Over the last couple of days, we have seen a whole host of different sertups on the ground here at the UCI Gravel World Championships. The varied course, featuring 56% gravel riding, packed with everything from single track to silky smooth tarmac, and it’s this mix that has been causing mechanics and riders such a headache when it comes to equiptment choices.
Coming fresh from a bronze medal at the World Championships last week, and due to wear the rainbow bands in the cyclocross fields in a few weeks, Mathieu van der Poel is certainly today’s race favourite - what bike is he riding?
We got up close with the Dutch powerhouse’s sparkly new Canyon Grail to take a look at his setup ahead of today’s race.
So yes - Mathieu van der Poel is riding a gravel specific frameset, but this bike is far from the off-the-peg build that you’d find on the Canyon website.
The Canyon Grail is positioned as the German brand's performance gravel bike. It features slightly steeper geometry than its exploration-oriented brother, the Canyon Grizl, and boasts a lightweight frameset that is said to be aero optimised too.
Instead of choosing a Shimano GRX groupset - Shimano’s gravel-specific lineup, van der Poel has opted instead to stick to what he knows, using a full Shimano Dura-Ace r9270 Di2 group. The only real difference to his road setup here is the use of 52/36 chainrings up front, slightly smaller than the usual 54t offering for smooth road racing.
This approach pretty much mirrors what second-place finisher in the Women’s race, Lotte Kopecky, chose to run yesterday, opting for road bike gears to tackle the expected high speeds of today’s race.
Mathieu van der Poel is another rider of many using road pedals and road shoes for the UCI Gravel World Championships. With the course being slightly less demanding than the likes of Unbound, or the Traka, riders are not expecting to be hiking and biking, and therefore opting for a wider pedal platform seems to be the sensible choice.
Van der Poel’s wheel setup was interesting too. The Dutchman is riding what looks to be a ‘frankenbike’ wheelset built with Shimano Dura-Ace hubs, and totally blank, unbranded rims. Currently, the only high-end gravel wheelset Shimano makes is the GRX Carbon wheels.
The rims on MVDP’s bike looked deeper than these 32mm GRX rims at around 40-50mm. Common sense tells us this is one of two things - a non-sponsor custom build wheelset, or perhaps an unreleased wheel from Shimano.
The wheels were mated up to a set of Vitorria Terreno Zero tyres which an Alpecin-Deceuninck team mechanic told Cycling Weekly were being run without inserts. As for tyre pressure, Mathieu van der Poel is due to be riding 3.5 bar, or 50 psi in his 42mm tyre setup - again, according a team mechanic.
This is definitely at the higher end of the pressure spectrum considering the tyre width, however, it’s worth bearing in mind the course is due to be dry and fast today, so decreasing rolling resistance on the smoother surfaces and suffering through the technical sections could be a faster choice for those who are technically talented, such as van der Poel.
Van der Poel is also using the Canyon CP0039 integrated carbon cockpit, which comes as standard on high-end Grail builds. It's aero-optimised, and slightly bowed down, which Canyon claims helps to improve compliance.
Beyond that, it’s all fairly straightforward. Gravel bike frameset, some secret wheel rims, and a road bike groupset. All that remains to be seen, is whether this setup will deliver van der Poel to his first ever Gravel World Title…
