Has the spirit of gravel been swept away?

Gravel racing, or more specifically, what the “spirit of gravel” truly is, has been hotly debated for a couple years. At this point, it’s more a meme of itself than an actual idea. But for many riders, gravel does still represent something special, something a little different from any other form of racing.

For this look at the spirit of gravel, I’ve spoken with promoters, age-groupers and racers who are not only in the mix now, but who remember the similar conversations happening around mountain biking back in the ’90s. The conclusion? Change is inevitable—but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

Ghosts of Bike Racing Past

Researching and writing this article had a lot of echoes for me: I’ve written articles about the birth of professional mountain biking in Canada and an entire book on the history of cyclocross. Talking to promoters and racers about where gravel is right now feels an awful lot like the middle chapters of those sagas. One story: it’s the 1940s and pros train in the winter in the farm fields of Belgium creating muddy tracks to race their friends. A discipline gets its first world championships at the start of the next decade. The other story: it’s 1990 and a West Coast phenomenon that started with some wide-tire clunkers raced just for fun is evolving into an Olympic sport in less than 20 years. With gravel, we’re not seeing anything new as it evolves into something that—at the pointy end of the race—demands to be taken more seriously. We’re just seeing the natural progression.

“The sport is growing up a little bit,” says promoter Tim Farrar. “I lived through the birth of mountain biking. There was a time when you were allowed to rip the sleeves off of your jersey and race nationals. Now you can only do that locally.”

His race, Paris to Ancaster, has been running for nearly 30 years and has changed with the times, most recently adding a 100-km course to satiate everyone’s need to go longer and longer. It also hosted the first Canadian national championships in freezing rain this past April. But at its core, it remains the same.

Farrar doesn’t see the growth of gravel as a problem—and his race continues to sell out, despite fierce competition. “Seeing the growth of other races around the province and around the world, I think it’s pretty exciting,” he says. “Having been in this space all along, it’s like, ‘What took the rest of you so long to figure this out? There is fun to be had!”

“I think the coolest thing about gravel now is how it’s brought together a bunch of people from different avenues of life and different disciplines,” says Olympian Geoff Kabush, who was racing at the time when mountain biking was truly becoming a professional endeavour. “To me, I see it the same as when mountain biking and cyclocross were new and first starting to get more serious. When money and prestige come into it, people take the racing a little more seriously and it’s not a bad thing. Right now, gravel is opening up a lot of opportunities for riders.”

The Pro Conundrum(s)

On the topics of prestige and opportunities—if a pro racer wins a gravel race and doesn’t vlog about it, was it even a win? Whenever you have a group of people vying for pieces of a (let’s be honest) already small pie, drama is almost sure to ensue. If you pay attention to pro gravel, you know that drama has plagued the discipline for the past three years as riders debate what’s “ethical” in a gravel race versus what was acceptable in the pro peloton on the road. Should you wait for fellow riders in the feed zone if you don’t need to stop? Can you draft for the whole race before attacking in the final 10 km?

The switch to gravel—and the ethos of good competition without harshing on the fun-loving grassroots vibes—has proved challenging for some roadies. The sport is starting to bring in sponsors and dollars, which inevitably spark more riders to focus on wins. “The genesis of the spirit of gravel concept came from former pro road riders coming back to North America and wanting to line up on courses without the same pressures as they had riding in the WorldTour,” says Simon Williams, the promoter for the Scarecrow Gravel Ride at Sea Otter Canada, as well as the agent for gravel racers Adam Roberge, Dylan Johnson and Cole Paton. “It gave them the opportunity to shine on their own terms. Has that changed things? Sure, there’s money involved, there’s sponsorship involved, and results mean something in gravel now. That’s evolution.”

Is it a good thing or a bad thing? It doesn’t really matter. It’s progress. “I have a hard time grasping people taking themselves way too seriously,” Kabush says. “I find a lot of the drama going on somewhat humorous, especially people trying to be all chill and cool but then talking about all the unwritten rules—it’s quite a contradiction.”

The Every-Rider Dilemma

While the pros debate hotly over on Instagram, the rest of us are—for the most part—not overly concerned with what’s happening at the front of the pack, unless we have a taste for the tawdry cattiness taking place in the comments. In fact, the big mistake that the pros make is assuming that the spirit of gravel, or gravel racing in general, is happening at the front of the pack. Spoiler: the front of the pack and the bulk of the conversation there is only roughly 0.5 per cent of gravel.

“I find a lot of the drama going on somewhat humorous, especially people trying to be all chill and cool but then talking about all the unwritten rules—it’s quite a contradiction.”

“The spirit of gravel to me means giving the opportunity to all riders to come together, whether you’re a pro or whether it’s your first gravel race, lining up on the exact same start line,” Williams says. “You’re not necessarily testing yourself against a pro, but you do have the opportunity to get out there and ride on the same courses as the pro riders, and that is super cool. You’re never going to be able to line up with the pros on a stage of the Tour de France.”

“The pros are an amazing part of events,” adds Ontario-based gravel promoter Dan Marshall. “But they’re not what drives the industry. They’re not what pays the bills. The reality is we’re making the race for the mid-pack person. If you want to say there’s a spirit of gravel, it’s really about all the people who are coming out and riding whatever bike they own on whatever surface we throw at them.”

