We’re joined by the Michigan-born gravel racer and the longtime cycling journalist to explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of gravel racing and riding in 2025.
Episode Transcript
Chris Case 00:05
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of fast talk. Your source for the science of endurance performance. I’m your host, Chris case here with Trevor Connor today, we’re talking gravel. Where are we at in gravel racing? What are the strengths? What are the weaknesses, and where might the sport go from here. While gravel racing has been around for over 20 years, the granddaddy of them all, unbound, formerly known as dirty Kanza, began way back in 2006 it’s fair to say the sport is still in its infancy. There’s a bit of chaos, bit of uncertainty, a bit of hand wringing about what it should be. There’s also plenty of aspects that make it the most fantastic niche within cycling for many, we’ll explore all of those themes and more today. Joining us for the discussion are two of the most prominent voices in gravel. First, Alexi Vermeulen once raced for the World Tour jumbo road team. Then he decided to make the switch in 2019 to gravel. His first thought, meh, he wasn’t too keen actually, believing the racing aspect was a bit silly. He flatted in his first race at BWR California, and limped home. Flash forward five years, and he’s become one of the stars of American gravel racing. It doesn’t hurt that he trains with Sir Willie, the wiener dog, who’s with us in the studio today as well, also joining us. Ben Delaney has covered bike racing for decades as the former editor in chief of Vela news, he now focuses almost exclusively on gravel with his YouTube channel. The ride with Ben Delaney and travels the country and world to compete in gravel races, review the tech side of the sport and meet with the community that is so excited about the unpaved roads of America. Today’s episode is sponsored by training peaks Trevor. There’s gravel racers who are out there to compete, and there’s gravel racers who are out there to complete. And I know training peaks helps you work with those completers with different metrics, because sometimes it’s just not about the numbers.
Trevor Connor 02:01
Yeah, you have to be really aware of the athlete that you’re working with and metrics you’re going to look at as somebody who’s out there to try to win an event. Might not be the best metrics that you’re going to look for, for somebody who’s just there for the experience and have fun, that person isn’t going to care too much about what’s their best one minute power. What’s their best five minute power. It’s a different metric that you can look at and something I really like in training, peaks that I have been using for a while. I’ve actually been for 2030, years, trying to track, how do I feel, What’s my motivation, what’s my soreness, these more qualitative evaluations of myself. I’ve gone through several different platforms that offer this, but really did land on training peaks, because it has a great diary that I fill out. I have my athletes fill out to really see, how are they feeling, how sore are they, how motivated are they? And these, if I’m working with somebody that’s more focused on that completion, let’s have fun side. These are the things I’m actually going to look at more because they might be hitting a great five minute power, but if every day they’re saying motivation is low, my mood sucks, I’m fatigued, they’re not getting what they want out of the experience. You certainly need to look at particular numbers to make sure that they can get through the event. You know, if they’re doing the 200 mile Unbound, you need to make sure that they can complete that event. But you also have to be aware that they’re there for the enjoyment. They’re there for the experience, and you might get incredible numbers out of them, but if they’re not having fun, motivation is low. That’s not why they’re there. So I like that you can go these different directions and have other ways to look at an athlete depending on what they’re really focused on and what they care
Chris Case 03:39
about. If you’re ready to take your data deeper, start your free coach trial today at trading peaks.com/fast, talk. So with that, it’s time to get dirty and talk about the state of gravel. Let’s make you fast well. Ben, Alexi and Willie, thanks for joining us in the studio today. We’re going to talk some gravel.
Alexey Vermeulen 04:01
Thanks for having me and Willie.
Ben Delaney 04:02
Hey everybody. Hey, fast listeners. Fast
Chris Case 04:05
listeners, I like that. I wanted you guys to be here because of your long standing involvement in gravel, but from sort of two sides of the sport. And I also think it’s really interesting that having been in the pro road world, you bring an interesting perspective to where Gravel was when you first entered it, and where it has evolved to. And then Ben, I don’t know if there’s anybody else that travels to as many races that isn’t a pro than you, and you’ve seen so many. So I want that. What’s it like to be an amateur at all these races, what’s the vibe? What’s going on, what’s changing, what’s good, what’s bad. I thought I’d hit you with one quick question right from the top to sort of set the tone, three words to describe the current state of gravel racing. Alexi
Alexey Vermeulen 04:57
chaos,
Ben Delaney 04:57
dang it, that was mine.
Alexey Vermeulen 05:00
So.Is settling stagnant.
Chris Case 05:03
Oh, wow. I don’t know how you do that simultaneously, but yeah, we can get into it. We will all right, Ben,
Ben Delaney 05:10
yeah, chaotic was my first one. Fun, dangerously fun. Imagine too many words and
Chris Case 05:15
you’re saying that with an expression still evolving, yeah, still evolving,
Alexey Vermeulen 05:19
yeah, I just learned that Ben’s not pro man.
Chris Case 05:22
I still taking that in Yeah, I’m
Ben Delaney 05:25
on the Masters Devo team
Alexey Vermeulen 05:26
every time I ride on Ben’s wheel. I think he’s bro.
Chris Case 05:28
He’s stagnating. We’ll get into all of that more in depth soon. Three more words. What does gravel racing need, if anything, to make it better,
Ben Delaney 05:41
a freaking calendar. For the love of Pete, okay,
Chris Case 05:44
a freaking calendar, a freaking calendar. There’s your three words. Alexi,
Alexey Vermeulen 05:50
youngsters. Get off my lawn. I think I’m not gonna work to say youngsters, more dirt. Rules,
Chris Case 05:57
rules, ooh, ooh.
