint rocks are notorious for slicing tyres and dashing podium aspirations. Along the way, riders also need to contend with the undulating terrain, exposed sun-baked roads, headwinds and, if at all wet, tyre-sucking mud.

For those seeking the ultimate challenge, there's the 350-mile option called the XL. There are also 25-mile, 50-mile and 100-mile options.

Due to high demand, the event organisers cannot accommodate everyone who wishes to participate. Therefore, a random selection process determines who will be allowed to participate in the 2026 event. When registration opens, you're entered into a lottery. Those selected to participate in Unbound 2026 will be notified on November 21.

SBT GRVL

Registration: Now open. Closes October 31.
Event Date: une 27-28, 2026
Location: Steamboat Springs, Colorado

SBT GRVL has gone through an odyssey of sorts over the last few years. Outcries from local ranchers forced the race to dramatically alter its course in 2024, before it had to shift again and reschedule in 2025. After two years of upheaval, however, the race finally seems to have some stability, returning to downtown Steamboat Springs in 2026 with pro and amateur races.

The race is divided into four distances, with the Black course hosting the weekend's racing. Separate pro men's and women's starts will precede the amateur racers, while the other courses will be considered rides focusing on recreational participation.

With a return to normalcy, SBT GRVL hopes to recapture its position as the second-largest race in America after a step back in 2025, when it had to pivot to a unique split format. Surely, many riders will be happy to see the tried-and-true format return and will be back in Steamboat this June, even if the calendar remains busy at the beginning of summer.

The Belgian Waffle Ride Series

BWR Arizona: Registration open
Event date: February 28, 2026
Location: Cave Creek, AZ

BWR California: Registration open
Event date: May 3, 2026
Location: Del Mar, CA

BWR Utah: Registration open
Event date: June 16, 2026
Location: Cedar City, UT

BWR Montana: Registration open
Event date: June 20, 2026
Location: Bozeman, MT

The Belgian Waffle Ride is now entering its 14th season and has settled into its position as the second biggest off-road (or unroad, as they say) series in the United States behind the Life Time Grand Prix

When Michael Marckx created the original Belgian Waffle Ride in 2011 in San Diego, California, he never aimed for it to be a gravel race. He modelled the race after the spirit of the Belgian Spring monuments, meaning long distances and tough, technical terrain. In lieu of cobblestones, however, Marckx routed his participants over dirt sectors.

As the years went on, Marckx and his participants embraced increasingly technical and off-road terrain. Today, BWR has become more and more centred on a group of four BWR-branded races that represent the “Quadruple Crown,” which provides an ample prize purse to those who manage to do well in all four of the premier BWR events.

That isn’t the full extent of the BWR races; the number changes as different events are added and cycled through, but they are the ones with the most attendees. Arizona, in particular, has been on the rise in recent years, offering a great course with gravel-bikeable singletrack, massive cacti, and fantastic weather.

There are several race distances on offer, but all promise plenty of "suffering over sinuous, bone grinding roads fraught with arduous climbs, mud, choking dust, leg-numbing sleet or heat and winds."

Mid South

Registration: November 1
Event Date: March 13-14, 2026
Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma

Mid South, formerly known as Land Run, is gearing up for its 13th edition, for a second year in a row (we’ll cover that later). It is considered by many to be the gravel season opener. Every year, more races in warmer places stake claim to that classification, but spiritually, it is a key harbinger for what is to come. With that growing status as one of the fundamental races of the global gravel calendar, thousands of racers make the trek to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to contest the infamous red-clay roads in either the 50-mile or 100-mile race.

While the racing within the peloton is fierce, perhaps the biggest competition, however, comes from the weather and the consequent road conditions. Every year, the race is defined by the state of Oklahoma’s red dirt. If dry, the red roads are hard-packed and fast. If wet, the clay turns to thick, soul-sucking mud that’s barely rideable and is known to destroy many a drivetrain.

Last year, the weather posed the ultimate challenge when extreme winds sparked wildfires the afternoon before the event, forcing its cancellation. While a one-in-a-hundred weather event won’t likely happen again anytime soon, it is a testimony to just how volatile it can be.

For next year, the race is evolving its schedule to include a separate elite 100-mile race on Friday afternoon. That means the event is now a full two-day affair, with a 50K ultra trail running event on Friday morning before the pro race in the afternoon. For everyone else, Saturday is the main event, with the 100-mile and 50-mile mass-start amateur races running as normal. What’s more, those with energy to burn can sign up to do "the double": a 50K running race followed by a 100-mile gravel bike race the following day.

Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder

Registration: Open now
Event Date: July 8-12, 2026
Location: Bend, Oregon, among other Oregon towns

The Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder entered the gravel fray in 2019 and quickly became one of the biggest stops on the gravel calendar as the five-day stage race throughout Oregon’s Cascade Mountains is a true one-of-one event and one of the key U.S. stops of the Gravel Earth Series.

The crux of the race is that it mixes bike racing with a travelling summer camp for adults. Every day, the peloton rolls out from the start and tackles a point-to-point stage before ending at a new campsite with everyone’s belongings sitting in huge tote bins, ready for everyone to set up their camp for the night before doing it again the next day. The hanging out between he races is almost as celebrated as the beautiful riding itself.

While the six editions since have been successful, the race is a massive lift for the organisers, stretching from the months of snow removal and roadwork before the event through the frantic five days of logistics during the race. Due to that strain, the race has come out and said it's on the clock. Only four editions of the events remain, so if you are interested in a tour of the Cascades, get on it while the getting is good.

Rebecca’s Private Idaho

Registration: Opens Novermber 17, 2025
Event Date: Labor Day Weekend, starting Thursday, September 3, 2026
Location: Ketchum, Idaho

Rebecca’s Private Idaho is the brainchild of celebrated endurance racer Rebecca Rusch. Nicknamed “The Queen of Pain”, Rusch a professional athlete, entrepreneur, filmmaker, author, philanthropist and firefighter. She's got seven world champion mountain bike titles to her name along with a long list of national and world titles in whitewater rafting, adventure racing, orienteering and cross-country skiing.

