If ‘quicker, increased, stronger’ is the motto for the Olympic Video games, then ‘quicker, richer, louder’ might be the brand new mantra for gravel racing after the 2024 season.
The trajectory of gravel engagement, be it the skilled riders sprinting to the end line after 200 miles or the upper numbers of participation from keen amateurs of all ages, continues to soar. Alternatives to seize bragging rights at stand-alone occasions or multi-race sequence are sprouting across the globe, now providing gender fairness in prize cash and race classes.
There’s nonetheless nobody commonplace definition of ‘gravel’, together with how a lot or what kind of terrain ought to be on an elite-level course, be it a gran fondo or a World Championships. The Worlds course in Belgium was distinctive and we’ll more than likely see one thing very completely different in Good, France subsequent October, too.
‘Various’ was one of many early descriptions of gravel racing and driving, and that also rings true right this moment. Gravel refuses to be confined to at least one set of requirements, staying true to its US roots, and discovering agency floor globally amongst huge open areas, hidden valleys and filth paths.
What continues to be reliable are the athletes themselves who sort out off-road adventures and make it look maybe not simple, however not less than enjoyable, even whether it is typically kind 2 on the size – ache and struggling within the second however gratifying in hindsight.
Carolin Schiff and Petr Vakoc scored probably the most factors within the 2024 TREK UCI Gravel World Collection, giving them beneficial beginning positions on the UCI Gravel World Championships. On the sequence scene, Karolina Migoń and Simen Nordahl Svendsen gained the Gravel Earth Collection, Keegan Swenson and Sofia Gomez Villafañe remained dominant within the Life Time Grand Prix, and Villafañe doubled up on the ladies’s facet to win Belgian Waffle Journey’s Tripel Crown whereas Peter Stetina gained the boys’s title.
Cyclingnews takes a glance throughout the spectrum of gravel, pulling out among the key notable developments and moments of 2024.
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Nothing common about seismic speeds
When the climate circumstances cooperate, document instances proceed to fall. It is not simply highway racers coming to gravel both that enhance the tempo in fields. Components embrace stronger all-around riders, higher tools and swifter transitions for tools and hydration/diet stops all including as much as shorter instances spent on long-distance programs.
We’ll begin with a glance again at Unbound Gravel 200, because it has a stable historical past for the self-discipline courting again to 2006. Within the first 15 editions of the 200-mile race, there was just one dash end for elite males, and that was 2015 when Yuri Hauswald completed in 13:01:17, one second quicker than Michael Sencenbaugh. They averaged 15.44 miles per hour (24.8 kph) over a muddy north course. Amanda Nauman gained the ladies’s division in 14:08:18 and averaged 14.22 mph (22.8 kph).
9 years afterward an identical course at Unbound 200, albeit a primarily dry one, the typical velocity was as much as 22 mph (35 kph) for males and 19.4 mph (31 kph) for girls. Males’s winner Lachlan Morton edged Chad Haga in 9:11:47 and girls’s winner Rosa Klöser led a nine-woman dash in 10:26:02. A seismic change.
A equally lengthy endurance take a look at in Europe is the Traka 360, and speeds there are additionally on the rise. Mattia de Marchi was the primary rider to complete in below 13 hours in 2023, a yr with out main mud permitting him to common 17.3 mph (27.85 kph). Amity Rockwell took an hour off the ladies’s earlier greatest time that yr, successful the ladies’s division in 15:01:02, averaging 14.9 mph (23.97 kph). Whereas the 2024 race was shortened by 20km because of antagonistic climate damaging sections earlier within the week, winners Peter Stetina and Karolina Migoń raised the bar on speeds, Stetina averaging 19.1 mph (30.75 kph) and Migoń averaging 17.68 mph (28.46 kph).
To see the shift in velocity in a capsule, you solely want to take a look at the epic Leadville Path 100 MTB over the previous few years, as it’s a part of the Life Time Grand Prix. 4-time winner Keegan Swenson has set new course data in consecutive years. He set a brand new course document in 2023 crushing his 2022 document by quarter-hour. In 2022, he completed 11:25 quicker than in 2021. From 2021 to 2024 Swenson has elevated his common velocity by 1.89 mph (3 kph), and this yr was simply over 5 minutes shy of his 2023 document time even with a mechanical and opting to experience a drop-bar machine over a mountain bike.
UCI Gravel World Collection presents new marker for flexibility
The US could have constructed high-profile gravel races and sequence which have garnered profile whereas The Traka additionally adopted that path in Europe, however there was little elsewhere that was immediately as recognisable or aspirational on a world scale. That does not imply there wasn’t a legion of different extra localised occasions, however with no formalised rating system there was no simple means of marking out through which realm they belonged.