Ben Delaney 06:00
He gets all right. Agreed.
Chris Case 06:03
Okay. I noticed Ben, when you walked in that you brought the sort of original Bible, if you will, Nick legan’s book called, interestingly enough, gravel cycling. Pretty on the nose, isn’t it? Yep, and you were flipping through the pages and noticing some of the races and name changes and diversity of locations in the US and in Europe, the bike technology, I thought we might take a step back in time a little bit to understand how we got to this place where it’s not only chaotic but stagnant and ever changing. And we need some rules, and we need a calendar. So how did we get here? Describe what gravel racing used to be like in 2017 when that book was first published for listeners. Alexi, when did you make the switch from the pro road world to gravel racing full time? I
Alexey Vermeulen 06:58
wasn’t racing gravel full time until 2019 Okay, 2017 I was still on yumbo when the book came out.
Ben Delaney 07:04
Yeah, Alexi and I have been on similar tracks, but different sides of the coin. He is a professional racer and me as a journalist. So my background was covering pro road racing. And obviously, there are lots of people that like to ride road bikes and race road bikes. Then I made the jump to cover and gravel, kind of similar to Alexi, like dabbling in it. Like, what the heck is this that people are talking about? This is pretty talking about? This is ridiculous. Oh, maybe I should check it out. I definitely remember Nick leegan, who wrote this book, going to what was in dirty cans me heckling him about it. It’s like, this is a terrible idea. And then now the media side of things. So, what did gravel look like? I mean, part of why I love covering gravel, why he started a YouTube channel just about gravel, is because it’s such a weird and evolving thing, and we can’t really pinpoint what the heck it is of still, yeah, in terms of tire width or the bikes, or is gravel a racing thing? Is it a participant thing? Is it like, What the heck is it that’s part of the fun? Is it still evolving? And things are solidifying now a bit, but it’s still not agreed upon. There’s no governing body. You know, it’s like, it’s, like, it’s, it’s still kind of a hot mess, which is part of the fun. 2017 there was, you know, some of the big events that you’d still recognize, maybe by different names. You know, unbound was one of the big ones in dirty Kanza, Mid South. Then Land Run was in there. When I was at Bella news in 2020 we did a thing at Fred Dreyer’s direction called the monuments of gravel. That’s right. We’re just trying to get a handle on, okay, there’s a gazillion these events. What are the big ones? Which one matter? And so we asked people like Alexi and promoters, okay, what are the big ones? This was before lifetime had put a series together and made like a calendar of sorts. And it was what’s now unbound. It was built in waffle ride California, even though Michael Marks was like, it’s not a gravel event. It was what’s now mid south it was steamboat gravel, which was crazy, because it was like the second year of this event came out of nowhere, and was huge. And then for the fifth one, there was a mix between Rebecca’s Private Idaho right, which is faded, but so this and Crusher in the toucher. And so we put it to a reader vote, and Rebecca’s won, and Burke swinhurst, kind of, the spirit of gravel, refused to participate. He didn’t want to promote. He’s like, That’s against what I want to do, man, that’s just, I don’t like competition. I want everybody to begin get along. Yeah, yep, that’s Burke. Another notable thing about that book, looking back, was that a lot of the European events that are big now did not exist. Then there’s no mention of the troca, you know, the rift isn’t in there. There’s like, a host of events that are now pretty prestigious that just did not exist. So at the risk of tooting our American horn, it seems like there was a lot going on in the US that had been around for a while, but European, the rest of world stuff was still coming to be. And I think that through current from then, even back to the beginning, until now, is like, what is it? Is it? Is it a professional thing? And now it is as a part of it, but that’s not how it started. Whereas road cycling, a lot of amateur stuff, keys off what the pros are doing, whether it’s the top Tour, where you go and do an event like, that’s part of what the pros are doing, or the stuff you buy, or how you dress, or that’s keying off what the pros are. Doing gravel, it was opposite. There’s like these crazy things were happening completely as a amateur thing, not even necessarily a competitive thing, and they slowly gained enough traction that folks like Ted King were like, maybe I should go give this a crack. And so that’s it’s still, I think the overwhelming majority of folks doing it are doing it for fun, but now there are people like Lexi who can make a living as a professional athlete doing it. So that’s, yeah, that’s a cool thing. And then, like, how those two things coexist? That’s still the point of friction.
