GCN Tech Show: Do you actually need gravel-specific parts and components?

This week in the tech studio Alex Paton is joined by Manon Lloyd as they embark on a tour through the last week in the world of bike tech. Although the racing season is all but wrapped up for 2023, this hasn’t stopped brands from dropping new products for us to lust after, or add to our collections in time for winter and indoor training season.

Zwift has released an all-new indoor trainer that is compatible with almost any bike, whilst both BMC and Canyon have just released fresh new bikes - one a speed-focused aero machine, and the other a gravel steed that's already been in action at the Gravel World Championships, respectively.

Alex and Manon discuss all the new products and more.

Is gravel equipment a hoax?

Alex is asking if all of the gravel-specific components that have flooded the market in the past few seasons are really necessary or if it's just a ploy to get people to buy more shiny things.

The catalyst that sparked this conversation was the choices of bike and kit being used at the recent Gravel World Championships in Italy last weekend. With a whole range of spec choices from the athletes competing, from hybrid mountain bikes and road groupsets, to purely road groupsets, and everything in between.

A quick look at the women's podium shows that all three riders rode themselves onto the podium with different set-up choices. The eventual winner Kasia Niewiadoma stormed to her first professional victory since 2019 on the then-unreleased Canyon Grail CFR using a 1x set up paired with a mountain bike cassette and derailleur.

Read more: Sofía Gómez Villafañe’s Specialized S-Works Crux: UCI Gravel World Championships bike

Second place on the day went to Silvia Persico aboard her Colnago G3X gravel bike that was running a hybrid Shimano Dura-Ace Di2/GRX groupset in a two-by configuration. Completing the podium was Demi Vollering riding a Specialized S-Works Crux shroud in SRAM Red AXS two-by with what looks to be an XPLR cassette on the rear.

This does show that gravel racing specifically might not have found its feet quite yet on what really is the optimum gear to be using. Unlike road and time trial bikes, there currently doesn’t seem to be a wealth of research and testing going into finding the ideal configuration for gravel racing.

It was a similar case on the men's side of the racing too, with a mix of 2x Shimano Dura-Ace and complete GRX groupsets filling the steps of the podium. The most noteworthy decision amongst the three podium finishers was for third place rider Connor Swift opting to use the new Pinarello Dogma X with 40mm tyres, instead of the bespoke gravel offering from the brand, the Grevil.

Read more: Shimano GRX RX820 - first look

There might be something in the types of riders currently at the pointy end of gravel racing typically coming over from a road background and wanting to use what they are familiar with. It could be that in a few more years, when riders have grown up with gravel being their main discipline, that we see a solidification of the gear and kit choices that are used. Equally, gravel is a discipline that has the most scope for variation out of all the main cycling disciplines, with conditions and courses open to being more different than a road race or mountain bike race.

Ultimately, this does only represent one faction of the gravel riding community and for leisure riding and bikepacking gravel0specific gear has been widely adopted by most people.

Do you think gravel specific gear has a place in cycling or do you think hybrid road/mountain bike kit does the job perfectly fine? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Hot tech this week

Elsewhere on the show, we take a look at some of the hottest tech to have been released in the past seven days.

Canyon Grail

Canyon has finally released its all-new Grail gravel race bike - this bike has been spotted in gravel races across the second half of this season, with Carolin Schiff taking the win at Unbound 200 aboard the as-of-then unreleased bike. Out is the trademark hoverbar and in is a new integrated cockpit that has seamless mounting options for lights, head units and a proprietary aero extension.

Read more: All-new Canyon Grail gains in-frame storage and seamless bar integration

Zwift Hub One

Just in time for the northern hemisphere’s arrival into autumn, Zwift has released an all-new indoor trainer that boosts compatibility with almost any bike. Although the new Hub One trainer is direct drive, it has ditched the cassette in favour of a single sprocket at the back which will work with 8-12 speed chains. To offer riders the ability to change gear, Zwift provides the Click which is a small bar mounted unit that allows for virtual shifting, replicating a 24-gear set up.

Read more: Zwift makes indoor training more accessible with new Hub One turbo trainer

BMC Teammachine R

Continuing on from their initial collaboration earlier in the year, BMC has joined forces with the Red Bull Advanced Technologies team to develop the new Teammachine R. BMC are heralding the new bike as the ‘ultimate race bike’ blending weight, aerodynamics and power transfer to create a do it all race bike. Most strikingly with the new Teammachine is the profile of the fork, which adopts a very wide stance allowing a smoother airflow around the wheels.

Read more: BMC continues partnership with Red Bull for new Teammachine R

Wrapping up the show this week are the usual features of Comment of the Week and the Bike Vault. After causing a little bit of controversy last week, will we see more super nices being awarded or has the bar been set beyond the reach for most of us?

If you think you have a bike that is deserving of the super nice accolade, submit it in the GCN App to see if we agree with you!

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