On cyclist Peter Stetina’s webpage, the main photo shows the pro rider laughing—and only his teeth are clean. Otherwise, his face, mustache, goggles, helmet, ears, and even the inside of his nose are all caked in mud and grit. Not surprisingly, it’s his favorite look.
The son of a USA Cycling Hall of Famer (his dad, Dale) and a cycling race logistic coordinator (his mom, Anne), Stetina’s very first race, at age 14, was the 24 Hours of Moab, a punishing mountain bike course through the Utah desert landscape. After that, Stetina shifted to road racing, completing eight Grand Tours, wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour de l’Avenir, earning three national championship titles—and suffering a career-threatening crash in 2015.
Four years later, Stetina transitioned into gravel racing, and it transformed his focus—as well as his bike quiver. Since then, he’s dominated the sport’s biggest events, set course records, and become the winningest gravel racer in the world. Having conquered mountain biking and both road and gravel racing, Stetina keeps a collection of Canyon bikes that help him navigate all types of terrain and adventures, including the occasional beer run. Here’s a look at the stable of cycles in his garage in Lake Tahoe, California.
Canyon Grizl
This is what Stetina uses for 80 percent of his races and training, so it’s always up front in the bike quiver. He appreciates the full carbon frame and fork, as well as the wide tire clearance. The suspension is another advantage, especially on more difficult terrain. All of that makes the Grizl his go-to for hitting the mud, gravel, and dirt.
It’s also highly practical. There are plenty of mounts for accessories like a water bottle or cargo bag—on fork, frame, and fender—which allows Stetina to customize what he carries, depending on race duration. “The Grizl has great suspension and it’s really an all-terrain kind of bike, so you can modify it for any adventure,” he says.
Canyon Grail
Next in the quiver is the Grail, with a biplane handlebar and a lighter frame that Stetina says is ideal for smoother gravel and a faster ride. This would be the bike for well-established trails, as opposed to boulder-filled downhill tracks or gnarly mountain passes.The Grail’s patented Double-Decker carbon bar allows for more comfort on longer rides by allowing you to change hand positions more frequently. It’s also designed to absorb vibration—a plus for staving off upper-body fatigue and providing more control overall.
Canyon Lux
Stetina’s choice for grueling mountain bike races such as the Leadville Trail 100 MTB, the Lux was designed for versatility. Ultra-light with a progressive suspension, it’s a fast, efficient bike that can handle a breadth of terrains, which is important in longer races where both uphill pedaling speed and confidence on downhills and rough patches are needed.
Canyon Ultimate
Although Stetina no longer does road races, he likes having this light, streamlined, 12-speed option at the ready in case he feels like training for speed. The aesthetics on his Ultimate are pretty cool, too. Like Stetina’s other Canyon bikes, this one features custom colors, with streaks of orange, pink, and purple. He chose those hues as a nod to desert scenes and alpenglow—the reddish tint that appears on mountain summits around sunset and sunrise—and he prefers to have the text in tan instead of white. As with the bike of any experienced gravel rider, he jokes, you'll see more dust and dirt than clean spots.
All of Stetina’s Canyon bike seats feature customized raccoon paw prints, in honor of what he considers his favorite animal. “I really appreciate that Canyon lets its riders have bikes that can be modified in these ways to make them more personal,” he says. “We spend a lot of time on those bikes, so it makes sense we’d want them to reflect our personalities.”
Cruiser and the “Frankenbike”
On Stetina’s website, you’ll find a whole page devoted to his favorite craft beers. He even has a hazy IPA named after him—Pete’s Secret Stache. So, it’s only natural that he’d have a couple of bikes designated for the occasional brewery run for a tasting or to pick up some beer to take home (always riding responsibly). The first is a big, heavy cruiser, and the second is something else entirely.
Dubbed the “Frankenbike,” it began as a standard steel racing bike but morphed into a monster, so to speak, over the past 20 years as Stetina added whatever parts he had handy. It’s a single-speed bike with old tires, well-worn handlebars, and stickers from every sponsor past and present. Stetina jokes that it’s too ugly for anyone to steal when he goes bar hopping.
Benefits of the Bike Quiver
Stetina says he uses the Grizl and Frankenbike so often, he could pare down his collection to just those two bikes. But where’s the fun in that? Useful as that duo is, those two alone wouldn’t cover all the nuances of terrain types he encounters in racing and training.
“It’s like shoes, in a way,” he explains. “You wouldn’t wear your flip-flops in a blizzard or formal shoes at the beach. You need the right shoes for each type of terrain because that’s what they’re designed for. Bikes are the same—each has a specific type of road or trail it does best on, so it's helpful to have a breadth of options.”
