GCN Tech Show: Is new bike tech and innovation damaging cycling?

Following last week's Tech Show where Alex was discussing just how important carbon fibre is to the cycling industry, he was inundated with comments saying that this sort of development wasn’t necessarily a good thing and that it could be ruining cycling.

If you look at the cycling world and compare it to 15 years ago, there isn’t that much that has remained fixed from a tech perspective. Aero bikes, carbon wheels, wireless gearing, power metres to name but a few of the advances in technology. For a sport driven by competition, technological advances are always going to play a role in the evolution of the sport.

Racing is tighter than ever

With the UCI 'super' World Championships taking place in Glasgow and Scotland this week, it is hard to ignore just how tight the racing is becoming. Even on the road, the number of race finishes decided on a photo or even tighter in recent times is at an all-time high. Technological understanding of the sport is definitely playing a part, and with optimised aero positions and training data, we are heading towards exploiting all areas of performance gains.

On Sunday, Filippo Ganna (Italy) took his sixth World Championship title in the individual pursuit, beating Great Britain's Dan Bigham into second place by a tiny margin of 0.054 seconds. Interestingly, Bigham is the Ineos Grenadiers performance engineer who would have played an integral role in the set-up used by both Ganna and himself - this near identical set-up in terms of aerodynamics and technology can definitely be attributed to how close the end result was.

The argument can be made that, more than ever, cycling is becoming an arms race at the top. It is obvious when watching the World Championships that the budgets between nations are very pronounced and clear, with the equipment that they are using. With very notable performance benefits using the latest bikes, skinsuits and positions, turning up with anything but the best is giving away almost insurmountable time losses. It's hard to argue that tech isn’t influencing the results of racing, but is that a bad thing? Watch the video to hear our thoughts.

In hot tech this week

Microshift has released their first gravel-specific groupset named the Sword. The brand well known for its budget-friendly products have both 1x and 2x set-ups in the Sword range. The 1x setup will be available with an 11-48 cassette and the 2x will run an 11-38 cassette, both of which are 10-speed.

There are some nice features to the groupset including a clutch rear derailleur and the option to run a dropper post as a left hand set-up as well. There are a few things to note with this groupset: firstly it isn't quite a full system, with Microshift omitting the bottom bracket and brake callipers and chain.

Retailing for £400, it should leave change to spec these parts separately. To keep the groupset budget-friendly, Microshift has made the decision to base the groupset around mechanical disc brakes - this wont be to everyone’s liking but is in keeping with what you would expect of a groupset at this price point.

Look has revealed its new track bike at the Glasgow World Championships ahead of the Olympics next year. It is called the P24 and supersedes the outgoing T20, named after the 2024 Paris Olympics. It follows the trend we are seeing of wide fork legs to come inline with the rider's legs, as well as the split seatpost, that is also being used to hide behind the rider's legs.

Look isn't the only brand to have released a new track bike this week, with Canyon releasing what it is dubbing the fastest bike it has ever created. The Speedmax CFR is based around the triathlon bike that has claimed five world titles.

Designed in collaboration with Swiss Side and individual pursuit world champion Chloé Dygert, this bike deviates from the super-wide trend and retains a more typical silhouette. This will be the bike of choice for both the USA and Denmark national teams.

Finally in this week's tech show, Alex discusses lace-up shoes and that crash from Mathieu van ver Poel. On his way to a storming World Championships road race victory, Van der Poel slid out on one of the course's many corners, and in doing so damaged one of the BOA dials on his show. This swung around precariously for a few kilometres until Van der Poel could break it off and discard it. Could this be a reason to prefer lace up shoes?

On the topic of lace up shoes, don’t forget to enter our competition to win a pair of DMT’s newly released Pogi Heart Beat edition shoes - find the link to enter here.