For 51 weekends of the year, the tiny village of Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway goes about its daily life far from pretty much anywhere. For one weekend a year, though, it becomes the home of the Gralloch, the UK’s only UCI Gravel World Series qualifier event and hosts some of the fastest riders in the world on 110km of relentless and stunning gravel roads.
This year, I lined up at the start to take on the course, and for any avoidance of doubt, I am not one of the fastest gravel riders in the world, so this would be a challenge. The field is broken down into age groups and an elite category for race whippets, which was stacked with former road pros, Olympic triathletes and full-time gravel racers.
