Hottest New Tech At The Gravel World Champs 2025!

The 4th UCI Gravel World Championships takes place this weekend in Limburg, The Netherlands.

Alex, fresh from pimping out Dan’s Canyon Grail, went in search of the hottest and coolest tech he could find at the event, including a brand new bike from 3T and some unreleased Campagnolo components and Vittoria tyres. Let us know your favourite part.

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I’m at the start of the gravel world championships. And very shortly, the women’s elite race is going to be starting. But right now, I’m on the hunt for the hottest and spiciest gravel tech that I can get my hands on. And word on the street is there’s some top secret unreleased tech. Let’s go find it. Now then, any hot for hunt tech usually has to start with coffee. Thankfully, uh the guys at Canyon have hooked me right up with a good coffee. Dan’s about to get his. We quite possibly have the ultimate gravel bike truck behind us. It’s got a very similar bike to Dan’s on the top, but um seems as I’ve tricked Dan’s bike out. Say his is looking pretty damn cool and potentially faster. Let’s go find that hot tech. Okay, let’s kick off with some top secret group set tech first. It’s why I’m whispering. No, I’m just kidding. So, we’ll stop by the 3T stand for a brand new bike, which I’ll talk about very shortly. But first, let’s talk about this top secret group set. So, it’s from Campolo. It’s the Super Record gravel group set, which I’m told is unreleased. So, it’s 2 by 13speed, much like their new road group set, which has just launched. And it is actually looking pretty blooming cool. Understandably, two by up front. We’ve got a 29452 chain ring, beautiful carbon fiber crank arms, titanium axle through the middle of the crank, and then this rear derailia, I got to say, is looking pretty cool. Oh, I like all the cutouts and the angles and the fact we got carbon fiber used throughout. Pretty good close ratio cassette as well, giving you a mix of range but also the small jumps between the gears. Because let’s face it, on gravel quite often you do want to have that sort of balance between range but also close ratios. So, I really like that. Slim down levers at the front. We got the slim down thumb shifters as well. Overall shape of the lever body has actually been slimmed down as well. So, it’s much much smaller in your hand. Details about this understandably few and far between, but hopefully in the coming weeks we’ll see a little bit more and find out more about it. Nice. Hot off the press. We have a brand new gravel bike from 3T. It’s the Race Max 2 Italia. This launched yesterday. So, the Race Max has been around for a little while now. This second generation of the bike understandably, and there’s been quite a few tweaks made to this. And whilst the silhouette and overall shape of the bike looks very familiar, most of it has been completely redesigned. We’ve got new aerodynamic shaping on the front of the head tube. The way the seat stays interact with the seat tube is much different. We’ve got a change on the down tube. We’ve got integrated storage. We’ve got a little cover designed up on the front to hide the bolts for the brake boss. We’ve got loads of changes here, including much, much larger tire clearance. So the previous generation bike had clearance for a 45 mm Z. This one all the way to 51. That 1 mm pretty crucial here. Now, because this is a performanceoriented bike, you’ve got the option here of whether you want to have the integrated storage compartment on the down tube and the integrated light cover on the seat post as well, or they tell me here at 3T, if you want maximal performance possible, you can choose to not have the down tube storage box because it does have a very, very small impact on the stiffness of the frame. Now, at the time of launch, there are a few different color options available, four to be precise. You’ve got this beautiful green iridescent color here, but there’s also two of the other options which have a sort of window where there’s no paint finish on the top tube because it enables you to see the beautiful carbon fiber weave underneath because well, these frames are made in Italy using a filament wound technology and it just gives you the option to see that beautiful carbon fiber weave underneath. This is a blooming cool bike, I must say. So, even with this wider tire clearance, the guys on the stand here at 3T have told me that their CFD simulations are suggesting that the aerodynamics of this bike could be around 1.5% better than the previous version, even though everything’s got a bit wider and chunkier to accommodate these tires. And if you look closely at the front and by the down tube, you can see how close it is with these big chunky boys in here. And also, I just want to point out this 3T chain set is an absolute thing of beauty. Really like that. Check this bad boy out. This is Tom Pitcock’s second, so spare gravel race bike. Not only does it look absolutely bling in this green and gold paint job on the Dogma GR, which is a new bike for this year, we’ve also got some very new tires here on the Victoria stand. So, these are the Toronto Pro in the race spec. But what makes these stand out is the color. So, here we have 92% renewable and recycled materials made inside the tire. Now, the reason it isn’t black like most tires on the market is because the product carbon black hasn’t been added into it. So, it’s made from materials like recycled fishnetss, soybeans, natural cotton, which makes the tire well just friendlier on the planet. And let’s face it, trying to save the polar bears. Now, uh, Victoria telling me that there’s no compromises in terms of the performance in this tire. And this tire is actually 35 mm wide on the T30 tread, which is towards the sort of less aggressive tread pattern, but you’ve still got these pretty aggressive tread patterns on the side. You’ve got different sizes. You got the 35, which is fitted on this this wheel. You’ve also got the 40 and the 45 as well. Now, as I said, this is Tom Pigcott’s spare bike, so he’s unlikely to race on it unless his original bike has a problem. And this is the tire he’s chosen to use. Pretty cool, eh? Also, these are the latest wheels from Vision as well, the SC48s with a 25 mil internal width. Incidentally, the same wheels that Dan Lloyd is also using at the Gravel World Champs. Okay, I’ve just stolen Floren Vish’s Konago