New tricks, new routes, new personal bests. Limits are there to be pushed, and this is true in the world of mountain biking as well as in any other extreme sport. When Gabriel Wibmer - cousin of this one Fabio Wibmer - takes on such a challenge, it is often spectacular - often with the warning not to imitate this at home. This time, the East Tyrolean is all about the choice of bike. Instead of an enduro or downhill bike, this time he is sending his Canyon gravel bike on a challenging tour through some of the most famous bike parks in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
The Bikeparks Lienz and Kals in East Tyrol, the Bike Kingdom Lenzerheide in Switzerland, the Bikeparks Innsbruck and Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis in Tyrol and the Bikepark Samerberg in the German Chiemgau are considered to be true paradises for mountain bikers. Normally, you would expect to tackle these trails with a suitably equipped mountain bike. But Gabriel Wibmer had a different plan...
Instead of opting for full suspension, wide flat bars and chunky tyres, Gabriel Wibmer opts for the exact opposite: no suspension, drop bars and - at least for him - an unusual geometry with significantly narrower tyres. That's right, Gabriel Wibmer is out and about on his Canyon Grizl gravel bike, which has to withstand a lot in "Gravel Mania" and can take a beating. As you can see in the video, it really gets down to business at times. And yet: only two identical bikes were actually used in the entire edit, both of which survived the filming unscathed.
Sounds like pure adrenalin. Gabriel Wibmer spared neither himself nor his equipment on his ride and reviewed his wild ride afterwards:
"Riding trails on the gravel bike was awesome. I'm used to zero suspension on a trial bike, but the drop bars and geometry were quite a challenge. The head is so far forwards that you're practically hanging upside down on the bike, the brakes on the drop bars are in a different position to what I'm used to and then combined with singletrails and jumps - it was really tough. The low weight of the bike was also difficult when jumping, because even the tiniest gusts caused me real problems. It wasn't easy to judge the right speed either - the gravel bike is so much faster than a downhiller. You can also feel every single stone and every wave."
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"Hitting the trail on a gravel bike - that was awesome!"
According to Wibmer, the most challenging scene was the Crankworx Whip-Off jump in Innsbruck. Although Gabriel and his team only needed two attempts, this was primarily a mental challenge. In order to create more "normality", Gabriel held the bike by the handlebars and had no way of braking in the roll-in. He therefore had to jump, regardless of whether it was too fast, too slow or just right.
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"We wanted to do something completely new that nobody had done before us. And since gravel biking is currently experiencing a lot of hype, it made sense to do something cool with it and take it into a new league, so to speak. At the beginning, we didn't realise what was possible. I'm super happy with the result and how we implemented everything. It worked perfectly. During the video shoot, however, I also realised how cool it is that mountain bikes exist."- Gabriel Wibmer
Maik Schröder
Editor