Trevor Connor 10:29
That was the one question that I wanted to ask, because I, you know, I’m the person in the room who hasn’t done a gravel race, but have certainly been following it and then hearing what’s going on. I remember when it started, it was very relaxed. It was kind of, yeah, you can race it, or you can just go ride it, whatever, have fun. You know, every once a little pro would show up and beat everybody by 30 minutes, and they’d all go, wow. But it wasn’t really a race where, now it seems it is very professionalized, and you definitely have that group that’s at the front that are there to race and make a living out of this. And I wanted to ask about that change and how that’s impacted gravel raising. That’s
Chris Case 11:05
a big question. Yeah, go for it. Alexi, I can see expressions coming. I’m just part of the dark side. I
Trevor Connor 11:13
haven’t done one, so I’m not saying dark or light side. I just, I’m interested,
Chris Case 11:16
but that’s interesting, because I get the sense that you’re saying that, because you hear the chatter from some segment of gravel racing community that the professionals have ruined this for us,
Alexey Vermeulen 11:30
honestly, the only people I hear saying professionals have ruined gravel are professionals straight out. No, for the most part, gravel has been the most amazing thing I’ve seen happen in US racing. I think I’ve been sad there’s been a detriment of road cycling at the same time, because I think the two should coexist. Gravel cycling, I do not believe in any case form, even if we’re trying to right now, it’s not a pathway to the World Tour. It’s not it’s different. You don’t learn tactics, you learn strength, you learn how to be utilitarian, and MacGyver things, things you don’t need on the road. And so I think I coming from both sides, where there’s probably four or five guys now I’m probably the youngest. So you know, Pete and Alex are starting to age out. Ted is aging out, but it’s there’s a couple of us who’ve come from both sides. And I think gravel is really good, especially when you look at the abilities and the chances you have with social media to personify and amplify what you’re doing. Avery and I have looked up to what Ben’s done. We’ve gone back and forth together, both Ben asking Avery things and Avery asking Ben things. And I’ve loved YouTube because, I mean, Willie helps also, because everyone knows who I am with a dog on my back, but on a given training there, I probably just stopped four or five times now, and it’s like, full conversations like, Hey, we got a bottle of wine. We got your video teed up tonight. And I’m like, oh, okay, that’s your plan. You’re not gonna go watch Netflix and the new, you know, Happy Gilmore too. So I think there’s like a beauty to that, where it’s the sport is growing beyond just bikes, which I think is really healthy for us in the US, because it can’t just be bikes here. That’s also what for me. I knew the first when I did 2019 Belgian welfare California, which wasn’t really a gravel race, and I flatted out very early and rode the whole day with Jacob rathee, who had also come from the road. I remember just thinking, the sport, the racing, is stupid. There’s no way you can’t flat. You’re gonna fly here. But the desire everyone has to be involved in, it doesn’t exist, or isn’t possible, to exist on the road because we’re too professional the road you got, you know, get out your bus. You’re sectioned off. The PR manager tells you can go talk to these four people and then get back on the bus and focus on what your job is for the day. Gravel for the sense of we’re getting into the rules all day. But there’s no rules for what I can and can’t do, how much time I want to spend in an expo. A sponsor might tell me what they think, what they want, but it’s up to me. It’s my prerogative. I think that’s going to change. We’re going to start seeing gravel teams think great. Gravel teams in gravel, but that was the first thing for me, is when I left the road, I freaked out for a minute. I left at the end of 2017 and 2018 I went back and raced for a continental team because, like, it all I’d ever known, I’d never gone to school, and I was like, I made a mistake. I should not have left. And very quickly, was like, okay, didn’t make a mistake. Continental ranks are not the world tour, and this is really hard, but it was that drew me was the people to gravel. It wasn’t the racing. At first. I remember thinking, sitting after I flatted and just being like, all of these people are like, really, really excited to go and flat because the bikes don’t work. Bikes are not made to do this. Who
Chris Case 14:14
knew? Yeah, crazy, yeah. Well, I also want to say in 2017, gravel events had actually been around for quite a while, and they were almost purely weekend warrior style, amateur events, correct, right? So 2017 wasn’t the beginning of what we’re talking about now. It was maybe the middle of what we’re talking about. And it was, you know, like it used to be events where you had to send a postcard to get that was your entry fee. There were no lotteries. There was no pressure to sign up eight months in advance. There was none of that. So we’ve come a long way, but I’m curious about that 2017 era, when things were changing, what were. The maybe the missteps, the wrong turns that were taken that have led to the sport being where it is now. Because you’re using the word chaos, and you wanted to use the word chaos first too. 2017
Alexey Vermeulen 15:11
is a little bit predates me. I mean, I wasn’t thinking about gravel at all for me, I think the biggest thing, the reason I use chaos and stagnant, which are obviously two very opposite words, is that I think in one frame, I look at gravel and just buzzing, everything all the time, important buzzwords, articles, everything that’s written, it’s hard for me to believe in, like the romance the sport that will exist at some point, that I miss from the road. There’s very little romance in sport, and I think a lot of that in gravel right now. Very little romance in gravel cycling right now. And I think that comes from at least for me, my perspective, my opinion, is that teammates, I love watching the tour because I love someone sacrificing their moment, their chance, or vice versa, right when someone gets to go up the road and take a chance and see what happens, watching Wellens win is probably arguably more valuable to me than watching today win for a fourth time. Just cool without that in gravel, there’s not enough depth yet. It’s hard to feel that romance, but I think that chaos, that shift in gravel, is still kind of ever moving, and then gravel also, at the same time, we’re kind of bumping our heads on the ceiling because we’ve made all these quote, unquote, unwritten rules that there’s this spirit and these things that we’re not supposed to do and are supposed to do. And we don’t want the governing body, but we do want help deciding how to have guidelines. Sure, there’s just so much that’s keeping it in its same place and not growing. I think the biggest change leap forward, and a lot of people probably disagree with this, was the lifetime Grand Prix. It personified what gravel could be at the highest level. And obviously the Grand Prix also included mountain bike racing. But, you know, it’s a multi billion dollar company that is here because Brom loves bike riding and loves Leadville.
