A video showcasing the efficient pit stop of Sofía Gómez Villafañe and her four-person crew at the 2023 Unbound Gravel race has been making the social media rounds. In it, Villafañe seamlessly transitions into the checkpoint, entrusting her dirty bike to her crew, who, with the precision of a Formula 1 team, promptly get to work. One member power-washes the bike, another swiftly swaps out water bottles, while a third hands Villafane a fresh hydration pack and stuffs a new ice sock down the neck of her jersey. Meanwhile, another crew member assists Villafañe out of her potentially malfunctioning shoe and into a new one. Villafañe, for her part, quickly dumps trash from her jersey and restocks her gels. In mere minutes, she's back on the course with fresh gear and nutrition to tackle the next 60 miles of the race.
In shorter events, such as last weekend's Mid South race in Stillwater, Oklahoma, half of the riders never dismounted their bikes as they passed through the feed zone. They simply grabbed a musette from their support personnel and were off—any water stop etiquette forgotten.
The meteoric rise of gravel racing has ushered in a new era, complete with its own category of products, UCI-sanctioned events, lucrative prizes, and superstar participants. However, this professionalization and commercialization threaten the sport's ethos —the spirit of gravel, if you will.
Gravel racing was born out of adventure riding where grit, mechanical know-how, and exploration equal on-the-bike fitness. As such, the first gravel races embodied a spirit of adventure, self-reliance and resourcefulness. Participants had to rely on their own capabilities to navigate rough terrain, manage mechanical issues and sustain themselves throughout the race. It was an atmosphere that valued friendly competition over the adversarial kind, with unspoken rules regarding things like group breaks and shared effort.
These days, however, it's every rider for themselves, aided by their own mechanics and support personnel. This presents a significant advantage for riders with the means to assemble and sustain such crews, widening the gap between the haves and have-nots in the gravel racing community. Not many so-called privateers have the resources to travel from one remote location to the next with a team in tow.
Thus, like every other discipline in bike racing, gravel racing is at risk of becoming a sport where success is determined not only by physical prowess and mental fortitude but also by the depth of one's pockets and sponsorships. This financial disparity diminishes the sense of adventure, inclusivity and self-reliance that attracted so many to the gravel discipline in the first place.
To steer gravel racing back to its roots and prevent it from evolving into a road race on different terrain, I propose a simple measure for fairness and self-sufficiency: the mid-race bag drop.
Popular in ultra-endurance running and adventure races, a mid-race bag drop allows participants to access their pre-assembled supplies at designated checkpoints during the event.
I'm aware that some events already offer a bag drop, but this is meant as a service in lieu of having a personal support team and often comes at a fee. Instead, I propose to ban personal support crews and make this bag drop service included in the registration fee and accessible for all registrants. A mid-race bag drop would level the playing field by providing all participants with equal opportunities to refuel and replenish their resources, regardless of their financial means.
The current trajectory of gravel racing, with its growing reliance on support crews and external resources, threatens to undermine the core values of fairness, inclusivity, and self-sufficiency that first defined the sport. The spirit of adventure and camaraderie is diluted to the point where we risk losing sight of the qualities that made the discipline so unique.
Enough already with the F1-inspired pit stops in gravel races; I, for one, would love to see fewer support crews and more self-reliance. Bring back the group breaks and the MacGyvering!
