What Is A "Gravel Race"?

Found on Twitter Monday

 Back when I started "Gravel Grinder News" here on the blog in 2008, I started gathering events that were "gravel events". Racing, training, fun rides, and group rides. They all were on the calendar, but you couldn't just get on my calendar if your event was, let's say, sprinkled with "gravel sectors". For instance, Paris-Roubaix, the event a lot of early gravel races tried to emulate, would never have made it on my calendar because it was made up of sectors of cobbled farm roads interspersed with big chunks of regular ol' pavement. 

Sorry- not sorry! That's not going to cut the mustard with me. 

Another thing about gravel events and myself- Single track is okay to connect gravel roads, but too much is mountain biking- not gravel. So, I had stipulations about that as well. In my opinion, your course had to have 75% gravel or more, or it wasn't a gravel event. And I think that is being lenient. (Remember- we were trying to encourage gravel events/riding back then) 

Of course, I'm not a governing body, but it was my calendar, after all, so I set a standard. Trouble is, now there is no "standard" for what a gravel event constitutes, as far as a course, so it is truly a case of "wild, wild West" out there in the gravel scene. And the trouble with that is that someone is going to get seriously injured, and maybe die, because "gravel" apparently is also big chunks of highly trafficked paved roads. Or it could be a long, paved run-in to an in-town finish, which crosses busy roads. Or- It could be that there is just a lot of pavement and not a lot of gravel, and the roads are not 'closed to traffic' during an event. 

Another Tweet about the same event, showing.....pavement?

Look, I get it. Everyone wants to be the next DK200 success story. (NOTE: Unbound/Life Time bought into that success, they did not grow it.) So, they try to do things like they do in Emporia by ending the event in the town or city, despite all the pavement, and despite all the troubles that brings. 

Or it is a case of people thinking in the old road racing ways, where an event is not "legit" without a big, showy start/finish on, you guessed it, pavement.

They are emulating the old European forms of road racing structure,and let me tell ya, that ain't what we were after in the early days. 

Really, as far as 'modern' gravel events go in 2022, the biggest one with the smartest layout is Gravel Worlds. You literally run maybe two miles of pavement out of town and back in, and you do not cross any major roads. There is a HUGE run-off area after the start/finish, and people are pretty cool about not getting in the way of racers. 

There may be another event with big attendance numbers that has this, but I am not aware of it. 

But leaving start/finish areas out of things, another part of the whole gravel event deal early on was that the thinking was that you probably couldn't put on a safe, mostly gravel road event just anywhere. Roads that are dirt or gravel often don't link up at major road crossings, or where rivers and lakes interfere with the road layout, or in mountainous areas due to the geography. For instance, I would never have considered a scene as you see in the first image as anything I would seriously consider putting into a gravel road event's course. Never. And if that meant you couldn't come up with a safe course? So be it....

But the allure of "gravel" is such that people cannot resist trying to make a buck off of it. I get it.... But that's rather sad in my opinion. And, it probably will speed the demise of 'gravel' events up since it will not be an 'if someone gets hurt', but a 'when someone gets hurt' by an interaction with a motor vehicle. That's where it is going to turn the nut, when people start suing, and governments have to step in and ask for road closures and all that goes with that. 

Hopefully I'm wrong about all of this, but I'm afraid that I won't be......

What Is A "Gravel Race"?

Found on Twitter Monday

 Back when I started "Gravel Grinder News" here on the blog in 2008, I started gathering events that were "gravel events". Racing, training, fun rides, and group rides. They all were on the calendar, but you couldn't just get on my calendar if your event was, let's say, sprinkled with "gravel sectors". For instance, Paris-Roubaix, the event a lot of early gravel races tried to emulate, would never have made it on my calendar because it was made up of sectors of cobbled farm roads interspersed with big chunks of regular ol' pavement. 

Sorry- not sorry! That's not going to cut the mustard with me. 

Another thing about gravel events and myself- Single track is okay to connect gravel roads, but too much is mountain biking- not gravel. So, I had stipulations about that as well. In my opinion, your course had to have 75% gravel or more, or it wasn't a gravel event. And I think that is being lenient. (Remember- we were trying to encourage gravel events/riding back then) 

Of course, I'm not a governing body, but it was my calendar, after all, so I set a standard. Trouble is, now there is no "standard" for what a gravel event constitutes, as far as a course, so it is truly a case of "wild, wild West" out there in the gravel scene. And the trouble with that is that someone is going to get seriously injured, and maybe die, because "gravel" apparently is also big chunks of highly trafficked paved roads. Or it could be a long, paved run-in to an in-town finish, which crosses busy roads. Or- It could be that there is just a lot of pavement and not a lot of gravel, and the roads are not 'closed to traffic' during an event. 

Another Tweet about the same event, showing.....pavement?

Look, I get it. Everyone wants to be the next DK200 success story. (NOTE: Unbound/Life Time bought into that success, they did not grow it.) So, they try to do things like they do in Emporia by ending the event in the town or city, despite all the pavement, and despite all the troubles that brings. 

Or it is a case of people thinking in the old road racing ways, where an event is not "legit" without a big, showy start/finish on, you guessed it, pavement.

They are emulating the old European forms of road racing structure,and let me tell ya, that ain't what we were after in the early days. 

Really, as far as 'modern' gravel events go in 2022, the biggest one with the smartest layout is Gravel Worlds. You literally run maybe two miles of pavement out of town and back in, and you do not cross any major roads. There is a HUGE run-off area after the start/finish, and people are pretty cool about not getting in the way of racers. 

There may be another event with big attendance numbers that has this, but I am not aware of it. 

But leaving start/finish areas out of things, another part of the whole gravel event deal early on was that the thinking was that you probably couldn't put on a safe, mostly gravel road event just anywhere. Roads that are dirt or gravel often don't link up at major road crossings, or where rivers and lakes interfere with the road layout, or in mountainous areas due to the geography. For instance, I would never have considered a scene as you see in the first image as anything I would seriously consider putting into a gravel road event's course. Never. And if that meant you couldn't come up with a safe course? So be it....

But the allure of "gravel" is such that people cannot resist trying to make a buck off of it. I get it.... But that's rather sad in my opinion. And, it probably will speed the demise of 'gravel' events up since it will not be an 'if someone gets hurt', but a 'when someone gets hurt' by an interaction with a motor vehicle. That's where it is going to turn the nut, when people start suing, and governments have to step in and ask for road closures and all that goes with that. 

Hopefully I'm wrong about all of this, but I'm afraid that I won't be......