Yet, despite being a racer at heart, Rusch’s main reason behind launching her Rebecca’s Private Idaho gravel event in 2013 is showcasing her chosen home in central Idaho many, many miles of scenic, unpaved roads.

A challenging event, RPI is a race for some, a ride for others and a great party for everyone. It's well-recognized as one of the world’s largest and most popular gravel cycling races.

The event consists of a four-day Gravel stage race and several one-day gravel grinders ranging between 18 and 100 miles.

Barry Roubaix

Registration: Opens November 15, 2025
Event Date: April 18, 2026
Location: Barry County, Hastings, MI

The Barry Roubaix is one of the oldest gravel races in America and was started long before the gravel name had even taken hold.

“There’s a lot of hypotheticals out there as far as what really started ‘gravel’ racing in the area,” Scott TenCate, Barry Roubaix Co-Race Director, told Cycling Weekly.

"But here in Michigan we have very cold winters and coming into the spring, a lot of the mountain bikers couldn't ride the local trails, because we had the freeze thaw that was going on. And so they were finding alternatives to being able to ride single track and from the stories that I've heard, it kind of started to migrate towards ‘Let's ride some dirt, gravel, seasonal roads'...that kind of stuff."

Nowadays, the Barry Roubaix is among the biggest gravel races in the world with 4,000 cyclists traversing the rolling Michigan terrain every year.

The Barry Roubaix offers four course options ranging between 18 and 100 miles, $40,000 in awards cash and prizes and a big afterparty for all.

PARIS TO ANCASTER

Registration: Open now
Event Date: April 26, 2026
Location: Ancaster, Ontario

Paris to Ancaster is widely seen as the original Canadian gravel event, finishing in Ancaster, Ontario, and, as the name suggests, starting in Paris, Ontario. There are a few quirks: three distance options have different start points, but the main event is the “Centro” point-to-point race, about 110 kilometres, with a 50-50 split between pavement and dirt roads.

The race began in 1994 and has stayed close to its roots with a low entry fee, an emphasis on the local community, and a simple approach to bike racing. The race has modernised in some ways over the past few years, serving as the Canadian Gravel Nationals in 2023 and joining the UCI Gravel World Series last year.

APPALACHIAN JOURNEY

Registration: To be announced
Event Date: April 4, 2026
Location: Floyd, Virginia

The Appalachian Journey is a deep cut on the U.S. gravel calendar, a hidden gem that surely will appeal to a large swath of riders. The race is unique in its format: a two-person race in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Everyone who starts must have a buddy to ride with until the line. It is like Cape Epic, but on gravel.

That alone makes the race quite appealing but the course itself also stands out. The East Coast is not the most prolific gravel region; most of the big races are in the West or Midwest, but don’t let that deter you. The Journey is a beast of a ride, filled with over a thousand feet of climbing per every 10 miles of distance, and there's plenty of fast, technical downhill to keep you on your toes. It is truly a one-of-one opportunity to challenge yourself while also connecting with a friend in a beautiful place.

ENVE GRODEO

Registration: To be announced
Event Date: June 19-20, 2026
Location: Ogden, Utah

The Enve Grodeo is a non-race race that provides riders with a few things other “real” races can’t:

one) a glimpse into the inner workings of an important American bike brand;
two) a custom bike show;
three) a relaxed day of riding over incredible terrain.

Of course, the races don’t have the same beautiful franticness that most gravel races have, and for some, that is a deal breaker. But if you can see past it, it is an event that plugs into a facet of gravel enthusiasm that offers something different. That all being said, no one is stopping you from riding as hard as you can; there is room for that, too.

Events outside North America

THE TRAKA

Registration: registration is open but filling up fast
Event Date: April 29, 2026
Location: Girona, Spain

The Traka is Spain's —and maybe even Europe's —premier gravel race, offering 100k, 200k, and 360k route options and drawing some of the world's best gravel racers to Girona. The event may be promoted on its website as 'a non-competitive bike ride whose values are ethics, camaraderie and respect for the environment,' but with the attendance of top racers, there's no doubt that Traka is a competitive environment.

Girona, known for its pro cyclist residents and picturesque landscapes, is an ideal backdrop for this event. It has grown steadily in popularity due to its challenging courses and top-tier competitors.

DIRTY REIVER

Registration: Sold out, but waitlist spots are available
Event Date: April 24-26, 2026
Location: Kielder Forest, UK

UK's answer to American gravel racing comes in the form of the Dirty Reiver. Now in its 10th year, the Dirty Reiver is the biggest gravel event in the UK and is held in the Kielder and Wark Forest on the border of England and Scotland.

Big forests, lots of hills and endless kilometres of unpaved trails make the perfect location for a gravel event, which takes its participants to new vistas and areas of the wooded region year after year.

The mass-start event offers challenges of three lengths, 65km, 130km or 200km —all held exclusively off-pavement.

TRANSCORDILLERAS

Registration: Open now
Event Date: February 22-March 1, 2026
Location: Paipa, Boyacá, Colombia

Of all the continents that should have a lot of gravel events, South America should sit very high on the list, as the continent is filled with beautiful gravel roads criss-crossing the mountains and jungles of countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. It is a gravel cycling treasure trove, and the Transcordilleras gravel stage race in Colombia is a fantastic window into this world.

The race is an eight-day stage race that crosses several of Colombia’s most intense mountain ranges, with the ho,t humid weather of February in Colombia providing an interesting wrinkle for the riders. The race is self-supported, meaning you must bring everything you need each day, so it can also be a nice introduction to bikepacking or bikepack racing without the pressure of the clock ticking. Plus, the race takes care of finding a nice place to spend the night between the 1,000 kilometres of intense gravel stages. Former WorldTour riders like Laurens ten Dam and Annemiek van Vleuten have challenged themselves here, so you know it'll be a challenge.