That means a challenging course, supportive vibes and possibly a burger and a beer at the finish line. “For me, as someone with an XCO mountain biking focus, gravel is just a fun way to do a race that has more constant pedalling and drafting and group dynamics, without the scary seriousness of a road race,” says Jackson Myers, a masters racer in Ontario. “The one gravel race I’ve done so far this year, Screaming Squirrel, had a lovely, relaxed vibe around the start/finish area, and plenty of fun battles out on the race course. A vision of the barbecued burger waiting at the finish line helped me find the extra strength to beat the rider I was battling. That’s the spirit of gravel.”

The Promoter’s Quandary

To sanction or not to sanction—that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The indignities of kowtowing to the sport’s governing body / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles on one’s own, dealing with insurance and legal issues as a solo entity… You get the idea. As gravel gets bigger, promoters are grappling with issues of safety and of sanctioning.

At the finish line of gravel nationals, a.k.a. Paris to Ancaster, I found myself in conversation with a longtime friend, elite cyclocrosser and road racer. Rather than discussing the race unfolding in front of us, we were discussing a much more grim topic: the day prior, a racer had been killed in an incident with a car at another gravel race.

Gravel races, my friend said, are coming due for a reckoning. When they’re run as unsanctioned events—as many are—there isn’t a governing body dictating what roads need crossing guards or closures. Events may have independent insurance and do their due diligence, but it’s hard to tell how prepared an unsanctioned race is.

Sanctioning a race with a cycling governing body (like Ontario Cycling or Cycling Canada) isn’t just for show. It provides things like insurance and ensures that an event is following the best industry standards. Generally, there would be a commissaire who would be checking that a course is as safe as possible. It’s not a guarantee of rider safety, but it’s something. So, why wouldn’t a promoter get an event sanctioned? Cost. It’s a cost that gets passed on to racers or, if it’s high enough, could force a race to cancel altogether.

There are plenty of promoters who opt for unsanctioned events, but purchase their own insurance, communicate with town councils and local police regarding course routes, and staff any dangerous road crossings with police (hired for a fee) or volunteers. Promoters, such as Dan Marshall of Substance Racing, work to provide the safest experience possible for riders—but opt to remain unsanctioned in order to reduce the cost for participants.

As gravel has risen in popularity, however, more unsanctioned events are popping up, and not all promoters are as careful as Marshall. It’s rarely with malicious intent, but because gravel races are relatively easy to organize (pick some gravel roads to ride, designate a start/place and time, find a local beer sponsor and spread the word on social media) compared with cyclocross or mountain biking events, which require designated venues, there are plenty of races that are being run with dubious safety standards in place.

What can you, as a rider, do to protect yourself? First, ask questions if you’re unsure of how prepared a race is for emergencies. Most promoters are happy to provide information about insurance or an emergency action plan if asked. Second, always remember that you’re riding on roads that are open to traffic, and ride accordingly. There is no breakaway worth blowing a stop sign for.

“When you get people into a situation where they’re fighting to stay in the lead pack, there’s more overlap, there’s more high speed and then the crashes get a lot worse,” Marshall says. “The reality is that in any activity, there’s risk. We cannot mitigate all risks. So it’s a balance of designing events and structures well, so that there is less opportunity and motivation for individuals to take risks.”

It’s Not ‘A’ Spirit, It’s ‘The’ Spirit

We can talk all day—and many of us have—about whether Peter Stetina or Ian Boswell or Adam Roberge are “correct” about what the spirit of gravel is or isn’t. But to even fight about the definition is the antithesis of the concept. There is no singular spirit of gravel. It’s whatever the hell you want it to be. It’s whatever it means to you.

Science backs this up. Seriously. Pro gravel racer and Olympic mountain biker Haley Smith is working on a research paper about the topic as she pursues her sports psychology degree. The results she’s seen so far have been fascinating. She wanted to understand why and how people come to this sport and figure out what keeps them in it. So, she conducted a series of in-depth interviews that she’s now breaking down into usable data.

“Originally, the question was, ‘Can we identify what the spirit of gravel is?’ But we found that the question itself was too limiting, and the research objectives became to understand the discipline and what it means to individuals who are clearly having these valuable experiences that keep them coming back,” Smith says. “I can’t share the conclusions yet. But I do think that these small arguments about etiquette are just a supporting role in the spirit of gravel.”

A lot of what Smith’s research is pushing her toward is something she experienced for herself while racing a big gravel event earlier this season. Her brother and his girlfriend were doing the short course option of the race. All three of them crested the final climb of the day together serendipitously. “We somehow got to the top at the very same time,” Smith recalls. “It was a brutal climb, and while I had covered more distance, they were also out there trying as hard as they could for seven and a half hours. It was emotional for all of us because we were each giving it our all.”

This is a perfect example of Farrar’s aim with his race: “I think Paris to Ancaster proves to me that you can have all of the racers’ intentions co-exist without killing the spirit of gravel,” he says.

“I think there will be multiple streams of gravel in the future and sure, there might be one that is gritty and competitive, but that’s just going to be one of many streams,” Smith says. “What’s unique about gravel is that there is a niche race or ride for every desire. People are worried about the future of gravel, but they forget that we are all playing active roles in shaping it right now. If you show up with the attitude that you want to see in races, then you are helping to encourage a manifestation of this discipline that you want to see.”

Welcome to the multiverse of gravel: a race can be different things to different people, all at the same time.