The sight of Annemiek van Vleuten has become a common sight on the roads of Colombia over each winter of the past three years. She once used the high elevation of the paved roads for training, to build into the early road season with her Movistar Team. This year the Dutch rider will have an altogether different motivation as she works her way across the rugged terrain of the Andes for the eight days of Transcordilleras.
The Transcordilleras Rally Colombia has taken hold as a formidable gravel race with former WorldTour pros like Laurens ten Dam, Thomas Dekker and Peter Stetina riding hard across the three imposing mountain ranges along South America’s equator. For this edition, Ten Dam and Dekker return to compete in the non-stop, self-supported category, while the eight-day, self-supported stage race includes newcomers Russell Finsterwald, who won Big Sugar Gravel in 2022, and Whitney Allison, who was second overall at the 2023 Belgian Waffle Ride Quadrupel Crown. Returning to the field is Colombian mountain bike champion Marcelo Gutierrez.