RADL GRVL

Registration: Open now
Event Date: January 23, 2026
Location: Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

In the past few years, RADL GRVL in Australia has replaced FNLD gravel at the top international event in the GRVL operation. The organisers of SBT GRVL have partnered with the Tour Down Under to build a U.S.-style gravel race around Adelaide, and the 112km course was an immediate hit with the race attracting several local pros and some of the favourites from the North American gravel scene.

Expect a hot race, with the date smack dab in the middle of the Australian summer. Nevertheless, the Australian cycling community is rich and has really embraced RADL GRVL as a staple of their calendar as the Tour Down Under grows year after year. Come for the gravel, stay for the WorldTour racing – that’s the idea.

THE GRALLOCH

Registration: Open now
Event date: May 16, 2026
Location: Galloway Forest Park, UK

Held just across the Scots border from the renowned Dirty Reiver and comparable in terrain, next year will see the third edition of the Gralloch. It features miles of double track scoring both deep forest and open countryside, and numerous challenging climbs offering some tremendous views.

Based on the town of Gatehouse of Fleet, this is a proper race and has always been part of the UCI's Gravel World Series, meaning the top 25% of finishers qualify to ride in the Gravel World Championship later in the year.

It's a prized win in its own right, too, with the men's event won this year by former WorldTour rider Petr Vakoc, taking the win in the men’s race after a close-fought battle with Matt Holmes, while Tessa Neefjes took the women’s race ahead of a slew of British favourites.

I grew up in South Africa and cut my teeth mountain biking and completing gruelling events such as the Absa Cape Epic. African gravel cycling is not the same as its European equivalent and a lot of international riders fail to grasp the realities of the terrain on the southern tip of Africa. As a native, not even I'm immune to the possibilities that lie beyond every corner and crest, but there are some things you can prepare for.

Sand. It's usually very deep and comes out of nowhere, sometimes going on for kilometres. Sniper thorns the size of conkers that hide in that very sand - stay away from any grass, too, as that's also a hotbed for smaller thorn clusters. Rocks as sharp as a knife, jagged enough to cut through your tyre, and hard enough to crack your frame and wheels in half. And I haven't even got to the weather and sauna-like temperatures. Wildlife? That's standard, mate. These animals are usually of the horned buck variety that make a habit of tackling you mid-stride like a rabid Eben Etzebeth. Fans of the Cape Epic will know this all too well.

You need to be prepared for all eventualities and that's why I've paid careful attention to my equipment over the past few months. Having secured an invite to Gravel Burn in March as one of only a handful of traditional media to ride and cover the event, I had time to choose my weapon of choice and eventually settled on the bike below.

In search of the perfect gravel bike platform

After testing a raft of the best gravel bikes over the past 12 months, I narrowed my choice down to three options, carefully weighing up the pros and cons of each platform. These bikes included the Specialized Crux, Cube Nuroad, and Canyon Grail - but none of them truly hit the spot, and I failed to connect with them in a gravel setting. This forced me to continue my search. As a fan of the current Cannondale SuperSix Evo platform, I thought long and hard about whether the newly launched SuperX would make the cut and decided to take a look at the bike in detail.

Securing a unit, any unit in fact, was going to take some haggling, but UK distributor Saddleback agreed to loan me the only display sample of the SuperX Lab71 on the island, which just so happened to be in my size, too. My stars were aligning, but I still needed to check if the geometry would work in an off-road setting and whether the setup and (brilliant) stock componentry needed any tweaks.

The SuperX factor

As expected, the SuperX immediately felt familiar to me. The geometry is not too far removed from its SuperSix brother, but a slightly more relaxed 71-degree head angle, longer chainstays (422mm), and a longer wheelbase (1,020mm) have added more control and stability to the platform. As the Lab71 model, it utilises Cannondale's Halo Series 0 carbon layup, which balances stiffness and compliance with a low system weight. The result is a responsive bike that climbs as well as it munches miles on the flats. Claimed weight without pedals and standard 40mm tyres is 7.2kg. I'll share the final weight of my build at the end.

Furthermore, the SRAM Red XPLR AXS 1x setup, comprising a 42T chainring and 10-46T cassette, delivers a gearing sweet spot that is good enough to crank up steep climbs and easily hit speeds of up to 50km/h on the flats without any hamster wheel-like cadence.

I also love the MOMO Cannondale SystemBar R-One bar. I'm a big fan of a one-piece bar-stem configuration, particularly for off-road riding, as this reduces the risk of the bar rotating in the stem when hitting a rut at speed. This has happened to me before on a descent, and it's frightening and could have easily led to serious injury. This integrated bar arrangement also provides a smidgeon of comfort and makes the package feel cohesive and communicative.

After just two rides, I was convinced the SuperX was the bike to use for the Gravel Burn. As mentioned above, it essentially feels and rides like my SuperSix, which is a huge win given how much time I spend racing and riding that bike. I made no changes to my fit and have even used the SuperX on a few chain gangs and long road rides, with road wheels fitted, of course. In terms of components, the bike was not perfect, and I needed to make a few minor changes to ensure it would deal with the unforgiving terrain and hostile features I'll be facing over the 800km/11,000m route.

What I kept, what I tweaked and why

Touchpoints are, without a doubt, the most essential aspect of any bike setup, as these three areas provide the comfort and support you require for long distances. Failure to ensure these areas meet your needs can result in extreme discomfort and even injury.

I kept the integrated SystemBar R-One handlebar and bar tape as is - it's just perfect, but I thought long and hard about long-term comfort and control, particularly hand fatigue after days of rough terrain and sphincter-clenching descents. To this end, I fitted a pair of 3D-printed Avec AerGrips - essentially flexible TPU shims that sit under the bar tape on your drops. These not only enhance ergonomics but also provide extra cushioning for the hands. They have proved to be a game-changer for me.

While I considered changing the stock Fizik Vento Antares 00 saddle, the more time I spent on it, the more I grew to appreciate the comfort and support it provides. I kept the saddle.

