Gabriel Wibmer stars in THE GRIND

When a good idea presents itself, we’re rarely a company that says no. When our Gravity Athlete Manager Larry Hartwich saw Gabriel Wibmer’s name pop up on his phone, he wondered: what he was up to this time?

“Gabriel called me out of the blue and mentioned that he would love to somehow have pegs on his mountain bike, but I didn’t know how to make it happen,” said Larry. Being someone who enjoys a challenge, Larry got to work.

The Canyon Spectral (the MTB for which these pegs were designed) is not specced with grind pegs, nor is it compatible with any after-market pegs. The question was: is this even possible?

“I began sketching an idea on a Post-It note,” explained Larry. “I designed an axle that you could attach pegs onto while on the phone to Product Engineer Leo Malmeryd.” Within minutes, Leo took Larry’s sketch and conjured up a few 2D and 3D drawings.

Surely it’s not as easy as scribbling down a design and manufacturing the parts? Well, the truth is not far from this reality.

“It’s quite common for us in R&D to do a quick test just to see if it could lead to something interesting,” says Leo, who can often be found testing Canyon’s prototypes on his home trails when he’s not at his desk. “There really weren’t too many considerations beyond testing this creative idea from Gabriel and Larry.”

Before long, Gabriel made the trip to Canyon HQ to see his custom-made grind pegs come to life. To find out how it happened, watch the short film below.

Gabriel Wibmer is a daredevil, that’s why we love him. Since 2021, he’s been developing his mind-blowing skills on board Canyon’s fleet of mountain bikes.

Stef Wyman, Head of Sports Marketing at Canyon, explains why Canyon thrives on innovation and collaboration with our athletes: “It's always exciting working with athletes like Gabriel as their minds never stop working on what they want to create or achieve next. He always wants to push the limits of tricks, content, and, increasingly, location and technology as we saw in The Grind. So, this keeps us on our toes and makes us step up our game which can only be good for Canyon.”