Chris Case 16:39
Brom is the CEO of lifetime but not lifetime events. We’re talking about the global brand,
Alexey Vermeulen 16:44
global rant. And obviously, Kimo Seymour, lifetime Grand Prix is his baby. He pitched it to Brom but it’s the Grand Prix at the time. I think people like, ah, what is this? It’s gonna kick all the mom and pop races out. It’s not gonna be a good thing. It’s gonna be negative, negative, negative. I don’t think you could find a sponsor now who doesn’t say the Grand Prix is valuable, and it’s because we’ve consolidated a little bit into what a calendar might look like. Where are the Pro is gonna be at a given time. And so to me as a racer, value that and the pandemic, and just kind of narrowed into what racing could be in the US, if we didn’t have true California and tour Utah into a Colorado.
Chris Case 17:15
Are we talking about two different sports in some ways, like the lifetime Grand Prix is the direction that you think the professional gravel racing scene should look like, and then Ben, you’re traveling around to all the quote, unquote, Mom and Pop races and some of the lifetime events that exist, and maybe only exist because of the energy that lifetime brings to the sport. But they want to stay Mom and Pop, and they want to cater to the amateur and not the Pro.
Ben Delaney 17:41
I’ll let Ben go, but I hope not. I don’t think it’s quite that simple. But, you know, a primary question is, what’s the point of gravel? What are we trying to accomplish here? Look back to the early days. It was completion. Just, can you do this ridiculous thing? Sort of like the start of Iron Man. Start Iron Man wasn’t like, what are the absolute best elite athletes and what are the marginal games they can use to win at this sport. It’s like, Hey, bro, I’ve got this crazy idea. You want to go ride 200 miles in Kansas and see if we can finish it. And I think for a lot of participants, that’s there’s still that completion, like, it’s a big, hairy goal to go and do. And then for racing, whether you’re a professional like Alexi or you’re somebody watching it, okay, what does professional gravel racing look like? Literally. And I agree with Alexi that Lifetime’s done a better job than anybody of giving it some structure and something to follow, because, as we’ve got dozens of events, both brands and fans and racers have to figure out, okay, what do I actually care about? How can I follow this? And Lifetime’s done a great job of saying, Okay, well, here are the events, here are the marquee athletes, and here’s the story throughout the year. And that’s something to follow. It’s interesting to see what correlation there is with what success looks like. You know, it’s is it the number of pros you get? Is it how big the prize purse is? Is it how many participants you get showing up? Is it how many brands like what does good look like? Right? Like a Tour de France. We’ve got some basic metrics there, right. Thinking back to the running model, it’s interesting to see a competitor group. They had a bunch of Marathon events, and they bought a bunch more, and about half had pro purses, and half did not. And each owner would argue for their model, like the amateurs aren’t going to show up without the pros. And in their case, that was true. But then on the other half, they had a perfectly healthy business going without any professionals showing up. So
Alexey Vermeulen 19:29
that’s still true with Barry Roubaix. I grew up in Michigan, and Barry Roubaix, arguably, one is still maybe one of the biggest one day gravel races in the country, and it’s an I only got to do it in 2020 cause the move to date. But it’s always the same weekend as sea otter, so you’re never gonna see a pro there, and that’s really tough for me, being from Michigan, but it exists. It fills out every year, and Barry Roubaix didn’t grow out of this. Like, how tough Are you? How far can you go? It’s 62, mile sprint, you know? It’s two hours, which I think is unique and special, but it’s hard. There is not enough space in the calendar. Yeah,
Ben Delaney 19:58
I think a sifting we’re seeing, which I think needs. To happen at this point is that there’s pro events where professional athletes race and they’re not caught up in 3000 Yahoos. You know, this is more of an issue for the women’s field than the men’s field, but like, I think back to someone like the mids house when they’re trying to do live coverage, even just like live Instagram coverage, and you literally can’t see the women because they’re stuck in a field of 3000 people. So I think it’s good to have a separation for the marquee events. So this is going to be a professional thing, both for you to race and for us to be able to watch. It needs to be a separate thing, which some would argue like, well, it’s against the spirit of gravel, bro. It’s like, well, if it’s going to be a pro sport, it should
Alexey Vermeulen 20:34
be a pro sport for safety. Now there needs to be splits. Yes, I don’t think people realize the speed change is so different. Like, even for us at the end of Unbound, and you’re delirious. You’re finishing the 200 and you’re coming up 150 and 25 milers. You scared out of them. Yeah, you come by them at triple or quadruple their speed. And the reality, there’s one racing line on those roads, everyone wants to be on that one line.
Ben Delaney 20:55
And at a much humbler level that a similar thing is happening with amateur events, more people are taking them more seriously and wanting to race the whole thing. You know? To race the whole thing. You know, there’s a lot more people on amateur level taking it seriously, and there are no rules. Anybody can sign up, and we can all try to chop each other 3000 wide into the first corner, in the last corner, and all the corners in between. And that’s making it certainly more dangerous, and is underscoring one of the primary problems of gravel being too cool for school and being too cool for USA Cycling, and being too cool for rules and being too cool for best practices. Like, maybe we should make sure there are Marshalls out there so if and when somebody breaks himself in a ditch, they’re not lying there for hours now or so. I think the rubber is meeting the road. There’s a bad analogy for gravel where there’s not a road, but we got you, yeah, you see where I’m going with this.
Trevor Connor 21:42
The person who hasn’t done this. How does the start work? Is it all 3000 people line up? Or are there corrals? How do they do it?