Pedals were a tricky decision. Should I go for a lighter, more aero road bike pedal or go for a more durable, mountain bike-style option? My heart said go with the road pedals, but my head said, 'mate, this is South Africa - don't be stupid.' I listened to my head and pulled out my trusty Shimano XTR M9100S, as these particular pedals are durable and relatively light, and able to withstand rock strikes comfortably. But then another idea popped into my head... The newly launched Wolf Tooth Del Gravel Race pedals. At 107g a pedal, they're over 100g lighter per pair than the XTRs and have a more aero design and slightly wider platform, so I popped those on.

The most crucial touchpoint is that of the tyre. Not only do tyres represent the only point of contact with the road, but they are also responsible for grip, speed and comfort. The Reserve 40/44 GR carbon wheels came wrapped in Vittoria Terreno T50 700x40c tyres as standard. One of the best gravel bike tyres, sure, but something I felt was way too narrow. I elected to keep the make and model, but upgrade to the Terreno T30 47c model with a semi-slick centre tread and knobbed shoulder. The extra volume afforded by this width allowed me to reduce the tyre pressure and ultimately improve speed, comfort and traction. I also tested the same Terreno T30 in both 50c front/rear and 50/47c front/rear formats, which I felt were too wide, especially since some of the stages are going to be fast. The tyres are topped up with Muc-Off sealant.

Owing to the reality of puncturing over the seven stages at Gravel Burn, I also experimented at length with tyre inserts. I fitted Vittoria Air-Liner gravel inserts, which let me reduce the pressures under 20psi front/rear but removed communication considerably, resulting in a numb wooden feel from the tyres. While these would potentially work if I were going to be racing an uber-technical one-day gravel crit course, I felt the added grams and poor feel would penalise me overall. So I ditched them but kept the high-flow Vittoria Multiway valves.

Other minor additions include a Framesandgear out-front computer mount and a chain keeper to ensure the chain stays put over rough terrain. Other hacks include taping a Pirelli PZero TPU smarttube, two CO2 cartridges and some heavy-duty tyre plugs to the toptube. I'm also going to be running just one bottle cage, offset by a USWE hydration pack.

The total system weight? 7.78kg.

I think I've managed to cover all bases with this setup and feel it represents a balanced build considering the race at hand. Whether or not my legs show up for the event, we'll have to wait and see, but for me, Gravel Burn is going to be more about the journey and less about the destination for a change.

There is some fantastic scenery to take in not to mention a chance to spot the Big Five (lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant and rhino) in all their glory, so yes, of course, I'll give each stage the odd dig but I'll mainly look to enjoy the beauty of my home country, which I haven't visited since 2019.

What do you think of my Gravel Burn racing rig? Let me know in the comments below.

After finishing second in the two previous editions, Florian Vermeersch finally took victory in the elite men's race at the UCI World Gravel Championships in Maastricht on Sunday.

The Belgian rider dropped Dutchman, Frits Biesterbos with 18km of the day remaining, on one of the course's numerous short climbs, after the pair survived from the day’s breakaway. While Biesterbos initially kept Vermeersch in sight, the Belgian, who rides for UAE Team Emirates-XRG on the road, eventually showed his class, riding clear and eventually finishing 1.23 ahead.

The pair had worked brilliantly to hold off a chase by 2023 world champion, Matej Mohorič (Slovenia) and Félix Stehli (Switzerland), who had tried in vain to chase the leaders down. After dropping Stehli with 15km to go Mohorič eventually finished in third place, 1.23 behind the winner.

Vermeersch’s win will have been extra sweet after his winning move was almost a carbon copy of that which Mathieu van der Poel did to him to win last year’s title.

The win came from the only breakaway to get established, four riders going clear with 120km of the day remaining and escaping the main group. While two of the escapees were dropped, the remaining duo managed to coordinate their effort, while behind them a series of groups grew and shrank, the race in a constant state of chaotic flux.

The chasers weren’t helped by the attritional course, where narrow trails and paths conspired with constant changes in direction to prevent any organised chase, even making keeping a group together almost impossible.

Biesterbos, who rides for the BEAT Cycling Continental team on the road and mountain bike, becomes the first Continental level rider to finish on the podium at Gravel Worlds.

Tom Pidcock was the top British finisher, taking 6th place, part of a small group which crossed the line 1.41 behind Vermeersch, his efforts thwarted by the constant presence of Belgian riders disrupting his efforts.

HOW IT HAPPENED

After Nice pulled out of hosting the event, the 2025 UCI Gravel World Championships was moved to the Dutch province of Limburg, the finish in Maastricht only 100km from last year’s championships in Leuven.

Starting in the small town of Beek, the Elite men covered a 180km route which was around 62% off-road, riding 3.5 laps of a 47km loop before a final stretch into the city.

Peppered with short, sharp climbs, the circuit was relatively lumpy, and the race offered a total of 1,450m of vertical ascent, but the day’s toughest climb was tackled on the homeward leg. Topping out only 10km from the line, the Bronsdalweg averaged 8% over its one kilometre, emerging onto a short stretch of tarmac used each year as part of the Amstel Gold Race, before dropping down into the eastern edge of Maastricht.

The opening stages were a cagey affair, a peloton of more than 100 of the 255 starters finishing the first lap together. British national gravel champion, Connor Swift, was among a small group to get away on that opening circuit, though they they were soon brought to heel by a peloton which was quickly being reduced.

With 60km ridden, Vermeersch’s winning move went up the road, and a further 10km on he had been joined by Belgian compatriot, Floris Van Tricht, Nils Politt (Germany) and Frits Biesterbos (Netherlands) and had 90 seconds on the chasing bunch. At one point the leaders’ advantage extended to almost two minutes, but by the time the race entered its final 80km a strong, aggressive and fracturing peloton was back within one minute and it seemed the break would be caught.

With 67km left to race Matej Mohorič (Slovenia) and Félix Stehli (Switzerland) attacked what remained of the peloton, the pair collecting Politt who had suffered a mechanical, but though they got close, they were unable to get within 30 seconds of the leading trio.

Further back, Tom Pidcock made repeated attempts to bridge but was repeatedly chased down by a phalanx of Belgians, the chase stalling each time the Briton was caught, and the group struggled to get within 50 seconds of the front. Indeed, that group soon slipped further back and out of contention.

