Over the last few days, we have been pouring over our pictures that are still coming in from the Cyclocross World Championships in Tabor. One item that struck us was the changing nature of bike tech on podiums in comparison to years past.
We have looked at the technology behind the riders that have what it takes to compete for the podium, and analyzed the top four bikes in each category, from the Junior, U23, Women's Elite, and Men's Elite Races. In the slides below, we'll present some of the most common parts that helped the riders find the podium (or barely miss it), and we'll also point out some of the noticeable outliers.
Although we didn't incorporate the riders who placed out of the top four of each race into our statistics, we'll show you a few unique products that we found. Don't miss our full bike profile on Mathieu van der Poel's Stevens Super Prestige Disc cyclocross bikes of the BKCP Powerplus cyclocross team.
While we included many categories, we opted to save tire selection for a separate post for multiple reasons. In many cases, riders were changing their tire selection mid-ride: Eli Iserbyt and Logan Owen, for example, both reported their mistake of start-line tread selection after their race. As such, a breakdown of tire usage is not only unwieldy, but the reported statistics would be misleading. Stay tuned for our look at some notable tire choices at the 2015 Cyclocross World Championship.
Every Disc Has Its Day
The inevitable question was going to be what kind of growth disc brakes made this year over last in these championship races. Before we answer that question, we should point out that unlike drivetrains, this did not fall neatly across sponsor’s lines. There were SRAM and Shimano sponsored riders of the top 16 using both disc brakes and cantilevers, and although the cantilever trend was Shimano lever/CX-70 brake combination or SRAM lever/Avid Shorty Ultimate brake combination, there were exceptions.
Of the top 16 riders, 37.5% of them, or six riders, used discs, with the remaining 10 sticking with cantilevers.
Although that number is far above the percentage from the year prior, we should mention that 37.5% is actually a deceptively low number. In the Men’s and Women’s Elite races, as well as the Junior race, the numbers were evenly split, with two riding cantilevers and two riding discs.
It’s also worthy of note that in all of those three fields, the rider who won used disc brakes.
The exception to this rule was the U23 field, who counter-intuitively represented the retro-grouches of cyclocross with all top four riders sweeping the ranks with cantilevers.
Shimano’s older RT98 140mm Icetech rotors and RS785 hydraulic brakes. No thru axle here. © Armin M. Küstenbrück
