World championships is always an event where new bike tech brakes cover, as brands and riders push for every advantage to deliver winning rides and bring home the rainbow jersey. At 2025 worlds, a lot of that new gear was found on the bikes Canadian athletes rode to wins and podiums in Valais, Switzerland.
Here’s a look at the new, unreleased, and winning tech from 2025 mountain bike world championships, from Canadians and the team pits beyond.
Polymer spokes take over – and take wins
Several Canadian riders found speed in Switzerland by ditching conventional wheel design. Isabella Holmgren won the under-23 XCC and XCO, Cole Punchard won under-23 XCC and XCO medals, and Ava Holmgren made a staggering number of passes to ride into the under-23 women’s XCO top 10, all on new polymer spokes. While not unreleased, the flexible “rope” spokes are also not offered by any of those teams sponsors.
Testing the wild polymer spokes that won Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot the Olympic Games
Berd’s Dyneema Polylight spokes first broke the non-metal spokes onto the international scene with wins from Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot at the Olympic Games in Paris and, under Alan Hatherly, a 2024 world championships XCO title and another Olympic medal in Paris (bronze). That success seems to have attracted a fair bit of attention, with more teams adopting the non-traditional construction in Switzerland this year.
The bright white spokes are a giveaway that those are far from standard Kovee RSL’s on the podium with Isabella Holmgren
The Holmgrens and their Trek Factory Racing teammates all rode Bontrager Kovee RSL wheels laced with polymer spokes that, while the branding is not confirmed, looked a lot like Berd’s Polylight. The Kovee RSL already have a staggering sub 1,200 gram weight which the Berd’s would shave a few more grams off of. This is not an option offered by Bontrager. Trek is also one of a very few teams fielding a full fleet of the pricey, and labour-intensive, polymer spoke wheels.
Cole Punchard also had some form of non-metal spokes on his custom Canadiana Lab71 Scalpel from Cannondale Factory Racing. With CFR already having worlds and Olympic success on the Berd spokes last year with Alan Hatherly (now on Giant Factory Racing), it’s not surprising that more Cannondale racers were spotted with the special spokes attached to their FSA rims this year. Punchard used them to earn a pair of under-23 medals, in XCC and XCO. His teammates, including Jolanda Neff, also appeared to be sporting non-standard spokes.
Punchard’s Scalpel looks to have Berd spokes laced to those FSA rims
Berd isn’t the only polymer spoke available, German brand Pi Rope also offers non-metal spokes of slightly different construction. But most of the wheels we spotted at worlds look a lot more like Berd’s design. We had a chance to test a set of wheels from Vancouver Island’s NOBL, laced up to Berd spokes, for our selves. With a distinctive ride quality as well as lighter weight, it is not hard to see why teams are clamouring to run the novel spoke design.
Hatherly repeats on unreleased Giant Anthem (and new Aspens)
While Giant’s new cross country race bike isn’t unseen, the team’s raced them all World Cup season, it is still unreleased. Further, the frame isn’t the only new bit of gear South Africa’s Alan Hatherly harness to win his second, and back-to-back elite worlds title on Sunday.
Most obvious is Giant’s new-look Anthem. The design departs significantly from the previous generation. It switches to a top-tube-mounted shock, with the the linkage also attaching to the top tube just in front of the seat tube. It looks not-dissimilar to cross country frames from a couple of other brands, though Giant certainly puts their own twist on the design. Like the vast majority of new XC bikes, it relies on a flex-pivot for the rear suspension.
A closer look reveals what looks like unreleased wheels from Giant, or possibly Giant’s off-shoot wheel brand CADEX. The brands current XCR wheels have a much more rounded rim profile compared to the shallow rim that flares out at the bead, as seen on Hatherly (and Canada’s Carter Woods’) bike. This shallow-to-flare profile follows the lead of, among others, Roval and Race Face. Roval’s Control SL and, later, Race Face’s Era SL both use a similar shallow rim depth for compliance. Both rims then flare out for a wide sidewall bead to help prevent pinch flats and add durability. Whatever the name of Giant’s new wheel, it looks to follow a similar design logic.
Maxxis also supplied Hatherly with a set of unmarked tires to help him retain his rainbow jersey. Earlier in the week, he’d been running a set of “Test Pilot” tires . That tread, which has popped up a couple other places, look a lot like a slightly more aggressive Aspen. There’s the same fast-rolling chevron for the centre tread pattern but the shoulder knobs and side lugs look to have more bite than the standard Aspen tire. The unmarked tires for the race, which was less dry than practice conditions, didn’t look as different from the current Aspen and could be a different casing, rubber or both.
That is not a standard Trek Top Fuel back end
Trek flex-Fuel?
Wheels weren’t the only non-standard piece of equipment for Trek Factory Racing. After riding the Supercalibre during the XCC, most TFR riders, including the Holmgren’s and Evie Richards, switched over to a team-only version of the Top Fuel. The version of the Top Fuel available to the public uses Trek’s ABP rear end, which has a pivot at the rear axle. The bike Isabella Holmgren won Sunday’s U23 XCO on had an unreleased rear triangle, using a flex-stay/flex pivot in place of the standard Top Fuel rear end.
Trek Top Fuel
The standard ABP pivot on a standard Top Fuel 
Very different looking than the worlds-edition Top Fuel raced by TFR
The storage compartment seen on a normal Top Fuel also lookd to be missing on team-issue Top Fuels
It’s hard to say if this shortened the Top Fuel’s 120mm rear travel to something between that and the Supercalibre’s 80mm travel, or just chased the lighter weight of a flex-stay design. The Crans Montana course certainly suited a 120mm travel bike. And, with RockShox’ Flight Attendant electronically controlled suspension front and rear taking care of efficiency, there isn’t too much reason not to go lighter for the frame. The team-issue Top Fuel’s also looked to be missing the storage compartment on the front triangle. That makes sense as the riders are never more than a few minutes from an aid or mechanical station on course and taking that out of the frame would save more weight. All this effort seemed to work, as Isabella Holmgren won the U23 XCO, her sister flew through the field to a top 10 in U23, and Richards finished just off the elite XCO podium in fourth.