“Is this even gravel?” It’s a familiar refrain at the UCI Gravel World Championships, and the 2025 edition in Maastricht, the Netherlands, did little to quiet it. Smooth, fast, and rarely rough enough to rattle a bottle cage, the course sat somewhere between a road race and a dirt crit.
On paper, Maastricht delivered plenty of “gravel” sectors, but for anyone picturing the chunky chaos of Unbound or the Traka, the smooth, hard-packed paths of the Netherlands told a different story.
Alex Hunt
This middle ground between road and true off-road opened the door to a fascinating mix of setups. Walking the pits before both the men’s and women’s races, one thing was clear: no one agreed on what the right bike for this course looked like.
From 35 mm semi-slicks to 2.2-inch mountain bike tyres, and from road gearing to full MTB groupsets, the World Championships once again became a rolling lab of pro experimentation – a rare glimpse of what happens when the rulebook of the WorldTour doesn’t apply. Among the prototypes and personal touches, there were a few standouts too: unreleased tyres from Pirelli and Continental, and what looks to be an all-new gravel platform from Merida.
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