Cane Creek Invert CS fork. © C.Lee/ Cyclocross Magazine Smoother is faster is a common saying for off-road riding. Faster is not always the desire, but more comfortable and more fun are universal desires we think. For that reason, adding suspension beyond your arms and legs on gravel bikes is popular. This comes in the form of simple accessories such as handlebar padding, a suspension stem, or a suspension seatpost . On the other end of the spectrum, full-suspension bikes that are short of mountain bikes are in the wild. This is not new, even Johan Musseuw tried one in Paris Roubaix a ..read more

The 2024 Life Time Grand Prix continued today, with its second stop, the 200-mile Unbound Gravel race in Emporia, Kansas. The 200-mile event is arguably the Super Bowl of gravel, attracting North America’s best gravel racers, along with cycling stars from multiple disciplines from across the world. Heading into the race, the women were also contesting a season-long title: This year, the women’s race featured North America’s top gravel stars, along with top European talent.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Life Time UNBOUND Gravel (@unboundgravel) 2021 winner Lau ..read more

The 2024 Life Time Grand Prix continued today, with the Unbound Gravel event in Emporia, Kansas. The 200-mile event is arguably the Super Bowl of gravel, attracting North America’s best gravel racers, along with cycling stars from multiple disciplines from across the world. This year, the men’s race attracted Joris Nieuwenhuis, silver medalist at the 2024 Cyclocross World Championships, gravel world champ Matej Mohorič, and Paris Roubaix winner Greg Van Avermaet, among many others. Many eyes were on Keegan Swenson, undefeated in his major 2024 offroad and gravel exploits. The race featured br ..read more

Our January 2020 review of the original Cervelo Aspero Gravel bike is favorable if you want a fast stable gravel race bike. Its low bottom bracket height, short chainstays, and relatively low trail figure make it a road bike with 40mm tire clearance. It is not an adventure/bikepacking gravel bike, nor is it an ideal machine for the most technical terrain with off-cambers or tight switchbacks. That said, Visma star Wout Van Aert famously won Heusden-Zolder in December 2023 on an Aspero instead of his R5 CX cyclocross bike, so the bike certainly has Palmares! More Tire Clearance Something we al ..read more

With zero North American UCI Cyclocross World Cups this year, cyclocross fans were wondering what was going to happen to the Trek CX Cup weekend. Thankfully, it’s not going away but instead becomes the final race weekend of the four-weekend US CX series. See the official announcement below. USCX has added the TREK CX CUP as the series final race weekend on October 4th – 6th at the Trek headquarters in Waterloo, Wisconsin, which creates 4 consecutive races for the 2024 series. Trek Bicycle has also acquired the title sponsorship for the USCX cyclocross series, now named the TREK USCX. With th ..read more

The 2024 Life Time Grand Prix offroad series kicked off with the Sea Otter Classic Fuego XL mountain bike race on Friday. Many of the best North American gravel and mountain bike racers (not in Brazil for the World Cups) gathered in Monterey to test out their legs and compete for the Fuego XL podiums and the Life Time Grand Prix points. See the race report from Life Time and Cyclocross Magazine photos below. Monterey, CA (Friday, April 19): History repeated itself in the opening race of the 2024 Life Time Grand Prix presented by Mazda, with Keegan Swenson winning his third consecutive Fuego X ..read more

We’re back at the Sea Otter Classic Expo for 2024, and will be roaming the event to bring you the bikes and gear that catch our cyclocross and gravel-oriented eyes. Give us a follow on Instagram or via our feed below. We’ll be at the event starting Thursday: cxmagazine @cervelo has updated its popular #Aspero gravel bi It wasn't all #gravel at the @seaotterclassic. We @redshiftsports showed off the new Topshelf Handle The @trekcxcup joins the @uscxseries and brings @t Sponsorship of a #uciworldtour team #vanryselag2rl A year ago, at the @seaotterclassic, we had our fi The @jamisbik ..read more

Li King (they/them) won the 2023 Single Speed Cyclocross World Championship Non-Binary race on a bike they built especially for the event. King hasn’t retired with the SSCXWC ink, however, and has continued to race, crushing the muddy Rockville Cyclocross series on a tracklocross bike, winning the non-binary category at The Mid South gravel race with gears, and promoting local tracklocross racing in the lead-up to the 2024 Tracklocross Worlds (tracklocross season never ends, apparently). King rides many different bikes, but we profile the newly-tattooed champion’s special bike that they rode ..read more

As we near the 2023 USA Cycling Cyclocross Nationals, the USAC ranking system attracts more scrutiny from athletes concerned about call-up positions and motivated by title hopes. One California race promoter, Clipped in For Life, even held a race series specifically to help West Coast racers get a points boost for a better call-up at Nationals (but largely suffered from poor attendance especially from highly-ranked racers). Before our last Nationals in Louisville back in 2018, math professor Jim Cochran wrote about problems with the USA Cycling rankings that positively impacted some riders an ..read more

One of the most unique races we attended last season was the inaugural Nutty Cross. The race featured a serpentine course that weaved through walnut trees and brought racers right alongside the Ruhstaller brewery, which was packed with fans and unexpecting patrons. The race ended with a relay race that included fresh beverages. Chris, the race promoter, also did his part to grow the sport, offering free racing for first-timers, and received free promotion from CXM, our promoter special. Nutty Cross returns this Saturday, November 18, for its second edition, and promises to be better than ever ..read more