Quinten Hermans (Belgium) did manage to get away from Pidcock’s group, first alone, before being joined by compatriot Tim Wellens and Rick Ottema (Netherlands), while the race changed complexion ahead of them when Van Tricht was dropped from the leading group.

This made no difference though, Mohrič and Stehli slipping inexorably backwards and even when Pidcock dragged Timo Kielich (Belgium) across to the Hermans group, they were unable to dent the leaders advantage.

RESULTS

UCI GRAVEL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS - ELITE MEN, BEEK > MAASTRICHT (180.9KM)

1. Florian Vermeersch, Belgium, in 4:39:12
2. Frits Biesterbos, Netherlands, +40
3. Matej Mohorič, Slovenia, +1:23
4. Floris Van Tricht, Belgium, +1:40
5. Félix Stehli, Switzerland, +1:41
6. Tom Pidcock, Great Britain, at same time
7. Tim Wellens, Belgium, 1:46
8. Rick Ottema, Netherlands, +2:46
9. Timo Kielich, Belgium, at same time
10. Magnus Bak Klaris, Denmark, +3:59

The idea of aero gravel is taking the broader industry by storm, but 3T was an early adopter of the concept back in 2016 already with the original Exploro gravel bike. The Italian company has since applied its aero recipe to its complete gravel range, including the terrain-trouncing Extrema Italia and road-inspired Primo². It has also completely revamped the Racemax Italia platform to keep it relevant. 3T claims version two of the Racemax Italia is up there with the segment's best gravel bikes and says, "it represents the most race-oriented gravel bike, built to perform at its best on fast and smooth surfaces."

This might sound like a lot of marketing hype but having spent a lot of time on the burly Extrema Italia and road-going 3T Strada Italia, the company might be onto a very fast gravel bike recipe here.

Racemax² Italia gravel bike specifications

Visually, the Racemax² Italia utilises an aero-inspired design recipe across the range - underscored by a new variable-width down tube, seat tube with wheel cut-out, new seatstays and a deep time trial bike-like headtube. These tweaks have been implemented to streamline airflow around the front of the bike, bottles and tool compartment.

The Racemax Italia's geometry is on the racier side with a stack and reach figure of 569mm and 377mm, respectively. The 71.5-degree head- and 74-degree seat tube angle are on par with racing gravel bikes in the category, while the 1,015mm wheelbase and 420mm chainstays should make for a rather playful and agile machine. Four sizes are available: small, medium, large and extra large.

As with most bikes that fall under the endurance and gravel bike category, in-frame storage has become an appealing system to help free your pockets from tools and other faff. The Racemax² Italia's Fidlock storage system gets a neoprene storage bag, as well as a locking plate mechanism that doubles up as a bottle cage mounting interface. That said, the frame can also be ordered without the storage compartment.

To improve visibility, there's a five-mode, 25-lumen integrated seatpost light. It can be removed wen necessary, particularly when mounting a rear bikepacking bag.

The quest for wider tyre clearance

In terms of tyre clearance, the Racemax² Italia hasn't pushed the boundaries here but rather looked to accommodate the segment trend of going wider. As such, the maximum clearance is rated at 51mm for 1x setups, and 48mm for configurations with a front mech in place - these numbers are on par with bikes such as the Cannondale SuperX and Ribble Ultra-Grit gravel bikes.

For the best aerodynamic edge possible, 3T recommends tyre widths of between 41 and 51mm - this comes down to alterations around head tube area, which is now slimmer and uses CeramicSpeed SLT bearings. There's also a fully redesigned fork that hides the brake caliper bolts under a specially designed turbulence-reducing aero cover.

Pricing and model range

There are six complete builds and one individual frameset available, outfitted in Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo groupsets. Five colourways including ambra (amber), brezza (blue), smeraldo (green), rame (orange) and Project X (army green) are speccable from purchase.

At US$ 6,499 / £ 4,425 / €4,917, the Racemax² Italia frameset comes complete with the 3T More stem and 3T Aeroghiaia Integrale LTD handlebar.

Complete builds get the same standard hardware as the frameset but differ by way of wheels and groupset configuration. The range starts with the US$10,999 / £7,303 / €8,114 Racemax² Italia Shimano GRX 2x12 complete with 3T Discus 45|40 LTD wheels.

There are two Racemax² Italia SRAM Force XPLR AXS builds. One without the Torno Wide Crank and 3T Discus 45|40 LTD wheels listed at US$11,699 / UK: £ 7,304 / €8,115 and one with the Torno Wide Crank at US$11,699 / £ 7,745 / €8,605.

The same applies to the two premium Racemax² Italia SRAM Red XPLR AXS bikes. Both get Zipp 303 SW XPLR wheels but are available with (US$14,399 / £9,368 / €10,409 ) or without (US$13,899 / £9,368 / €10,409) the Torno Wide Crank.

The only truly all-Italian build in the line-up is the Racemax² Italia Campagnolo Super Record Gravel. As expected, it comes in at a lofty US$14,599 / £9,662 / €10,736.

Listed prices should be taken with a pinch of tax-flavoured salt, as they were given, unusually, ex-VAT. For the UK market, that's a lofty 20% to consider. With taxes, for a UK bike, you're looking at £11,594.40 for the Super Record build.

You can find out more at 3T.bike.

Please welcome Cycling Weekly's newest columnist, Sarah Sturm. Sarah Sturm is a professional American off-road racer known for her performances in the Life Time Grand Prix series, Unbound 200, Traka, Migration gravel and more. Beyond being a talented racer, Sturm is a beloved figure in the community, known for her infectious energy, vibrant personality, and commitment to growing the sport for future generations.

We're thrilled to have Sarah share her wealth of knowledge, experience and passion for the off-road disciplines with our readers. Every month, she’ll be offering a unique perspective on all things gravel, so be sure to check back. Have a topic you'd love to see covered? Drop us a line in the comments below or reach out via email at anne.rook@futurenet.com.

