Gravel racing has reached a terribly confusing point. A discipline that was born in the US out of a desire for more relaxed, community-led, welcoming race scene has been turned on its head in recent years – largely due to the involvement of cycling’s governing body, the UCI, two years ago. Now with a UCI-run World Championships and World Series, has gravel racing lost its way? Where does it fit within the wider sport? Can it continue to be further professionalised and still preserve its heritage?
The Gravel World Championships which were held in Leuven last weekend unfortunately does not help us answer any of these questions. In fact, it raises even more perplexity about what the real purpose of this competition really is. Marianne Vos took victory in the women’s race while Mathieu van der Poel won rainbows in the men’s event, both riders who have barely raced gravel in their careers, and not once this season leading up to the World Championships.
Marianne Vos wins the elite women's race at the Gravel World Championships (Image: Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com)
These two athletes are incredibly decorated road professionals, Vos with three world titles on the road already and Van der Poel with one. They are exactly the two riders you’d expect to see at the front of WorldTour one-day races – in fact, the top-10 in both the men’s and women’s races at the Gravel Worlds were all contracted to professional road teams. With this in mind – and the fact a large portion of the route at the Gravel Worlds was on asphalt – what really makes the race any different to a road race with some gravel sectors, like Tro Bro Leon or Strade Bianche? The level of riders at the top is the same and the parcours aren’t dissimilar, what is it that gives the Gravel Worlds a sense of unique identity?
The fact seasoned gravel professionals, namely Keegan Swenson on the men’s side and Sofia Gomez Villafane opted not to travel to Europe to race the Worlds also somewhat lessens the impact of the race. Swenson has dominated the Lifetime Grand Prix – the landmark gravel series in the US – in recent seasons, winning it three times. He also secured fifth in the Gravel World Championships last season. Villafane similarly won the overall Lifetime title this season for the second year in a row. To many US-based gravel riders, the LifeTime GP series is a more legitimate representation of the best gravel riders in the world – it takes place in the country where the discipline originated from and is raced among those who specialise in gravel.
This, it seems, is where one of the main problems lies with the current state of gravel racing. There’s a clear divide between the European gravel racing scene and that in the US – the same sport but with an entirely different approach and personnel. When they introduced the Gravel World Championships, the UCI did, to its credit, aim to instil some of the original gravel racing ethos by allowing riders to qualify for the event meaning that, unlike cycling’s other disciplines, any rider had the chance to line up against the likes of Van der Poel in a World Championships.
In practice, however, this hasn’t quite worked. Professional riders can always turn up to the Gravel Worlds without qualifying because of their UCI points (which are taken across all disciplines), they are also gridded to the front of the race based on UCI points across all disciplines, meaning there is no advantage for those who have raced non-UCI gravel events like Lifetime GP throughout the season. The official gridding system at the Worlds this year was based on points accumulated in the UCI Gravel World Series, finishing position in last year’s Gravel World Championships and then 50% of points in the UCI rankings across road, mountain bike cross country, mountain bike marathon and cyclo-cross.
Mathieu van der Poel is crowned UCI gravel world champion (Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
In other off-road disciplines like cross-country mountain biking and cyclo-cross, riders are incentivised to do races throughout the year in order to secure a good position on the starting grid – UCI points in other disciplines aren’t taken into account (apart from in some rare cases when the UCI can use its discretion). This means riders like Olympic mountain bike champion Tom Pidcock will ensure he races other mountain bike events throughout the season to secure a front row start in big competitions like the World Championships. The pretence of fairness and a level playing field for all – something that gravel racing has long been known for – is somewhat diminished when those at the top can automatically achieve a good starting position despite not paying attention to the discipline for the rest of the year.
It could be argued that having riders like Vos and Van der Poel as world champions in the discipline helps to legitimise and grow the profile of gravel racing globally, but it’s unlikely that either rider will complete a full calendar of gravel events next season. Last year’s gravel world champions, Kasia Niewiadoma and Matej Mohorič, only raced a couple of gravel races this season and still placed a main focus on the road. If the world champions in the discipline don’t prioritise gravel, what does that do for the image of the sport as a whole? Does it not diminish its importance, rather than elevate it?
There is no clear solution and the issue is a complicated one. Perhaps the UCI needs to make it mandatory for riders to at least compete in some other gravel events in the season before the World Championships, but then even these would be UCI Gravel World Series events, rather than Lifetime GP events or US gravel races, so the divide would still stand. An ideal situation could be for the UCI to start to collaborate with race series like the Lifetime GP and understand the priorities in US gravel to help with a more unified approach for all, though this seems like an unlikely outcome.
Either way, the current solution isn’t working. The UCI Gravel World Championships seemed to just serve as another, secondary event for road professional riders to have another shot at getting a rainbow jersey after racing in Zurich for one a few weeks before. Instead, they should serve as a culmination of the season just gone, focusing on the protagonists of gravel racing and the stories within that discipline. Growing gravel racing is important, but this needs to be done with the original ethos in mind, otherwise it will always feel like a secondary discipline to road racing, at risk of losing its identity.
Cover image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
