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| Image courtesy of SRAM |
On Tuesday of this past week, Zipp (SRAM) announced the "revised for gravel compatibility" 303 SW and 353 NSW wheels.
Essentially, SRAM is saying you can use up to a 49mm tire on the 353 NSW and up to a 55mm tire on the 303 SW..
Both come with the integrated air pressure sensors allowing monitoring of air pressure in real time.
Comments: The wheel sets are still really best used with road tires as SRAM freely admits the aero optimization is best with narrower tires than anyone runs on gravel nowadays.
And of course, these wheels are quite pricey. So, this may not be of much import to many of you. But it is worth noting that SRAM is trying to capitalize on the popularity, (real or perceived) of gravel racing in 2026-2027.
In ten days you can start your Virtual Turkey Burn Challenge rides! I can hardly believe I'm writing these words. That came up quickly! I know I've been looking at the extended forecasts with anticipation.
Oh....I'm sorry. You are not aware of this challenge? Well, the outline for participation can be seen by clicking HERE. It is a free to enter challenge and there is no reward but a sense of accomplishment and seeing your words and images here afterward.
The weather looks to be iffy here. The prognosticators cannot decide on whether it will be frigid cold or warmer than normal I'll go ahead and help them out by saying that it will, of course, be horribly cold, windy, and unpleasant. Why wouldn't it be that? This is about the time of year when Winter makes an announcement of its coming and it has been quite impactful here the last few years.
So, I'm guessing it will be a chore here to log a metric century and I'll be hard pressed to get it done. But then, why would we want it any other way? Good luck to any of you taking this challenge on for 2026!
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| Image courtesy of The Traka website |
CORE4 Moves To Traka World Series Events:
CORE4, which had been a part of the Gravel Earth Series is now being shown as an addition to the Traka World Series. The Traka and a couple of the other events in the Gravel Earth Series are also now a part of The Traka World Series. According to a post on the Gravel Earth Series home page, it appears the Gravel Earth Series is no longer going to occur.
The Traka, based out of Girona, Spain, has become the "Unbound of Europe", bringing more competition and attendance than most any other gravel event in Europe. The Traka started adding events a couple of years ago, but now will have a "World Series" event schedule featuring one event per month starting in February of 2027 with the only exception being June.and July. (June is when Unbound happens)
The event series will consist of seven events so far. The last being held in October. The April and October events have yet to be announced. Most events are based in Spain while as of now, CORE4 is the only one based out of the USA. Another event, "The River", is based out of Belgium.
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| Image courtesy of Life Time Events |
In other series news, Life Time Events revealed this week that they have raised the prize pool for the Grand Prix events significantly.
The overall series purse has been raised from $350,000 to $400,000 and the events will now pay to tenth place over paying down to 5th this season.
Here is a breakdown, provided by Life Time Events:
"Overall Series (top 10): 1st $40,000 · 2nd $30,000 · 3rd $24,000 · 4th $21,000 · 5th $19,000 · 6th $17,000 · 7th $15,000 · 8th $13,000 · 9th $11,000 · 10th $10,000
UNBOUND Gravel, Leadville Trail 100 MTB and Life Time Big Sugar Classic (top 10): 1st $10,000 · 2nd $7,000 · 3rd $6,000 · 4th $5,000 · 5th $4,000 · 6th $3,000 · 7th $2,000 · 8th $1,500 · 9th $1,000 · 10th $500
Sea Otter Classic, Chequamegon MTB Festival, The Rad Dirt Fest and Little Sugar MTB (top 10): 1st $5,000 · 2nd $3,500 · 3rd $3,000 · 4th $2,500 · 5th $2,000 · 6th $1,500 · 7th $1,000 · 8th $750 · 9th $500 · 10th $250"
Comments: That's a lot of 'moolah' right there. Obviously Life Time is trying to set itself apart from the UCI Gravel World Series and series like The Traka World Series. Life Time speaks of an effort to"...support a wider pool of elite talent.", which can be translated as "more of the existing elite talents will choose our series." Trying to make it seem as though this will grow gravel events, or interest in gravel events is hollow as far less than 1% of the overall gravel event participation is going to be represented by Life Time Grand Prix athletes.
Their inferred references to growing the sport doesn't add up. My observations are that most gravel folk could barely tell you who is even doing these "elite events" anyway. so, mostly this seems to be a clanging gong.
The thing is that this tiny part of the gravel riding populace garners most of the attention from media and drives product development which affects everyone. Adding more money to this only fuels that fire. My opinion is this only ends up affecting most gravel riders negatively. Both in terms of what is relevant to gravel riders as a whole and in terms of what is offered at retail for average people out on gravel rides who do not need all-out racing bikes or the accessories that accompany this discipline. It's what ended up tanking XC MTB and road categories/events, which have taken years to recover from, and some facets have never recovered from that all-out racing influence
That's it for this week! Get out there and ride those bicycles, folks. And as always, thanks for reading Guitar Ted Productions.
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