Pro tips: Gravel bike set-up with Michael van den Ham

As gravel grows and changes, what you can expect on course at any given event remains wide open and unpredictable. Pavement? Sure. Singletrack? Why not. Sand? Mud? Maybe even some snow? Bring it on.

All of this makes deciding how to set up your bike for any given weekend tricky.

One rider who knows how to make his bike work is Canada’s Michael van den Ham. While the Abbotsford, B.C.-based racer is most known for his cyclocross success he’s no stranger to a gravel podium, either.

This spring alone MvdH has won the Canadian classic, Paris to Ancaster in April. Van den Ham won again at Grinduro, a very different event, in California and at Lost & Found Gravel in the Sierra Buttes. Between those wins, he also raced the Belgian Waffle Ride and Sea Otter Fuego XC 80, one close to a road race and the other an actual cross country mountain bike race. Then headed home to B.C. for the two-day Okanagan Graveller, where he finished second behind Ian Boswell. All on the same bike.

So, how does the Canadian make his Giant Revolt work for all these very different events? How do you decide what equipment to use at your next gravel race?

Keeping it simple

When it comes to setting up his race bike, van den Ham focuses two main features. Despite having a range of Giant bikes available, he doesn’t move too much around.

“For me, wheels and tires are the single biggest difference-maker you can have. The second is the actual gearing of the bike,” the Canadian says.

The rest – bars, cranks, even his Fox Transfer SL dropper post – rarely changes.  “Everything else stays more-or-less stable,” van den Ham says, adding “Partly because re-doing cables is annoying.”

File treads for P2A

Meaty 2.25″ mountain bike tires

Or faster tires for Belgian Waffle Ride

Tire Tales: volume versus tread

Any cyclocross rider has spent his or her fair share of time talking about tire choice. That focus (bordering on obsession) clearly carries over for the national champs gravel season. He’s already run a wide range of rubber this year.

“There are three different tire volumes I would run, 33, 35 or 40, and then the full-on mountain bike tire. I’ve run all of those sizes at different races this year. Then there are different treads,” explains van den Ham. “That sounds a little complicated, but the beauty is that just changing tire totally changes how the bike feels and behaves.”

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