Gralloch UCI Gravel World Series, 20 May 2023

Not one of the official photos but this was the first hill and a spectacular image of the traffic ahead

After my first gravel race at the Kings Cup in September 2022, I was keen to try the Gralloch – the UK’s first UCI gravel race and on ‘proper’ gravel in Scotland with lots of climbing too – what could be better!? I signed up for this race last year, intending it to be a major target in my season. Unfortunately, the training hasn’t been ideal recently, with a combination of factors meaning I just hadn’t got as much work in as I would have liked, especially long hard rides. I knew this was likely to be my weakness on such a hard race as this. I have also been suffering from neck and back pain recently and didn’t know how this was going to hold up.

I set off for Scotland rather nervous about how the race was going to go. I had to redo the rim tape on one of my tubeless wheels the day before I left, and then do some last-minute headset servicing just before driving off on the Friday. The headset needed more attention in the carpark at the race – I did the best I could and crossed my fingers. An overheard conversation next to me about how you needed at least 42mm tyres for this course wasn’t helping (I was on 38mm front, 33mm back as my little CX bike ‘cannae take any more’). After going to see Kim start, just behind Tiffany Cromwell and others, I did my warmup and lined up in our start pen. For some reason the 50-54 age group was the last to set off, so there were hundreds of riders just ahead.

Finally, the gun went, and after some minutes waiting for everyone to filter through the start, we were off, up a few hundred metres of tarmac before turning straight onto the first long, pretty hard, climb. This meant lots of threading through traffic, trying to make progress but also not go too hard and risk paying for it later. The data afterwards suggests I did go a bit hard, but I was hoping (only hoping) that my fitness would hold out for the 4+ hours expected. For the next couple of hours, it was a game of two halves, going well up climbs, overtaking lots of people and having fun, then trying to find a compromise between speed and safety on descents, watching out for rocks/holes that risked a crash or puncture/damaged wheel – this sometimes meant people catching me back. The course was also strewn with people fixing mechanicals (over 400 of the 1300 riders apparently!). I saw a few people several times – shout out to ‘number 900’, ‘London Dynamo guy’ and ‘North Hampshire guy’ – but there was never a suggestion of any groups forming (unlike the previous gravel race) as the course was just too hard (apart from a brief section on tarmac into a headwind where sitting on a wheel was welcome).

If the race had been 2-2.5 hours it would have been ideal, but after that I was starting to flag, and the time started to drag out as my legs, back, neck, hands etc were tiring and I was slowing. By the end I was dragging myself to the finish – on the last gravel descent my neck was screaming for mercy and I was desperate to get to the last 8km of lovely smooth downhill tarmac to the finish. Wow that was hard! I finished satisfied that I couldn’t really have done any better on the day. I only looked at the results after I’d driven back the 5 hours home, then wished I hadn’t! It was a blow seeing how far down I had come in my age group, not remotely close to qualifying (the top 25% get the opportunity to ride at the Worlds in Italy). Still it was a great experience and well-worth doing if you like that sort of thing!

Tim Phillips