Parcours Athlete Joe Laverick On FKT

I race a lot of Gravel, from the Flint Hills of Kansas to the sharp-edged trails of Dumfries and Galloway. I don’t come from an off-road background in the slightest. I’ve ridden a mountain bike maybe twice in my life, a step into the gravel world was a step into the unknown.

Gravel racing is a lot different to road racing and equipment choice becomes of vital importance. It’s not just a game of who’s got the strongest legs, best tactics or technical skills. It’s a game of who’s made the best equipment choices.

Finding the balance between efficiency and durability is difficult. 

I’m racing at the top level, and I want all of my equipment to be as fast as possible. Given the length of gravel races, even the most marginal of improvements can make huge differences by the finish line. But, do you know what’s the most important? Having equipment that lasts.

I was first introduced to the Parcours FKT Wheelset a month before Unbound.

“Wow, they’re wide”, I thought as I spun them around straight from the box…

 

Why Now?

We can argue until the cows come home about what gravel is, but in my eyes it’s simple: gravel is whatever you want it to be.

Whether that be a canal towpath, a perfectly groomed trail, or even a rocky singletrack. There’s an argument that gravel bikes should actually be called “all road bikes”. 

Aero in Gravel

When I first heard the data I was shocked, the numbers almost seemed too good to be true.

Here are the first two Whatsapp messages that I sent to Dov, the Parcours owner, upon reading it.

“Righto, am I reading this right and it’s faster everywhere?”

“6.2w faster at race speed. Madness. Pure madness.”

I was mind-boggled. This sort of difference is not insignificant - in fact, it’s huge. It’s effectively 2% of total power output. Bonkers. 

The issue we had, as we always do when converting aero data, is how do we explain it in terms that everyone will understand. Dov hit the nail on the head.

“To put it into context, moving from a standard gravel wheel to the new FKT is the equivalent of moving from a shallow climbing wheel on the road, to a deep section front and disc wheel at the rear.”

As a time-trialist at heart, a difference like that excites me. It’s such a big difference that it makes it impossible to ignore. 

I wrote a whole article about aero in gravel that you can find here.

The FKTs are wide too. It’s the first thing you realise when picking them up, or see them on a bike. They have a 27mm internal rim width, and they have a depth of 47mm. Though, they seem to be even deeper thanks to the Kamm Tail design.

Racing

I’ve treated my FKTs to some of the roughest terrain that the world of gravel can throw at you. My first week riding on them was at the Gralloch UCI race in Dumfries and Galloway. The terrain there is rocky, and the multiple slashes to my sidewall showed that.

Then it was to Unbound Gravel. The flint hills of Kansas are infamous in the world of cycling. They’re tyre slashing and carbon destroying. They’re truly unforgiving. I had one hell of a day out in Kansas. I punctured four times in total, and was unfortunately out of the pointy end because of it. 

I also ended up riding to the final pit stop on just my tyre-liner. I’d double punctured in the gnarly section of Little Egypt and my tyre would no longer seal. I was close enough to the pit stop that I thought to ride it there and swap my tyre.

While the aero-data is incredible, it’s this moment that impressed me most. I effectively rode the rim across some of the roughest terrain around, and there wasn’t a single mark. Durability, is just as important as aero.

Unbound in the legs, it was off to Canada for a very different course. The Blue Mountains UCI could be raced on road bikes if it wasn’t for one 2km bog section. You effectively ride too heavy of a set-up for 99% of the course, as it’s the 1% of the mud bog that makes the difference in the results.

The FKTs were dreamy. They ride like a road wheel when on the road. It’s always nice to know that you have the fastest equipment in the group that you’re in. I actually ended up crashing myself out of the lead group of four in the bog the penultimate lap. This put me in no-man’s land. Too far behind the front to chase back-on, but maybe at risk of getting caught behind by the charging chasers. Aerodynamics are king, I held on to fourth place.

Oh, and the most important thing? The FKTs look cool. Style points still matter after all.