Whether you like it or not, gravel riding now has a professional side to it. That’s reality, and not the argument of this article. There’s no single definition of ‘gravel pro’, and the fact that it is given so many column inches shows how young the discipline is.
Brands are seeing huge demand for gravel bikes, and they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to market them. As always in sport, a big chunk of that budget ends up behind athletes.
Is the era of the privateer moving on?
A privateer is simply an independent professional athlete. They build their own group of sponsors and deliver both racing results and content. In gravel, this model effectively started with Ted King in the mid-late 2010s. He wasn’t called a ‘privateer’, but a brand ambassador who happened to be racing bikes fast. The model grew and evolved with time.
Ted King walked, which allowed a whole host of others to run: Pete Stetina, Ian Boswell, Laurens ten Dam. They used their WorldTour engines and industry connections to race at the pointy end while getting paid.
The privateer model became gravel’s default. It brought freedom to a generation of athletes who could exist outside of the sport’s tradition. You choose your own calendar, sponsors, and travel the world with friends. There’s no team telling you what to do or where to go. It almost…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…