This article was originally published by Cyclingnews
At the German round of the cyclocross World Cup in Zeven, world champion Wout van Aert bettered his rival Mathieu Van der Poel on the muddy, wet and technical course.
The World Cup event sees Junior Men, U23 Men, Elite Women and Elite Men battle throughout the day with the course becoming more and more challenging with every race.
This season sees the debut of the Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 series groupset in the top level of ‘cross, with Van der Poel, Toon Aerts, Helen Wyman and world champion Sanne Cant, among others, opting for the flagship electronic groupset with hydraulic disc brakes.
In the muddy conditions most riders opted for bike changes each lap, with bikes being cleaned multiple times throughout the day.
Some hybrid drivetrains were spotted featuring older Dura-Ace cranksets, combined with Ultegra chainrings and the latest Di2 shifting and non-series brakes.
Current World Cup leader and European champion Mathieu Van der Poel had two of his Stevens Super Prestige framesets customised to commemorate the two leads.
Most riders opted for a gear combination of 46/39 chainrings and an 11-28 cassette for the course, with Toon Aerts suggesting most riders will stick with the same gearing for most of the season’s races apart from the infamous Koppenbergcross.
Sanne Cant appeared to have custom chainrings on her Dura-Ace R9100 crankset.
Click or swipe through the gallery above to take a look at the tech on show and muddy conditions at the Zeven World Cup.