The best – and most Canadian – custom worlds bikes so far

World championships is here and that means another year of custom bikes and kit for the top riders. There’s some real beauties this year, including several from Canadian brands and for Canuck athletes. Oh, and there’s Greg Minnaars last-ever world championships bike. Woah. End of an era!

Anyway, here’s some very fancy bikes dressed up for the big day in Andorra. And we also have full race schedule with a hint at how you can follow racing in Pal Arinsal from your couch here in Canada all week. There’s a huge squad of Canadians overseas for this one, several with very real podium potential. So don’t miss out.

Norco Race Division: Greg Minnaar, Gracey Hemstreet and Kirk McDowall get as artsy as will be allowed

Norco Race Division is turning heads this season with some wild kits. For world champs, though, to avoid falling afoul of UCI’s extensive regulations, the B.C. brand had to reign in Nick Larson and Paul Bliss a little. There’s still room to get creative on the bikes, helmets and pants, though, so Norco tapped Fresh Paints Whistler for some of their next-level work.

Larson and Bliss mixed the ’24 Norco themes with each athlete’s national colours. That’s South Africa for Greg Minnaar, who is racing in his 28th and last world championships, and some bold maple leaf red and white for Canada’s Gracey Hemstreet and Kirk McDowall. Max Nerurkar’s athlete portraits return, too. Lucas Cruz is, unfortunately, still recovering from a serious crash at Fort William. But the Pemberton, B.C. rider is in Andorra to support the crew, even if he can’t race.

We Are One’s mixed prototype approach

Made-in-Kamloops brand We Are One Composites will also have three riders racing in Andorra. Which is pretty impressive considering the small brand is run out of one warehouse and literally makes all its frames in Kamloops. Both the usual We Are One Momentum Project team riders, Mark Wallace and Jon Mozell, are on very sharp-looking red and white versions of the protytpe WAO downhill rig. They’ll be joined by enduro cross-over, Johnathan Helly. The Kamloops racer just started racing downhill this year but quickly racked up enough Canada Cup wins and UCI points to race worlds. He also podiumed at national champs, nearly taking that win, too.

Helly’s on a very different bike. A raw look is highlighted by the signatures, in what looks like sharpie, of the team that helped get him to worlds. It’s been a hot start for Helly in North…