Gravel has been through a lot in the last seven years. We’ve seen participation soar, rules change, tyre widths grow and prize purses become lucrative. From when I first entered the professional world of off-road racing in 2019 until today, it almost feels like it’s a different sport. I went from packing my jersey pockets with PB&J sandwiches and hoping for the best to carefully accounting for every carb that enters my body during a race and following a specific race plan. That’s all to say: things have evolved quickly, and part of that is due to one series in particular —the Life Time Grand Prix.

Three years of Life Time Grand Prix

The Life Time Grand Prix was introduced in 2022 as a first-of-its-kind blend of gravel and cross-country mountain bike racing. It aimed to drum up cycling fandom outside of the European WorldTour bubble. The interest in American mountain biking, cyclocross and road racing had been eeking down a dwindling path for some time. Yet, gravel cycling was on the rise, and Life Time seemed to be perfectly positioned to capitalise.

Beyond its financial appeal, the Grand Prix was created with cycling fandom in mind. It was the brainchild of Kimo Seymour, a longtime cycling fan and executive at Life Time. Having witnessed the decline of American bike racing, Seymour longed for the excitement it once brought to the U.S. During his recovery from a near-fatal illness, he found himself with some unexpected free time—and that’s when the gears started turning.

Seymour was seeing people flock to gravel events all over the country, but these races didn’t really lend themselves to spectatorship or fan engagement. So he devised a plan. One series, six races, a big ole prize purse to lure in top-end athletes, media attention and –the cherry on top– exclusivity.

People love to hate on the Grand Prix. They criticise the limited field and the fact that riders had to apply and submit their social media as credentials. There’s also the general mocking of the gravel discipline’s legitimacy. And other events certainly were not pumped about the new series taking over everyone's calendars.

Still, there’s no denying that the series has brought a lot to the sport: new viewers, sponsors, athletes and maybe even some profit for the events and riders alike. And yet, I, a two-time series podium finisher, have decided to not return in 2025. Here’s why.

The realities of being a Life Time Grand Prix racer

When I decided to not race the series in 2025, there wasn’t a big dramatic moment. There were no tears shed, no sponsors lost, not even any hard feelings. Yet it wasn’t an easy decision, either.

During the 2024 season, I learned that it’s not fun to race and finish outside of the top 5 — or worse, outside the top 10. Surprisingly, it wasn’t super fun to be in the top 5, either. In the end, I wasn’t having as much fun as I could be. And when I say ‘fun’, I wasn’t looking for a Chappell Roan concert level of fun, I just wanted to do something exciting, motivating and fulfilling.

Here is how it feels to be in the Grand Prix:

Seven months of pressure

When you send in your application, you’re signing up for almost seven months of constant stress and pressure — if not externally, then certainly internally, and usually both. You might be thinking, “Yeah, duh, that’s what you sign up for as an athlete,” and you’d be right. But it's not the same as the pressure of an individual race. This is the constant, season-long anxiety that even if you podium or win a race, you could still lose ground in the overall standings. It amplifies the feeling of being "only as good as your last race," and it does so publicly.

I’ve compared notes with MTB World Cup athletes to see if they experience the same feeling. Like the Grand Prix, they compete within an overall series ranking but they prioritise individual races. Winning a World Cup event holds far more significance than finishing 5th in the overall standings, with the overall ranking being viewed as a bonus. One could also approach the Grand Prix in a similar fashion, but the challenge is that not all races hold equal value as they do on the World Cup circuit. For example, a win at Unbound or Leadville can be career-defining, while victories at Sea Otter or Chequamegon carry less significance. As a result, the series ranking does hold considerable value in the eyes of sponsors, media, and others, as it recognises consistent top-5 finishes.

For me, that overall running tally took away from individual achievements throughout the year. I stood on the podium at Unbound yet ended up disappointed with my fourth place in the series. It put a shadow on success for me.

This year, I will still race Unbound, Leadville and maybe one more Grand Prix event as I really enjoy the events themselves. I just want to race them without the overall looming over my head.

Money worries

If race results don’t stress you out, the financials of being a gravel privateer will. When you’re accepted into the Life Time Grand Prix series, it’s still on you to haul yourself yourself and any mechanic help to the start of the races. Travel, lodging, nutrition, equipment – it’s all on you. So for many, the money –be it prize payouts, sponsor bonuses, etc– is a huge motivator to enter the Life Time Grand Prix, especially for younger athletes trying to break into the sport and secure sponsorship. I am not immune to those stressors either, but I have positioned myself well and my sponsors pay for all of my expenses. The vast majority of my income comes directly from sponsorship deals rather than payouts from races.

The series and nothing else

Here is a hot tip on how you win the LTGP: you make it your only focus for the entire season. Don’t think about another series, a big stage race or even a one-day race. A season packed with six or seven LTGP races is plenty.

If you want to perform well, you’re dedicating weeks, or even months, ahead of a race to fine-tuning for that particular event. After the race is over, you’re going to need a couple of weeks of recovery before starting up for the next event. It really takes over your life.

If you’re a psychopath like me, you’ll convince yourself that doing two series in one season is a great idea, with some European and African races added to the mix. Everyone will tell you not to be disappointed if you don’t do well in the overall rankings. You may even convince yourself that you don’t care, and then you’ll inevitably prove yourself wrong and become extremely disappointed.

After a few seasons of this, I grew both bored and stressed out. And that combination of emotions can really wear on you.

Decision time

Fast forward to decision time. It’s October 2024, the week of my wedding, and I’m glueing pieces of cardboard together for a Halloween costume when I was texting Kimo Seymour. The application deadline was fast approaching, and I had left the decision to the very last moment - again. Those close to me know that decisions are really not my strong suit, and the stress from planning my wedding was running high. So, I applied.

Yet, on the eve of the 2025 roster announcement, I texted Kimo yet again and said I was out, and to please give my spot to someone else. And he responded, “Thank you. We love you and will want you back…unless you get really slow (laughing emoji). Some lucky rider is going to get a chance she wouldn’t have.”

And that was it, I actually left.

