The Traka is Europe's biggest gravel race, and it’s arguably on a par with Unbound in terms of its stature, despite being many years junior to the Kansas epic. The races are separated by only a few weeks in the calendar, so trends we can glean in Girona will in many cases grow by the time they hit Emporia.
Having spent the best part of three days in and around The Traka – soaking in the 360, 200 and chatting to Maddy Nutt about her Traka 560 exploits –I’ve got a pretty good handle on what is going on in the gravel scene.
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If you're not running MTB tyres it's not game over, but it's getting that way
Of the eight all new machines on show, 100% of them had capacity for tyres measured in inches not millimetres. Ignoring the fact the men’s 360 and the women’s 200 were won aboard S-Worx Crux frames, which technically have a maximum capacity of 47mm (pushed by many to more than this), the trend for massive tyres is here to stay and, once the Crux gets replaced by a new version in the future I can’t imagine it’ll have less than 55mm capacity.
It’s not so much the rolling resistance gains, though those are large – I’m told double-digit wattage gains for the unreleased new Ridley in rolling resistance alone – but more that the larger tyres eat up the rough Girona gravel far easier and the lower ground bearing pressure results in fewer flats and slashes, which will be key when the eyes of the gravel world pan stateside in a few weeks. They may be less aerodynamic in a standalone test, but with a properly designed bike it seems like this will be easily outweighed by all the other benefits.
Bike genres are basically meaningless now
This brings me neatly onto the next point: I think we may be in a post-gravel landscape now. I saw Daniel Oss riding on a Specialized Roubaix, which is very much a road bike (though I’m not sure he actually raced), and the number of drop bar MTBs on the course were extremely numerous.
With all these gravel bikes taking massive MTB tyres the distinction between genres is so blurry I actually think it’d be more useful to differentiate between road, off road (drop bar), and off-road (flat bar), or perhaps some sliding radness scale.
We have reached total saturation for new bikes
It used to be that the Dauphiné was the place to go for new bikes, and Unbound for gravel, but The Traka had such a proliferation of, not just new bikes, but new gravel tech generally it feels in that regard it has surpassed any other race I’ve been to. It felt like a city-wide commercial expo as much as a bike race, with an an endless stream of popups and brand activations, likely because it’s much easier to get things to Girona than Emporia, and because there is more money here. It’s Milan fashion week for bikes, after all.
AERO AERO AERO but it doesn't matter
Much like everyone going for bigger and bigger tyres, every new gravel bike was aero in some respect, with many being almost indistinguishable from their road-going counterparts if you ignore the honking great tyres crammed into the forks and rear triangle.
What is heartening, though, from seeing non-aero bikes take the win in the men’s 360 and women’s 200 is that aero helps if you have the legs, but it’s not going to be the difference between victory and second place over such hard courses. Marginal gains matter (I am a tech journo first and foremost, so I have to say that), but perhaps not as much as brands would like us to think when the chips are down.
Shimano has been totally left in the dust
I could count on my fingers the number of Shimano equipped bikes I saw, not just in the elite field but across the board from pro racers to amateur have-a-go Herberts. From what I’ve seen SRAM has a near total monopoly on gravel now, and despite Shimano playing catch-up with properly wireless tech it’s hard to see it digging itself out of this hole.
The problem isn’t so much the pro ranks; those can be overcome with sponsor dollars. The problem is now that there are endless new gravel cyclists starting their journey into off-road riding getting baked into a SRAM ecosystem. To a point I ride Shimano on the road because I always have done, and it takes a lot to kick someone off a platform once they’re indoctrinated. Whatever Shimano comes out with next it needs to really step its game up in terms of mass appeal and usability to correct this course.
Big wheels keep on turning
One final trend that will surely blossom in Kansas was the proliferation of Zipp-esque deep, wide wheels. I spotted Newmen and Enve with sets, and one rider in the 360 also rolled in on a whopping set of Lightbicycle rims confusingingly stickered up with Enve logos (fooling me for a few hours I have to admit).
While the Traka course has a huge elevation gain, this isn’t the case for Unbound, and so we can probably expect to see even deeper options as riders look to harness the sail effect in crosswinds to decrease their wattage.