The UCI Gravel World Collection has modified all that. In 2024, it in some way felt just like the yr the World Collection went from an experiment to a fully-fledged going concern. The variety of races grew – 25 this season from 10 within the opening yr of 2022 – plus there was an more and more spectacular geographic unfold and strengthening fields of riders, many committing to creating their option to quite a few occasions on the circuit. The privateers, who earlier than could have struggled to discover a common marker outdoors the US to make use of as proof of their credentials to point out potential sponsors, now had a recognised top-tier occasion to level to – with wins or podiums on the sequence a useful addition to any pitch.
What’s extra, as qualifiers for the UCI Gravel World Championships, riders now had extra incentive than ever to show up for his or her nearest occasion and attempt to make the reduce for the race for the rainbow stripes. What’s extra, significantly in areas the place a couple of occasion was accessible, a catastrophic mechanical, sickness or native course that did not go well with did not have to finish their hopes, with one other occasion all the time across the nook.
Organisers, too, have more and more recognised the enchantment of creating native occasions a part of a globally recognised sequence, with many lining as much as be added to the calendar. So many, actually, that now 2025 is seeking to ship round 35 occasions.
A development within the variety of races and geographic unfold of the sequence means the chance to speed up the embrace of gravel racing as a really international sport, for each the weekend warriors and budding professionals, simply retains selecting up momentum. In 2024 the sequence and World Championships established footholds as occasions which might be right here to remain.
Gravel tech topping highway tech
On the tech entrance, gravel race bike expertise has continued to develop and evolve at tempo in 2024 and is extra different and dynamic than highway tech proper now.
On the sharp finish, gravel racing is just getting quicker and extra aggressive. This quest for velocity throughout quite a lot of terrain is informing the event of gravel race tools. Aerodynamics, effectivity and rolling resistance are taking part in a key half in issues.
A slew of attention-grabbing gravel tech was launched this yr. Within the run-up to Unbound Gravel, Castelli launched a gravel jersey with a built-in hydration bladder to save lots of weight and help aerodynamics for riders carrying their fluids in lengthy races. SRAM additionally invested additional in gravel tech with their new Crimson XPLR AXS 13-speed gravel groupset. Ridley quietly launched an aero gravel race bike which was ridden to fourth place at Unbound.
Wheel rim, tyre sizing and pressures are a scorching matter in gravel proper now, in brief, larger-sized tyres might be run at decrease pressures on wider rims. This boosts effectivity by lowering vibrational losses over tough floor and saves riders watts throughout a race. US gravel racer Dylan Johnson has used aero wheels and Continental MTB tyres on his gravel bike this yr. While Zipp’s new 303 XPLR wheelset makes use of the widest inner rim measurement ever seen in highway or gravel at 32mm, the wheels are wider than many MTB rims.
At first of October, Marianna Vos used the Gravaa adjustable tyre inflation system to dash to victory on the UCI Gravel World Championships in Belgium. The system has been developed over a number of years and permits riders to deflate and inflate their tyres repeatedly to go well with the terrain. The flexibility to run decrease tyre pressures on rougher floor and better stress on quicker surfaces goals to create a extra environment friendly total setup, slightly than the rider having to compromise. Vos used the system with tubular tyres curiously, maybe to mitigate the danger of unseating a tubeless tyre if driving at very low pressures.
Gravel race tech is thrilling proper now as a result of tools is being experimented with and examined to seek out the quickest choice for a variety of programs and terrain. Now we have seen drop bars getting used on a mountain bike at Leadville, in addition to loads of gravel suspension forks and a variety of different fairly loopy setups. Gravel racing isn’t slowing down and we anticipate to see extra of the identical in 2025.
Elite women-only begins
Unbound Gravel 200 was a game-changer for the elite ladies. For the primary time within the race’s 17-year historical past of mass begins with combined genders, the elite ladies acquired important separation from the boys on the sound of the gun.
Fifteen minutes after the elite males, the elite ladies took to the course from downtown Emporia, Kansas, after which there was a big hole of 25 minutes for the amateurs to pounce from the road. At The Traka 360, the beginning instances have been reverse, with the ladies pedalling at 6:00 a.m. native time in Girona, Spain and the elite males taking off with open classes half-hour later.
All of the UCI Gravel World Collection occasions are impartial, so begin procedures do differ, however tips do specify that from a begin grid of elite women and men there ought to be a minimal of a one-minute interval between the classes. There are variations of begin preparations for age group classes.