Ben Delaney 21:48
Traditionally, it’s one big mob, okay? And until only one to three years ago, depending on the event that was the case, and it was typically a giant crash that would sort out, if it’s a fighter event, it was be a giant crash that sorts out the front group, which is not a great way to do it. I think credit to marks, Michael Marks, in California, for putting a big hill in the front, which, as a non small person, I kind of resent, but as a thinking person, I think that’s the way to do it. Like you have the Hogwarts sorting hat by watts per kilo, and you take it from 3000 people down to like, manageable groups of 20 or 30 pretty quickly. And I think talking to amateurs or professionals, the first half hour to 45 minutes of the race is terrifying for everyone, because everybody’s there, everybody’s trying to be in the front. And that’s not how physics works.
Alexey Vermeulen 22:35
Yeah. And even the front of the big Grand Prix is undone. For example, they’re starting to stop the self seating for elite fields, because it’s just there’s a lot of the amateurs who want to be up there, because they will have a faster time saying, hang on for dear life. Yeah, yeah. But slowly becoming less and less, I think you’re seeing races start to pick and choose who is in that Elite Field, yeah, which is, you know, again, rules question mark. But as someone up there, I think it’s safer, yeah.
Suzy Sanchez 22:58
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Chris Case 23:23
I thought it would be fun to maybe do a bit of a swat analysis on the sport. So just to go through and say, the strengths of gravel racing are x and the weaknesses are x and, etc, yes, sir. So let’s start with the strengths. What do you see here, Ben,
Ben Delaney 23:42
the accessibility. Anyone can do it anywhere, whether that’s like a promoter being like, hey, here’s the event this weekend. We’re gonna ride up to Gold Hill and have pie and come back down. Or a participant, you don’t have to have a license or detailed knowledge of professional road cycling to work your way through all the complexity. You can just show up and do the thing. And that’s also the weakness. As they get bigger and bigger, some basic training can help everybody, and some rules around that,
Chris Case 24:09
yeah, biggest strength that you see Alexi,
Alexey Vermeulen 24:12
for me as an athlete, quantifiability, races and companies and anything else. I think the big change from the road to gravel is it’s I don’t have 27 teammates around me. It’s just me. When I sign with a company, I make deliverables. I do anything else is a real job. I have to do those things. It’s been funny. Over the last four or five years, I’ve had so many athletes coming, oh, help me out this contract, like I signed this, and I don’t want to do all these things. What? Okay. I mean, I’m reading this, and I can see why you aren’t excited about it, but you signed it, and I think there’s just this. It’s direct. If I spend my time and sacrifice and race and build a relationship with envy, that’s what I’m seen as, right? And the more people that want to buy a bike or are interested in a bike will reach out to me before customer service, right? That’s a ability of the company to have a face, a personality. Reality in a sport typically, we try to do that for millions and millions of dollars of euros and over in Europe, and it works if you get someone like today, but that’s a once in a generation. Luck, sure, or ASA Vermont, right? Envy has been really lucky the last couple times to find people that are have a personality and also are dominant. I always laugh that I’m mixed in with those two because I’m not as dominant as either of them, but I work really hard to personify envy as a company, and I put a face to the brand at a race, and I think that side of it isn’t possible on the road very easily. You can pick and choose and maybe have luck, maybe not. But for example, Dimension Data didn’t go well for envy, even with Cavendish. And then you find the right mix, and it works really well. And so for me as an athlete, I think gravel allows you to sell bikes, to do your job.
Ben Delaney 25:42
From my perspective of what Alexi and others are doing, yeah, in one way, it’s fantastic that he, as an individual, is able to make a career out of it by doing it himself and to toot his horn. He’s exceptional at both pedaling a bicycle, steering a bicycle, and doing the shaking the hands, kissing the babies, doing all this most people can’t do.
Chris Case 26:04
That’s really Willie though, don’t you think? Okay,
Ben Delaney 26:07
so, yeah, Willie punches well above his weight.
Chris Case 26:09
This is why I love talking about it, though. I think that’s one of the reasons I love talking about everything I do. Because, like, I was talking to Keegan this weekend. I was like, I love talking about it because I know most people can’t do it. Something inside my brain allows me to compartmentalize and race and do all these other things, and I think it’s like, I’m happy to talk about it, because it is really hard to find that balance. Well, it’s cool that you can serve as a role model in that way, because more and more people are going to want to do what you do. But you can’t just do it. If you just have legs and don’t have a personality or don’t have the ability to do all of these other things. Maybe if teams come into the sport and it changes, then those people with just legs can make a living doing it. But right now, that’s not the case, right? So I think it’s cool that you can serve as a role model to show people how it can be done,
Ben Delaney 26:56
and on the media side too. I mean, like, if you come up in a road team, you don’t have to. You’ve got media training. There’s pathways in place, and experts in place, and teammates there to guide you along, whether you’re learning how to do your intervals or write in a pack or how to do a reel for Instagram, like, whatever it is. And it’s probably frustrating for some athletes who want to be an athlete, and if you’re just fast, unless you’re super fast, unless you’re Keegan or Sophia. I mean, you can just like, count on one hand in gravel who’s good enough to just win, and then let the sponsors kind of trail behind, but not create their own content. It’s a pretty short list, but
Alexey Vermeulen 27:32
I think people do underestimate how much Keegan does behind the scenes. Like, I think this one thing, like being friends with him, that I see constantly, and everyone’s like, Oh, he just wins, and then he signs contracts, he works his ass off to deliver. I think athletes want to just do the one thing, and they’re like, Okay, I’m just gonna focus on that. The reality is, gravel is not that right now. It might be in 10 years, but it’s you have to do everything else. I don’t think you’re gonna do everything as much as I am, or as much as Keegan is. You can find that line, but it’s cool to see. And I think my biggest advice to any young rider is take one step back from your goal of getting results. You can still go after results, but take one step back from it, let the ego go a little bit, because what you have in the day is your legs are going to provide, like, gravel racing, unlike road racing, it’s, like, it’s a little bit position, but it’s pretty much
Ben Delaney 28:12
just your walls per kilo. And even if you get results, you know Leadville is coming up, unless it’s a Leadville, or unless it’s Unbound, like, who’s going to know that you got third at this race? Like, more broadly, outside of the lifetime that has put the entertainment part in place, like, who cares what is going on at a race you’re not at? And so that’s where the content part comes in. If you’re good at showcasing that and telling a story on your own, like creating a whole entertainment empire to go along with you, then it works. But otherwise it’s a challenging thing. Why
Chris Case 28:39
don’t we shift and talk about opportunities, and we’re talking about the sport, not the people necessarily. What are the opportunities for gravel right now as a sport, to improve, to grow, whatever you think it actually needs.
