{"id":255093,"date":"2025-11-10T15:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T15:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/255093\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T15:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T15:30:11","slug":"european-cyclocross-championships-won-on-a-road-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/255093\/","title":{"rendered":"European Cyclocross Championships won on a… road bike?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toon Aerts of Belgium won the elite men\u2019s European Cyclocross Championships over the weekend, not on a specialist cyclocross bike \u2013 something of a rarity nowadays \u2013 nor on the now more common gravel\/cyclocross race hybrid, but on an Orbea Orca OMX road bike.<\/p>\n

Like many brands, Orbea has a gravel race bike<\/a> in its line-up, the Terra Race<\/a>, which is available for the riders from its sponsored Deschacht-Hens-Maes cyclocross team to use. But Aerts instead opted to adapt the Orca road bike<\/a> for his ride.<\/p>\n

In its more usual road-going form, the Orca has a claimed weight of only 6.7kg, so it\u2019s a bike that\u2019s easy to carry over the obstacles on a cyclocross course. Orbea says it has kept the frame stiff, too, with a robust down tube, chainstays and head tube to resist torsion \u2013 advantages for the low-cadence, high-torque riding typically needed for cyclocross.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Orbea quotes a frame weight of 750g for the top-spec Orca OMX, while the Terra Race frame weighs a claimed 910g, so there’s a useful 160g weight saving there.<\/p>\n

\"\"Aerts has been riding the Orca throughout this season, including here at the Rapencross Lokeren, where he finished sixth. David Pintens\/Belga\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Other components were more typically cyclocross, with Aerts running A Dugast (now owned by Vittoria) Pipistrello 33mm tubular tyres on Icon T3.5 Disc carbon tubular wheels. <\/p>\n

You can buy the Pipistrello as a tubeless tyre too, but tubulars are still preferred for elite cyclocross racing because they can be run at ultra-low pressures without the risk of burping air, and can be ridden to the pits flat if the rider suffers a puncture.<\/p>\n

Tyre width in UCI-sanctioned cyclocross races is limited to 33mm, while the Orca has a nominal 32mm clearance, so Aerts is pushing the frame\u2019s capabilities. He swapped out the fork for the Terra Race\u2019s gravel fork with 45mm clearance and a longer 55mm rake rather than the road fork\u2019s 43mm, though.<\/p>\n

\"\"Aerts outsprinted fellow Belgian rider Thibau Nys to win the European Championships nine years after his previous victory. Luc Claessen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Other spec details carried over from the road included a Shimano Dura-Ace<\/a> groupset, although with the cyclocross favourite 46\/36t chainrings, and a 40mm handlebar width \u2013 apparently the better leverage claimed for wide gravel bars isn\u2019t needed to win in cyclocross.<\/p>\n

Aerts was emotional at the finish. It\u2019s a race he’s won once before, a full nine years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toon Aerts of Belgium won the elite men\u2019s European Cyclocross Championships over the weekend, not on a specialist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-255093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}