Sofia Gómez Villafane's Specialized Crux: The Unbound 200 women's winning bike

Sofia Gómez Villafañe is on a roll. The Argentine mountain biker has already picked up wins at Cape Epic and Rule of Three this year, and can now add a victory at the women's Unbound 200 to her glowing - and growing - palmarès.

Despite reportedly not having trained on a gravel bike all winter, nor having trained for more than five hours at a time, Gómez Villafañe rode solo for over 80 miles to take an impressive victory nine minutes ahead of defending champion, Lauren De Crescenzo, with Emily Newsom in third at 21 minutes.

A mixture of weather conditions and a new southern route meant that both the men's and women's 200-mile courses were finished in record time. Gómez Villafañe finished in a time of 10:27:41, one hour 33 minutes faster than De Crescenzo's 2021 winning time.

She did so aboard the Specialized Crux, a bike which had long been Specialized's go-to cyclo-cross bike until it was relaunched in 2021, when Specialized adjusted its geometry to better suit the more in vogue discipline of gravel racing, putting it alongside the Diverge in the range. While fellow Specialized sponsored athlete Ian Boswell opted for the more comfortable and capable Diverge, Gómez Villafañe's day was spent aboard the lighter weight model, which draws design inspiration from the brand's superlight Aethos road bike. 

The increased speeds of the 2022 event meant increased importance placed on aerodynamics, and ahead of the race, the recurring debate of aero bars in gravel reared its head once again. As shown on Ivar Slik's Wilier Rave SLR, the men's winner was so in favour of their use that he custom printed mounts to fit them to his bike. Despite her roots in mountain biking, Gómez Villafañe is clearly also an advocate of the technology that originates from time-trialling and had an unbranded pair fitted to her handlebars.

Alongside these, the bike was fitted with a groupset comprising parts from Shimano's road, gravel and mountain biking ranges.

The bulk of the components is from Shimano's top-tier GRX Di2 groupset. Up front, this is paired with a Dura-Ace road chainset with 50/34 chainrings, and at the back, an 11-40 XT cassette is fitted. Unlike Slik, Gómez Villafañe ran mountain bike pedals, opting for Shimano's top-tier XTR model, and she wore S-Works Recon shoes. 

Most of Gómez Villafañe's bike spec was courtesy of bike sponsor Specialized. The Big S's component subsidiary, Roval, supplied its Terra CLX wheels, and these were wrapped in Specialized Pathfinder Pro tyres, in size 42c. Her saddle was the S-Works Power Pro with Mimic complete with carbon fibre rails, and even the bottles and cages were supplied by Specialized.