I know it was the right call for me. I need the freedom to do some other things in my career, and to take advantage of being an independent off-road racer. My sponsors support me, I’m established in my career, and my best years are still ahead.

The Life Time Grand Prix will always be a part of my story as an athlete; the series has helped me appreciate and become a top elite racer. The level and quality of competition at the Grand Prix races is still unmatched by most races in the U.S. For the athletes, it’s an amazing opportunity to get to push yourself at the top level, over and over again. I’m curious if that’s the thing I’ll miss the most and if I’ll come running back. Only time will tell.

After spending its inaugural years in Gering, Nebraska, the U.S. Gravel National Championships will move north to La Crescent, Minnesota, in 2025 and 2026. 

La Crescent is a small town in the southeast corner of Minnesota, right on the border of the La Crosse region of Wisconsin. It has just about 5,000 residents—3,000 fewer than Gering.

The Minnesota town, which is known as the Apple Capital of Minnesota, will host the weekend-long championship in the third weekend of September 2025, which coincides with La Crescent’s annual Apple Festival. 

In fact, A.J. Friels, Explore La Crosse’s executive director, calls the region a “cyclist’s dream.”

“We call it the Driftless Region, where the Ice Age glaciers failed to grind down a corrugated, primal landscape,” Friels said. “This untouched playground of bluffs, ridges, coulees, and valleys on both sides of the Mississippi River is crisscrossed by two networks: smooth, low-traffic county byways and rolling gravel backroads is a cyclist’s dream.”

Historically, the top three finishers in the men’s and women’s elite categories at the national event will automatically qualify for the 2025 UCI Gravel World Championships, which will be held in Nice, France. Those six finishers will also be given full support from USA Cycling.

USA Cycling has not yet shared details about the elite prize purse offered at 2025 Gravel Nationals. In 2023, a $60,000 prize purse was split equally among the top elite men and women, and this year, a $40,000 prize purse will be distributed at Nationals in the same manner. 

Last year, Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz Bicycles/SRAM) and Lauren Stephens (then of EF-Education Tibco-SVB, now of Cynisca Cycling) won the first-ever gravel national titles and then went on to compete at the UCI World Gravel Championships.

Age group winners will also earn spots in the World Championships, but without support from USA Cycling.

SRAM has refreshed its top-tier gravel components, with an update of the electronic Red XPLR AXS groupset, incorporating new technologies and going 13-speed. Also launched are Zipp 303 XPLR SW & S wheelsets with extra wide, deep rims, and Zipp SL 70 XPLR carbon handlebars. 

But why now? There’s no question, gravel riding has exploded in the last few years and continues to gain momentum. Gravel events and races are popping up everywhere (think The Gralloch, Dirty Reiver, Unbound Gravel and the Migration Gravel Race) and, as a result, the fields are getting hugely competitive. All the leading brands are releasing gravel-specific components, with Shimano GRX, SRAM XPLR and Campagnolo Ekar in their ranges. 

Aerodynamics has been a priority in performance road cycling for years, but watt-saving, drag-reducing equipment is now making its way into gravel. Gravel framesets are becoming more aero, so alongside the typical wide tyre clearances and numerous mounting points, we’re seeing more aggressive geometries and aerodynamic tubing, such as in the BMC Kaius. On the wheel side of things, Parcours has released their FKTs with a deeper rim that’s optimised around a specific tyre — all in the name of speed. But when you get more aero there’s usually a weight penalty. Is the penalty worth it for some aero gains? That probably depends on the rider and the race.

We've had the chance to get our hands on with the new groupset, and you can read North American editor Anne-Marije Rook's in-depth look and ride review of SRAM's 13-speed Red XPLR AXS groupset here.

13-speed SRAM Red XPLR AXS

Spotted at Unbound Gravel in Kansas earlier in the year, SRAM has now released its updated SRAM Red XPLR AXS groupset. It’s part of the triplet of flagship performance models, the others being SRAM Red AXS (road) and SRAM XX1 Eagle AXS (mountain bike).

The SRAM XPLR range was designed specifically for gravel riding, that is, to hit the gearing sweet spot and to deliver effortless shifting. These Red XPLR components have a lot in common with the Eagle Transmission MTB series: Full Mount, flattop chain, X-SYNC rings, but also borrow from the latest SRAM Red AXS groupset. They are aimed at riders who want to go fast on mixed terrain. SRAM Red XPLR AXS brings together the resilience of the Eagle Transmission with the lower weight, and the bigger, but tighter gear range required for ripping it up on gravel tracks. 

Several of the individual components are shared with those in the SRAM Red AXS road groupset, which had an overhaul earlier this year, but others have been updated specifically for the XPLR range, and the full groupset is 218 grams lighter than its predecessor, at 2,488 grams.

There are a few compatibility considerations with the new drivetrain: a minimum chainstay length of 415mm, a UDH dropout and a wide crank spindle with 47.5mm chainline.

13-speed cassette for more range and tighter ratios

Gravel racing can be relentless, and a 13-speed, 10-46T cassette provides a bigger range of gears with smaller gaps — you’ll be ready for both the big climbs and punchy sprints — and it weighs just 288 grams. The only real drawback, which may put off some, is that this is the only cassette size available or compatible with the rear derailleur.

UDH Full Mount technology

SRAM’s Universal Derailleur Hanger (UDH) technology — first released by SRAM in 2019 and fast adopted by mountain bike brands — aims to ease the stress of hunting for a replacement mech hanger by creating something universal that bike manufacturers can incorporate into their frame design. 

There is a potential negative. UDH does require a bike frame with a UDH interface, so if your bike is not compatible you’ll have to rethink. Although SRAM states that most of the main gravel bike manufacturers offer UDH, it’s definitely a limiting factor.

Setup of the rear mech is simple: there’s no longer a need for adjustment screws and the alignment should be perfect with any drivetrain.

Compatibility aside, the system is extremely robust. Shifting is precise, the clutch light and efficient, and a Magic Wheel keeps the chain moving even if debris enters the lower pulley. Crash protection is built in, and the Full Mount hanger rotates back on frontal impact, moving it out of harm’s way.

