The biggest development in gravel racing over the past couple of years has been the adoption of wide tyres. Make that seriously wide. Looking to best address the issue of suspension losses which zap racing speeds over challenging terrain, elite racers began to experiment with high-volume mountain bike tyres run at extremely low pressures. It seemed to work.
Fast forward to today and it’s accepted wisdom that this approach is the best route to lowering rolling resistance while also improving comfort and increasing grip. And who doesn’t want to be faster and more comfortable? But to allow for such voluminous rubber, frames have had to adapt. A case in point is the new Kanzo Fast 2.0 from Ridley. When the Belgian gravel race bike was first released in 2020 tyre clearance was 42mm, the second iteration has seen this expanded to 58mm.
