Why Are XC Pros Doing This?

At first glance, this looks wrong. A mountain bike fitted with deep section gravel wheels and 50 mm tires. But at the Nové Město World Cup earlier this year, some of the fastest racers in the world started experimenting with [music] setups just like this. Cannondale Factory Racing and Orbea Racing both had deep section gravel wheels available for

the short track. >> [music] >> A race where average speeds were well over 30 km/h. At first, I didn't really understand why, but XC racing is getting faster, the equipment's getting more specialized, and suddenly aerodynamics are starting to matter. >> [music] >> So today, I'm finding out whether this is just a very niche World Cup

experiment or whether this is the future of mountain biking. So what's this all about then? Because until fairly recently, putting a set of aero deep section gravel wheels on your XC bike would have looked pretty ridiculous. And to be fair, it still does look a little bit strange, but there's actually some really good logic

behind all this. At Nové Město earlier this year, Cannondale Factory Racing were using Reserve 48/53 GR wheels. That's 48 mm deep front rim and a 53 mm deep rear. Also, Orbea Racing were experimenting with some of Enve's gravel wheels, and importantly, this was for short track. Nové Město has some really fast sections, including long straights

and paved parts of the course, and average speeds are well over 30 km/h, which is seriously fast for a mountain bike. And when you start traveling at 30, 35, even 40 km/h, aerodynamics really start to matter. What's interesting is that the Reserve wheels aren't even some one-off prototype anymore. The 48/53 GR is now production