Alexey Vermeulen 28:52
I think gravel will be helped a lot by some guidelines. I think just deciding what and where. I think there’s some things we can’t do. There’s parts of me that always have thought, okay, thing that separates gravel racing a lot is flatting. We should be like f1 and have all the same tire sponsor. It’s not really realistic in cycling, even though I think sometimes that stuff would be interesting, would make it a lot more fun. But I think overall, gravel just needs a little bit of space to stop being pushed there’s so many people who think they know what’s best for gravel, and sadly, none of those people are in position to make any changes in gravel and don’t know what it’s like. And I think and I think it’s really cool to see it grow. I think it’s done a great job growing organically. I think we have now, you know, with the help of chemo, with the help of all these race promoters, we built something that’s special. It’s really cool. They’re trying to replicate it in Europe, and I think it’s growing. But what we have in the US is really special, and a lot of that is around precipitation and accessibility to the races with the pros being involved too. You can separate those two things, but when the pros finish and the amateurs finish, that’s that moment where I get to do my job. And so it’s being able to hang out and relax and after the race, same as everybody does, that you can’t have on the road because you’re up and gone and it’s too hard to close roads for that long. So I think what gravel. Has done really well, and now it’s giving it some space and trying to help it grow. And a lot of that’s going to be seeing non endemic companies come back into the sport, in my opinion, because that’s, you know, at the end of the day for a lot of these sports, the financial visibility is what you need. I like to look at us like skiing, but somehow we miss out somewhere. And I think a lot of it’s that we can’t stay in one spot, skiing or tennis, like they’re sports you play in high school and you’re going up our night, colleagues are growing and so growing it’s really cool. There’s so many kids in it, but then where do they go from there?
Chris Case 30:26
And that’s the hard part, yeah, opportunities, Ben as you see them, yeah?
Ben Delaney 30:29
Structure, which is like, in some ways anathema. It’s a travels, freedom. You could do whatever you want, but whether it’s for professionals or participants, some basic structure would go a long way, whether that’s safety stuff or even, like I mentioned, we talk about have a fricking calendar, just getting all the different promoters talking to each other, because there’s so many events now, there are often multiple events on the same weekend, and there’s only so many riders. So unless you’re an unbound or a steamboat, where there’s a feeding frenzy around getting in, there’s more choices than there are opportunities to do it. So just some collaboration in the community, as far as who’s got which weekend,
Chris Case 31:08
in a probably a regional sense, since this country is so gigantic, it doesn’t mean one race per weekend is all we get, but some coordination between promoters would be
Ben Delaney 31:18
nice, yeah, and it’s definitely a buyer’s market in that writers have so many choices, and even if you have a really good time at one event, you’re like, that was cool. I wonder what the what’s around the next corner, what’s around the next corner? So just sort of a capitalist churn is gonna determine which ones stick around and which don’t. So that’s the opportunity for events to shine, because there are so many now, yeah,
Chris Case 31:38
I feel like that’s kind of one of the appealing aspects of the sport is that it can serve as like a destination event. Oh, I’ve tried everything in my local region. I want to see what gravel racing is in the northeast, because gravel is something different up there, more rugged. It’s trickier. What are these events all about? I’ve heard about rasputitsa for a long time, but that doesn’t even seem like gravel, because I’ve been riding the Midwest.