G4X gravel bike for a minute because Dan’s over there distracting him talking to him about beers. So, let me give you a quick run through of his bike. So, as just mentioned, it’s the Kago gravel bike, but it’s chosen to run what I would say is pretty much a standard road bike setup. We got a 54 to big chain ring at the front here, 11 to 34 cassette, tricked out with Shimanu Jura Ace. We got the MV4.5 wheels. So, we’ve got 40 mm Continental Terra Speed tires here. Now, this is something I’m seeing a lot of riders doing, and that’s opting for for a slightly narrower, slightly faster tread pattern out here at the Gravel World Champs, such as the speeds that the riders are like to be racing out on the course. Also, we got the 3D printed physique saddle up front, and he’s got his Wahoo, so he can keep track of where the hell he’s going and how far he’s going. So, Gravel World Champs, I’m out here not only looking for the hot tech, but I’m also supporting Dan in his gravel race, which takes place on Sunday 11:59 start time. But I can tell you already the thing that Dan Lloyd is most looking forward to is perhaps the afterparty, which is uh from 6:00. So, he better get his skates on if he wants to make sure he catches the start of that. Okay, I’m about to embarrass myself here. It’s the bottle challenge. You have to catch as many bottles as possible. Probably going to drop them all. Wish me the best of luck. six. Take that. Okay, I say this every time I see a titanium bike. I’m a sucker for a titanium bike. This is a Sonda Gamino. It’s fitted with the latest Shimano GRX one by wireless group set with this big boy cassette. Love this sort of stuff. Oh, lovely jubbly. Let’s talk new shoes now. So, I’ve stopped by the Shimano booth and this is the new Sfire Gravel, the RX910. This was released a little while back, but it’s the first time I managed to get my hands on a set. So, you can think of this as a sort of halfway house between the Shimano Sfire Road and the Mountain Bike shoes. As such, we do have a different sole on this shoe, but as I said, it’s kind of like a halfway house. So, you’ve got less a less aggressive sort of tread pattern on here, but we’ve got this new Shimano pontoon cleat system here. This is really cool because it means you’ve got a more open design on the shoe, but this big pontoon system really helps to support to create a big stable platform to give you the benefits of the off-road pedal and cleat system, but also the stability that you’ll be familiar with if you ride regularly on the road because these rubber blocks match nicely with the mountain bike pedal. Now, if you see just tucked down to the side here, we actually have what is known as the GRX pedal, but essentially it’s the Shimano XT mountainite pedal branded up with Shimano GRX on the side. Now, this gravel shoe comes in three different colors. White, understandably the coolest color. But for people who are not quite so cool, there’s also a black and a sort of green color. Okay, we’ve infiltrated our way right up to the start line of the Elite Women’s Race. It’s just so cool seeing them line up. But Mariana Voss has just ridden past and I’ve took a quick glimpse at her bike. Interestingly, she’s got an almost completely slick tire on the back. Such is the sort of speed that they’re expected to be traveling around this course. She opted for a treaded tire up front. Bit more grip and stability through the corners. Also, I’ve seen that she’s using the Graa self-inflating hub system, the same system that she used to win the Gravel World Champs last year. So clearly pretty happy with that system and something that she feels like is worth using again this year. Well, see how she gets on with it. Doesn’t matter how many times you see a Cannondale lefty fork. Blows your mind every single time. So this is the Canondale Topstone sort of adventury do it all gravel bike. As such, we’ve got a little bit of a suspension fork on the left here at the front. 40 mil travel suspension at the rear, but this is done using the flex from the seat post and the seat tube design. have such here we’ve got just a single pivot and it’s up at the top of the seat post. It says to have around 30 mm of travel. Big tire clearance understandably on the front because well you haven’t got one half of a fork to limit your tire clearance. And then if we move to my left over here we’ve got the SuperX gravel race bike from Canondale. This is like the allout performance maximal speed race machine. still some um really cool aerodynamic features, taking learnings from the Super Six road bike, but also still using the layup and carbon fiber design to add some compliance and flex into the frame to try and help keep you comfy over the rough stuff when you’re absolutely trucking along. Super speedy semi-slick gravel race tires on here tricked out with Stram Red looking absolutely boss. Also the um really cool handlebar which is a collaboration with Momo Design who’s a brand known for their sort of performance car and motorbike products. Neat. Let’s talk wheels next. So I stopped by the Fast Forward stand to have a look at their gravel range of wheels aptly named Drift. So two different models here. They actually launched a little while back at Eurobike. Previously their drift range was slightly narrower whereas now they’ve got two different versions. We got a 28 mm internal hookless rim width here. There’s the uh drift control which is 36 mm deep. And then the drift pace which we got here which is very slightly deeper at 48 mm wide. Also, you got a couple of different hub options here. You got the fast forward hub or DTSwiss 240s which shaves around 80 g of weight off of the total wheel set. In terms of tire range you’ve got here, you can run anywhere between a 38 to a 60 mm tire on these bad boys. Now, as I said, I already like the name Drift, but the logos on here are actually super cool. It’s like this silver reflective design. Nice. Okay, then. There we go. That is the Gravel World Championships hot tech done and dusted. If you want to see how Dan got on in his gravel race, which is happening tomorrow, well, subscribe to GCM and turn on your notifications so that you don’t miss out on that. And well, do me a favor as well. And if you did enjoy this video, give it a thumbs up and let me know in the comments section down below what bit of tech or bike I showed you you found your favorite. And right, we’re out of here. See you later. Bye.