Tessa Neefjes (LIV Racing) and Paul Voß (AUTˈSAID) claimed victories in the sixth round of the UCI Gravel World Series in Aachen, Germany on Saturday.
The 3RIDES event, one of 16 qualifiers for the UCI Gravel World Championships, took place on a demanding 18.5-kilometre circuit, with the seven passes delivering a 129.5km race with 2,100m of ascent. Both winners had only small margins at the line.
Neefjes out-sprinted Carolin Schiff (Canyon) to claim the women's title, while Voß attacked to win the men's by one second over Joris Nieuwenhuis (Baloise-Trek) and Daan Soete (Deschacht Hens Maes CX Team).
Schiff – who won the opening round of the gravel series in Spain – was on the attack until the final lap when Neefjes went on a climb, dropped WorldTour sprinter Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx) and bridged across just before the finish. Neefjes proved the quickest at the line, while Wiebes held on for third, four minutes adrift.
"It was a super valuable win for me," said Neefjes, "I thought I was going to finish second today – and then I caught Carolin on the last corner." Beforehand, Neefjes had not expected to win. "The field was super strong, so it was absolutely surprising for me today," said the rider who came third at the Limburg round last month and last year won the French and Belgian rounds.
Voß is targeting Unbound Gravel this season and was surprised to take the win. "I had problems in between and was really struggling," he said. "So I let out a pretty loud cry of emotion on the finish line. Riding away solo was impossible here, it was a very fast race despite the rain of the previous days."
Gravel World Champion Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was also among the field of more than 1,150 but did not finish along with well-known former professional Andre Greipel.
Eli Iserbyt (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal), the 2022 Cyclo-Cross World Cup and Superprestige winner, came fifth taking the line just behind New Zealand's Ryan Christensen, who rides for the Bolton Equities Black Spoke Continental road team. The recently retired WorldTour racer Jan Bakelants came tenth while Unbound winner Ivar Slik (Wilier Factory Racer) was 28th.
3RIDES was one of two UCI Gravel World Series rounds held on Saturday, with a race also being held in Nannup, Australia. That was won by Tiffany Cromwell (Canyon-SRAM) and Tasman Nankervis (BMC Shimano). The next event in the series will be the Gralloch in Scotland on May 20, which is in its debut year and is already sold out.