Alexey Vermeulen 32:04
I think that’s like the road was, though, like, that was when I was growing up. That was the dream, right? With like, we put family in suburban I have two younger brothers, and we go to Fitchburg, we go to Green Mountain, Sage race. And I was in Michigan, so we stayed around, we took we didn’t go to cascade, we didn’t go to the things out in the west coast, but go to Iowa and you go, you know, you go race Memorial Day races. Like, there’s a history and a beauty to those things that those things that I even when I watch them now, I try to keep up just it’s not the same, you know? And that’s what I hope doesn’t happen to gravel you have to pay attention to, is you have to build around. These are the big races everyone’s looking at. The reason we went to those races is because somebody, somewhere on some online, said, USC cycling is looking at these races to pick you want to go to Europe, you got to go to these races. Yes, my parents drove to those races, and that’s a little harder with gravel. But I do think as we grow, I’ve told Neil at envy, we should define what races you want riders to go to. It’s important, you know, the same as I think a promoter has to look at, hey, if we’re gonna seed an Elite Field, what races are we looking at to seed the Elite Field? What results get you into the elite corral? And it’s hard, because it is ever changing, like Belgian welfare ride California, if you get on the podium, awesome, you probably deserve it to be an elite crow. Some of the other belgris that are brand new. Do you have to win Bozeman for it to matter? You know, it’s tough because they’re not all on the same level,
Chris Case 33:13
and there’s no UCI ranking of these races to give it that hierarchy. And
Ben Delaney 33:17
there’s opportunity for people like Alexi to have serious leadership in the community, as far as, like, what matters. You know, people look into him as to what bike should I run, which tire pressure, like all that stuff, and for events like, where should I spend my vacation this year? Where should I go? And, you know, some of that can be just seeing which lifetime races he’s doing and following along. Or, you know, some could be Alexi speaking with people about what should be important and why, and let’s invite people out. I think you’re doing that same thing, though, too. Yeah, that’s part of it. You know, one thing I do, in addition to reviewing bikes and gear, is go to different events and do course previews for different promoters or do tests inside events, just to showcase like, Hey, here’s what’s cool about this different area and and when you’re out for vocal fondo, like, here’s some local businesses you can check out. There’s lots of opportunity to keep exploring the world by bike. And unlike pro road, there’s an opportunity for people to connect with people directly, either on social media or, like, in person. And that’s, yeah, hugely valuable. And I don’t see that going away. I think the danger is just tell Alexi works too hard as far as, like, giving amateur writers a lot of your time at events that’s hugely impactful and important for people who are there. And sometimes I see Alexei out like at unbound this year, it’s like pouring rain, and a lot of the pros who are going to be racing for the win have their legs up, and he’s out helping people with flat tires. And
Trevor Connor 34:39
kind of interesting the last part of the SWOT analysis the threats. Because I remember when mountain biking came on the scene, it exploded. And there was a point where people are going, you know, road racing is almost dead, and mountain biking is a cool sport. And the big thing that we’re all into now, and then you saw it flip back around, and road racing became huge, and mountain. Mountain Biking was not nearly as popular. So we’re definitely seeing a surge in gravel racing. But Is there potential threats where it could come back down? I think
Alexey Vermeulen 35:09
the biggest threat is safety, big crashes. You know, doping made a lot of non endemics go away in the road. I think you have you start having some big collisions or anything bad happen. It’s just easy. You see it happen a lot. And I think my favorite part about gravel racing is sometimes, unlike the road, so many people are willing to stop and help at any given time, flat tire crash or anything. Someone’s coming from behind, who’s a doctor or knows something, is willing to help. But I think we put ourselves in situations that we need to remember, that we need to be valuable to community, not just take away from it. And sometimes coming in with three to 3000 to 5000 people is we want to feel like there are roads because there’s no one else out there, but they’re not just our roads. We can cause a lot of pain in one weekend.
Chris Case 35:46
Yeah, Ben, can you add to that danger aspect? Because you do a lot of these races yourself, and how nerve wracking is it at the start of these races? Yeah,
Ben Delaney 35:56
at unbound. So I’ve done unbound in the 200 couple times, and the 100 the fundie Hyundai, I call it half the distance, twice as nice. Lexi, you should try it sometime next year, baby. After dodging crash number like, 14 this year, I was like, you know, next year I’m just gonna come back and I’m gonna crew for somebody, and I’ll do a video on that, because this is getting kind of silly, and crashes happen. As you guys all know, better than most. Like, crashes are a reality in bike racing period, whether that said, like, providing, yeah, that’s a thing. But for races, people have the expectation that there’s some safety support built in, like there are going to be ambulances there. They might not think of it in depth, but there’s that expectation as a participant, whether it’s a professional. I get unbound this year, there was a woman who was talking about, like, laying in the ditch, and she’s looking up and she’s seeing the helicopter there’s like, well, they’ve got the resources to film this live. Aren’t there resources to come and haul me out of the ditch and get me to a hospital in less than 45 minutes? That’s a primary deterrent, I think. And just anecdotally, speaking to people like, I just talked to a guy who did BWR Montanan said it was awesome flying along eight wide and everybody’s having a great time. Then all of a sudden, at the bottom of a hill, the gravel gets super deep, and people are surfing. And then now there’s just bodies flying everywhere. And most people were fine, but some people were not. And unlike your garden variety, neighborhood criteria, if those still exist, where you’re always, like, two blocks away from an EMT, often gravel. You’re out in the middle of nowhere, and many events, especially the old school events, will have in their rules, in boldface, all caps letter, you were responsible for you. We won’t come and rescue you. And they see that as their sort of get out of jail free card. But that’s not how I think most participants are doing it is that they’re completely on their own. No one has a great solution to that. Events like lifetime have done a good job making sure that they, at least the entire course is within cell range. So should you bust yourself or somebody else bust you? Or vice versa? You can call an ambulance or something. I think
