Having won six world championships as a cyclocross racer and one as a road racer, it was only a matter of time before Mathieu Van der Poel pulled on a UCI Gravel World Champion’s jersey too. While (sadly) it’s unlikely we’re going to see him turning into a full-time gravel racer anytime soon, watching his dominant performance at the recent World Championships was an impressive sight. Canyon sent over the details of MVDP’s race winning Grail CFR which we thought we would share you.

With a professional cycling career as stellar as MVDP’s, having a custom-painted bike created for you to use at the World Championships is pretty much de rigeur. On the big day, Mathieu rocked up on a pearl white Canyon Grail CFR. The Canyon Factory Racing (CFR) variant of the Grail is the lightest (and stiffest) available version of Canyon’s gravel race bike, with the frame weighing a scant 855g. 

While MVDP’s Grail CFR frameset is ‘stock’, his component choices, due to pre-existing sponsorship conditions, are quite different – he used a Shimano DuraAce R9270 12 speed groupset complete with 52-36 chainset (fitted with Shimano’s own power meter) and road SPD pedals. He chose Vittoria Terreno Zero tyres (in a 38mm fitting, run tubeless at 3.5 bar/50 PSI, but without rim liners) and a custom branded Selle Italia Flite saddle. Instead of using the inbuilt downtube storage system on the Grail, MVDP had a CO2 gas cartridge and inflator taped onto his seat tube – apparently to enable faster access in the event of a puncture.

For his cockpit set-up, MVDP used Canyon’s own CP0039 integrated bar/stem with the DuraAce shifters canted inwards to help improve on aerodynamics. The combination of slick tyres, big gears, aero tweaks and a large dollop of mind-boggling fitness & skills all came together nicely on the day and MVDP’s winning margin was over a minute. Canyon had three sponsored riders inside the top ten, including fellow CX and road pro Quinten Hermans, who finished third – not a bad way to showcase the race capabilities of the Grail.

We suspect it’s unlikely that MVDP will be focussing on gravel racing anytime soon, but in his post-race interview he was obviously “super” happy to become the owner of a gravel-flavoured stripey jersey “It was a big goal for me. It's super nice to add another rainbow to the collection, in another discipline as well, so I'm super happy with this one. It's super nice also to finish the season like this. It's amazing.”

You can find out more about Canyon’s Grail CFR here.

All images (except the last one) courtesy of Canyon/I am Fellusch