Cartier and L’Esperance: Two DIY approaches to racing gravel (and more) at the highest level
As the North American season gets underway, Alexis Cartier and Andrew L’Esperance put their privateer programs to the test
Photo by:
Philip Rouleau, @philrouleaufilmes/Belgian Waffle Wide Photo Pool, @dhughes101
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Recently, Andrew L’Esperance and Alexis Cartier kicked off their North American race season. At the Sea Otter Classic gravel race, L’Esperance finished 13th, making him the top Canadian at the first event in the Life Time Grand Prix series. Cartier had a tough race. “It was fun, but I didn’t perform at all,” he said. “I kind of expected it, but I really got smashed.”
The pair of riders will find themselves at many of the same races this season, including other Life Time events, such as Unbound, and gravel nationals in Water Valley, Alta. They are both racing as privateers, responsible for their own logistics, sponsorships, maintenance, on top of all the training and competing. Yet, each one has a unique plan and set of goals for the season. L’Esperance is mixing gravel, mountain bike and even road racing. Cartier is blending his training and transportation: he’s bikepacking to all six of the Life Time Grand Prix events.
At the end of the 2024 season, L’Esperance’s team of three years, Maxxis Factory Racing, shuttered operations. He and teammate Sean Fincham then had to build their own program for 2025. They were able to bring over some equipment support from Maxxis, Pearl Izumi, Ride Wrap, and add 3T bikes for this year. L’Esperance has been here before. At the end of 2016, L’Esperance and Evan McNeely were cut from Norco Factory Racing, so they started their own privateer operation called Forward Racing. They brought on Sean Fincham, who had just moved up to racing cross country at the under-23 level. L’Esperance and Fincham, who was also on Maxxis Factory Racing last year, have essentially relaunched Forward Racing for 2025. They call it their “priva-team.” It speaks to their resilience in a shifting, uncertain industry, and a testament to their abilities to get things done. “We wanted to do this together,” L’Esperance said. “It’s a lot more fun doing it with a good friend.”
In preparation for the North American racing season, L’Eperance headed to races abroad. In January, he and his wife, Haley Smith, competed in RADL GRVL in Australia. In March, he took on Cape Epic with Rob Britton. “That was a sort of an overload of high-intensity to get ready for the main part of the racing season,” L’Esperance said, “and obviously to experience a really cool event.” Cartier, in contrast, came to the start of his season uncooked. During the winter, he rode his fat bike near his home in Sainte-Adèle, Que., cross-country skied and rode the trainer. There was no race or endurance block on warm, snow-free roads. That was all by design. The reason he’s bikepacking to all the Life Time events is to lower his carbon footprint. In early April, he flew to San Francisco, rode to Monterery, Calif., for Sea Otter, and then began his journey eastward toward Kansas and the roads of Unbound Gravel. “For Sea Otter gravel, you need the high end, but Unbound is really steady for like nine hours. It’s probably the most suited to bikepacking training because it’s close in effort,” Cartier said.
L’Esperance is also targeting Unbound, the most significant gravel race of the year. “I really love prepping for that event just because it’s so big,” L’Esperance said. “There’s so much that goes into it—nutrition, training, equipment. The nice thing about that is it gives you a nice little boost of training for the rest of the season. If you do a good Unbound block, you don’t overdo it, you’re kind of set up pretty well for late June and July.” After Sea Otter and weeks before Unbound, L’Esperance competed in Levi’s Gran Fondo, arguably the road race with the biggest payouts in North America, and possibly the world. That would be followed by the Whiskey Off-Road. While L’Esperance is mixing three disciplines, there is one that he prefers the most. “Marathon mountain biking is truly where my heart is,” he said. The 2023 national XCM champ plans to vie for the title once again in August in Thunder Bay, Ont.
Both Cartier and L’Esperance have June’s gravel nationals on their calendars. In fact, for Cartier, that event means hopping on a plane once again. It is the only CO2-heavy concession in his trip, partly done for U.S. visa requirements that he has to manage during his seven-month and roughly 14,000-km journey. Another piece of his logistical puzzle is a second bike. He’s bikepacking and racing gravel on a 3T Ultra, but he needs a mountain bike for Life Time’s fat tire races, such as the Leadville Trail 100 and the Chequamegon MTB Festival. For those, he’ll have a mountain bike shipped over, but as of mid-April, he still didn’t have that bike lined up. Cartier was winging some other things, too. After Sea Otter, he bikepacked to Las Vegas. Then, he wasn’t sure which way he’d go to get to Unbound in Emporia, Kansas. “I haven’t planned the route because there’s so much to plan,” he said. “Sometimes, I just think it’s better to improvise. So I’m not sure if I’m going up in Colorado or taking a more southern route through Arizona and New Mexico.”
L’Esperance has his ad hoc moments, too. When he arrived at Sea Otter with his three bikes—gravel, mountain and road—not all of them were built. Such is the life of a privateer—making things work, on the go.