“I did a number of UCI races this yr and most of them (all) had personal ladies begins, however in the long run every thing was combined once more due to much less time gaps between ladies and age group males. I feel the race with the much less males’s impression was Unbound this yr,” Schiff, who gained three UCI Gravel Collection occasions in addition to The Traka 200, advised Cyclingnews.
“In some races we begin earlier than the age teams. With this situation the boys catch us and simply the strongest of us ladies are in a position to stick with them. The opposite model was that we begin final simply earlier than the age group 60+. With this ladies have the issue that we now have to cross the slower age group males which was actually harmful typically.”
US organisers Life Time adjusted begins for all the races of their off-road sequence to permit ladies a separate ship off. It was a very new dynamic for the racers, and for spectators to witness the abilities of ladies.
“I feel we actually proved how thrilling ladies’s racing is with our efficiency,” Sarah Sturm stated to Cyclingnews, ending seventh within the lead pack at Unbound Gravel 200.
“The largest piece is that we now have a race from the beginning with simply ladies. Usually it’s nearly going ALL OUT from the gun and making an attempt to luck your means into the quickest group of males. This implies we normally by no means know the place anybody is and it turns into ladies in a males’s race. All of our laborious work, coaching, making ready was rewarded with an expert ladies’s race.”
One of many holdouts to vary from the group gallop begin was SBT GRVL in Colorado. In 2025 organisers will restructure with separate begins for elite males and elite ladies, which has been applauded by many riders.
Cyclocross stars seize rainbows in Belgium
The phrase ‘Classics’, not ‘traditional’, got here up again and again to explain the 2024 course for the UCI Gravel World Championships. After two years in Italy with a heavy mixture of pavement and filth roads, the brand new battle for rainbow stripes was contested on what most elite and newbie riders likened to a Belgian Classics highway course, which appeared like a magnet to draw many professional riders from different disciplines to hitch the social gathering.
Most of the ‘common’ gravel riders didn’t have sufficient UCI factors to begin on the entrance of elite begin grids, thus getting squeezed from making any important strikes throughout the tight singletrack and slender bike paths, and even a spiralled bike commuter bridge by means of a prepare station. The place have been the enormous climbs, gnarly descents, washed-out filth roads and elevation acquire to obviously discern gravel champions?
Belgium gave gravel its personal flavour in 2024, and the riders who had the very best technical abilities on various terrain gained the glory. It was no shock that those that had worn the rainbow stripes of cyclocross world champions Marianne Vos and Mathieu van der Poel, each representing the Netherlands, earned extra in one other self-discipline.
“Each nation has its personal form of gravel type racing,” is how Greg Van Avermaet summarised how a world championship course ought to search for gravel. “That is Belgium, in order that’s our form of gravel – some corners, a variety of buildings, forests, punchy climbs and never huge roads. It is a good mixture. I feel it is Belgium.”
Pay days are good days
The surge in gravel racing was by no means fueled by prize cash, particularly, nevertheless it does not harm to defray the prices of the largely-privateer platform. Gravel racing nonetheless comes with heavy servings of excellent vibes and adventures, the place a belt buckle or a pirate sword are a type of forex, however not ones that pay the payments. As well as, the thirst to pin on a quantity is many instances quenched by simply being a part of a bunch experience, avoiding retirement and never being distracted by a end result.
In 2024 there have been a number of boosts in incomes alternatives primarily based on podiums. With an invite, the highest 10 riders for girls’s and males’s divisions within the Life Time Grand Prix have been supplied shares in a $300,000 purse, a 20% enhance from only a yr earlier than. A brand new race in a distant a part of west Texas, Valley of Tears, put up $26,000 for high 10 elite women and men riders, and in the beginning line doubled the provide – $52,000 for the highest 20 in each divisions. There have been occasions in Australia too that delivered, with the brand new RADL GRVL providing a prize purse of $10,000 Australian and Sutton Grange Vineyard – Uncorked Gravel coming to the social gathering with $5,500.
A number of races and sequence have additionally introduced there might be a extra worthwhile path primarily based on efficiency in 2025, together with $30,000 at Unbound Gravel 200 for the primary time, a whopping $100,000 at Gravel Worlds in Nebraska and a handbag of €37,500 within the Gravel Earth Collection shared by tops 10s in elite males, ladies and non-binary classes.
In a glance again at 2024, riders may decide and select from quite a lot of occasions providing money payouts, cool prizes, distinctive experiences in addition to the geography or viewers greatest suited to sponsor goals.
As Peter Stetina put it, “you possibly can’t ever financial institution on prize cash. That is like a bonus. The privateer mannequin, we’re making a dwelling through contracts and endorsements.” However because of a rising pattern, there’s extra cash on the market for the taking.
