Deep into my off-season in November, a time when the word ‘guilt’ belongs not in a cyclist’s diction, I ran into Tiffany Cromwell. “Great news, we’ve started a gravel race in Australia,” she proclaimed. “In fact, it’s around the corner [from] your family house in Adelaide.”
When is the race, I responded. “Oh, you know, mid-January,” came the reply. Then down goes my cake and my last swallow of perfectly milky coffee – my last moment of innocence. My season is now about to start two months earlier than expected, and I’m now panicking. Thanks, Tiff. And thanks Valtteri [Bottas].
But off-season emotions aside, it is time for Australia to have more, high-profile gravel events, because quite simply put, the entire country is gravel. It’s such untapped gold!
RADL GRVL is under the umbrella of the established GRVL organisation, which will hold the second edition of the FNLD GRVL race in Finland on June 15 and will put on a fifth SBT GRVL in Colorado on August 18. RADL GRVL has further partnered with the Tour Down Under, with a new format to add to the WorldTour fortnight of cycling events. There is a strong, established record of gravel race production and organisation behind it and I love a good collaboration. Right on.
Here I am six weeks later, in Adelaide, and I’ve just ridden the RADL GRVL course in training with a whole new perspective.
A suspiciously hot morning in the McLaren Vale region, standing in front of Oliver’s Taranga Vineyards, the start and finish location for the event. I joined local gravel legends James Raison and Matt Bird, and event founder/partner Valtteri Bottas, for a lap of the course. Bottas is also a professional F1 driver and avid cyclist.
With the course uploaded to our navigation systems, bidons full, we set off. Within an instant, we turned left off the groomed vineyard lands into a deep, green Eucalyptus forest. As strongly as the smell hit our noses, my Garmin immediately started beeping aggressively at me to warn me of the climb we had just started.
I must say, I’m a big fan of having a climb at the start of gravel races to make the groups on the road more spread out. But there are climbs, and then there is Thomas Hill Road.
I ran a less than 1-1 gear ratio (48 front-52 rear) and I was at my threshold and above just to get up this thing! There’s no pacing strategy, or attacking, it’s just what you’ve got. It is unashamedly, and dare I say, purposely, one of the hardest starts to a gravel race I’ve ever seen.
But the good…
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