It’s worth noting, SRAM wasn’t just thinking about potentially muddy or debris-covered trails when creating Full Mount, but also about travelling with your bike, the idea being that it'll survive knocks and bumps in transit unscathed — though we've yet to test this. 

Light, stiff cranks and Thread Mount chainrings

Those fitting out top-end gravel bikes are seeking speed and performance, with the vast majority opting for a 1x system to drop the weight and simplify shifting. 

The Red XPLR crankset uses hollow carbon arms and is available in a range of lengths, from 160mm to 175mm, meaning riders with shorter legs (or those seeking improved aerodynamics) are well served.

Thread Mount chainrings reduce weight and maximise stiffness, while still allowing the rings to be swapped out with ease. X-SYNC technology, found on all SRAM 1x systems, helps clear mud and maximises chain retention.

Track your watts

Not just for the roadies, power meters are now popular in other disciplines too. The SRAM Red XPLR AXS spider-based power meter provides dual-sided power measurement and promises accuracy to within +/-1.5%.

Shift-brake levers, flattop chain and calipers are shared with SRAM Red AXS

The brake levers carry over from the recently released Red AXS road groupset, and these have been a hit at Cycling Weekly.

SRAM says that it's optimised the lever and hood shape for easier braking, something that will be well received by riders with smaller hands, who should be more able to wrap their fingers around more of the lever even when on the hoods.

SRAM states there’s now an 80% lighter brake feel than SRAM Red eTAP AXS, which should make for dramatically more comfortable braking on long, fast or loose descents. Both reach and contact points are adjustable, and a textured finish is designed to aid grip and control. 

Something that’s only found on RED groupsets, a Bonus Button on each of the hoods allows you to shift up or down from just a light touch of the very accessible button. Using the AXS app, this feature is customisable, and can even seamlessly communicate with a head unit so you can flick through screens or pause the unit. 

The flattop chain is SRAM’s most advanced, with the brand stating that cutouts in the outer plates shave 13 grams over its predecessor. The brake calipers are now lighter and stiffer, and there’s more pad clearance to reduce any performance-limiting rubbing. 

Zipp 303 XPLR SW & S wheelsets

Extra wide Zipp 303 XPLR SW wheelset

Zipp has gone extra wide with its latest gravel wheels, and they’re all about speed. 

Total System Efficiency (TSE™) is the brand’s design philosophy, the goal being to consider the system as a whole. Using this concept, Zipp found what it considered the perfect gravel tyre, and then built this wheel around it. The theory is that current gravel wheels with external rim widths of around 28–30mm, paired with wide (38–50mm) tyres, do not optimise aerodynamics. Instead, the wheel and tyre combo creates a ballooning effect and, although running low tyre pressures is key to speed, the rim does not provide enough support for lateral cornering loads at these pressures, causing the tyre to collapse and therefore negating the advantage. 

The Zipp 303 XPLR SW wheel is primed to change all this with a huge carbon 32mm internal width. This increases tyre stance and prevents ‘squirm’ and reduces the potential risk of you washing out on a corner. The rim edge has also been increased for maximum protection from pinch flats. 

Additionally, these new wheels have a rim depth of 54mm, which is pretty deep for a gravel tyre and more in line with a set of fast road racing wheels. Zipp says that its aerodynamic testing showed that this depth was ideal run with a 40mm tyre.

They’re hookless and tubeless, and are best used with tyre pressures below 30psi (2.1 bars).

What does all this really mean though? Are the average speeds you need to gain a big aerodynamic benefit really reached by the average gravel rider or racer? And is aerodynamics really even a thing in gravel racing? There will be plenty of opinions out there, but gravel racing is definitely getting faster, with average speeds of over 35kph often reached by the top riders. So for the serious racer looking for every possible advantage, these wheels are worth a look, but for us mere mortals, is it really worth it? These are questions we'll consider when we come to a longer term review. 

Zipp 303 XPLR S — a more affordable wheel

Zipp’s 303 XPLR S wheels are definitely more wallet friendly, and you can save £500 over the SW wheels. They still have a carbon 54mm deep rim that’s 32mm wide, and thicker to prevent pinch flats, but there’s a 146 grams weight penalty and instead of the Zipp ZR1 hubs, you get the 76/176 hubs, with a simpler but dependable design.

If your interest in either of these wheels is piqued, keep in mind the European Tire and Rim Technical Organization standards for internal rim widths, and matching standards between a tyre and rim. These wheels do fall outside of the standards, and it’ll also be important to match the wheels with a recommended tyre (more information below).

Goodyear tyres optimised for the Zipp 303 XPLR SW & S

The tyres of choice are Goodyear XPLR Slick and Goodyear XPLR Inter, which have been specifically designed and optimised for this wheelset. If you’re going to invest in the wheels, then you’ll need to buy-in to the whole system. The XPLR Slicks are the fastest of the two, and best for the driest days and smoother surfaces. Light and supple, the ride quality is excellent and M:Wall reinforcement means you can get the pressures as low as possible, and reduce puncture risk. 

The XPLR Inters are designed for dry and mixed conditions, with side blocks for grip and confident cornering. They have the same M:Wall reinforcement as the Slick model and a lightweight, supple casing. They’re ideal if racing conditions may be more unpredictable so you're therefore looking for a more versatile tyre for the 303 XPLR SW or S wheels, and don’t mind a little extra weight (525 grams, 70 grams more than the Slick). Remember that only approved tyres can be used with the XPLR wheels. 

Complete your setup with the Zipp SL 70 XPLR carbon handlebar

This is a premium handlebar, constructed from carbon, with a goal of optimising a set up for ergonomics and comfort. The design includes a brake hose cover on the hood, which consequently creates a 'shelf', and support for your hands when on the hoods. There are big demands placed on the body during mixed terrain rides and races, and this shallow, wide bar aids speed through increased comfort and control. There are even defined locations on the drops and bar top to easily add SRAM Wireless Blips.

The details