The Will to Go Further

When David Valero joined Orbea, he had already achieved what most athletes spend a lifetime chasing: an Olympic medal, a World Championship podium, and a World Cup victory. It would have been easy to look back on those achievements and consider the story complete. But David did not come to look back; he came to find out how much further he could push.

Moving from the explosive intensity of XCO to the grueling demands of XCM was not a step back, but a conscious decision to define a new horizon. Marathon racing demands more than raw speed—it hinges on endurance, race intelligence, and the management of relentless effort over hours on the edge.

From his very first tests, David brought an exceptional sensitivity to the relationship between rider, bicycle, and terrain. He didn’t just ride the new Oiz; he challenged our development teams to make it better. In grueling race conditions and endless testing sessions, his feedback directly helped refine the balance between efficiency, control, and confidence that defines the Oiz today, alongside fine-tuning the performance of OQUO wheels.

We saw the potential of this synergy earlier in the season when Valero rode the full-suspension Oiz to a historic victory at HERO Dolomites—marking the first time a full-suspension bike had ever won that iconic marathon. That victory confirmed that the vision behind the new Oiz was right: to build a bike capable of rising to the toughest challenges on earth.

At the World Championships last week, David was fighting for another major result when a puncture took that opportunity away. But one difficult day did not change his direction. A week later, he was back on the start line at La Tramun with the UCI XCM World Cup overall title still within reach.

On one of the world’s most technical XCM courses, that vision reached its ultimate expression. Crossing the finish line first at La Tramun and claiming the 2026 XCM World Cup title was not decided in a matter of meters. It was built in every training session, every technical iteration, and every refusal to accept a limit.