Alexey Vermeulen 37:55
it’s also just they know the way they do things. I don’t race for the phone. I don’t do this. I don’t race the saddlebag. How’s it? Envy rodeo end of June, and I stopped with this guy had a flat and he’s all angry, so he’d already put a tube in. I was like, Oh, how you doing? He’s like, Oh, and, you know, we put a tube in, tried to fix it. And I was like, oh, man, I don’t know. This isn’t working. Like, you gotta call someone. Oh, I don’t know a phone. I don’t need a phone. I was like, What do you mean? You don’t need a phone. You’re out in the middle of nowhere. We are literally in the middle of nowhere in Utah. What? Do you mean don’t need a phone? Oh, well, I’ve never raced with a phone. I’m good. I’m good. I’m strong enough, strong enough for what you have no tire. What does that mean? Is, I think there’s just that there’s a big difference with how far away you can get in gravel. And there’s also a beauty to that, that you’re out there alone, and you can spend an hour riding away and all of a sudden it’s just you. You can hear nobody, you and the moose,
Chris Case 38:39
right? Self sufficiency is an aspect here that we, yeah, take into consideration,
Ben Delaney 38:43
yeah, and not having rules and being able to, like, I’ve said, certainly, anybody can show up and do it. Any Promoter can show up and put on a race when there’s just 30 of you, like, the first unbound in 2006 or whatever, when you’re running through fields and there’s a small group, it’s like, group ride, right? And you can look around and be like, Hey, y’all, there’s a truck up, and everybody will slow down, like the semi truck across the road in front of you, and then you proceed. But when there’s 3000 people, the lemming brain takes over,
Chris Case 39:08
yeah? And you could stop and 2999 people might pass you, yeah, right, yeah. And
Alexey Vermeulen 39:15
I think for me, also speaking to athletes, specifically, right now, when I go to races, the amount of people that just park their cars in front of people’s driveways and yards just to go pre ride and do things. That’s where we need to pay attention. It’s actually not race day. Sometimes I think athletes do a pretty good job race day, communicating with each other and trying to help with the situations we have. I think it’s also the days before and after the race where we sometimes tend to I want to go pre ride this section. Of course, I’m just going to leave my truck here. Okay. Well, where how it’s in the middle of the road? You know, they seem like a desolate road, but someone uses it. Yeah,
Chris Case 39:48
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Trevor Connor 40:28
So shifting gears, talk to somebody like me who’s never done a gravel race. Why should we be considering that? Why would we want to do this?
Alexey Vermeulen 40:36
It’s a great question for everything we’ve said,
Chris Case 40:39
it’s dangerous. You’re gonna get a flat tire, and it’s chaotic. You should totally do it
Ben Delaney 40:44
looking at this Nick ligand book on the table. I remember when he came back from Unbound, and there’s, you know, a bunch of guys sitting around a room, and Nick is fired up. He’s went forth. He drank the Kool Aid. He’s coming back, and he’s the evangelist, and he’s teeing up all these reasons why it was rad and awesome and incredible, and every example he puts forward as to why it’s a good thing, everybody else on the other side of the table is looking like you’re a crazy person. Then we’ll take that specific example is like, this is a horrible thing. And yeah, now I’m in the position of doing that and being evangelist. Is this ridiculous and exhausting and dangerous and chaotic, absolutely, and you should do it Trevor. And here’s why, it’s a sense of exploration of both nature and self, and like all the things that we love about riding any type of bike, exist in gravel and often free from a lot of the nonsense that you’ll get elsewhere, because it’s still ill defined. And I think when you’re in the habit of doing something, you can shift into autopilot, and when you’re out of a habit, whether you’re like you’re in a different country or a different time, isn’t different time zone or a different workspace, your brain has to start to rewire itself, like, What the hell is going on? You’re just more open to what’s happening around you, and you can get some of the best parts of road, of the camaraderie and the pulse of a group, and the momentum, both psychologically and physically, of a group, with some fun aspects of riding off road, of just the Zen mindset, of the state of flow, of having to be very present so you don’t hit a tree or fall into a hole, and then just the exploration of different places, whether that’s like locally here, I love going back to New Mexico now the tubeless tires and sealant or thing, and riding on dirt roads that were absolutely like No Go Zones when I was Riding rode there because of goat heads, and it’s just exploration. So these are some of the reasons that I am a proponent of riding gravel bikes. I’m gonna
Alexey Vermeulen 42:29
steal Ben’s and use accessibility. Because I think people who have lived in Boulder for 20 years might not have been places I was yesterday. Yesterday, I started riding up sunshine, cool, going to Gold Hill, went down church Trail, which most people might not even know, between Gold Hill and four mile, went four mile to pataso, and then ended up going up 60 8j through magnolia. So the point of it is just being all these places you can’t get to in a car, and you can’t get to on your feet unless you want to spend three days. And I think there’s a beauty in the bike, right? That freedom that we all have when we’re 12 years old, that is only amplified on a gravel bike or a mountain bike for that matter. I don’t think it really matters, but it’s this ability that technology has changed on bikes enough where there’s not really anything in your way. And I think that’s what’s exciting to me, when I brag about it to somebody, is that you don’t have to have a plan. You can just go ride your bike. Will take it.
Ben Delaney 43:15
We’ve been harping on safety, and I think we should take it in the other direction. One thing I hear regularly, and one thing that I feel myself, why ride a drop bar bike on the dirt is because there are very few cars there. So I was at a local ride last night, fast gravel, and nobody mark the Antonio, who I race rode with for a long time, was there, and he’s like, Oh, so this is why the group road rides don’t exist anymore. It’s like, well, one, because, yeah, it’s fun. And two, because, like, doing the bus stop ride on Tuesday night on a major thoroughfare when people are trying to commute back home to work, and you’re, you know, 18 inches away from vehicles going 60 miles an hour, it’s dangerous. And all of us who’ve ridden bikes long enough know people who’ve been killed. There’s no getting around that, and not that Gravel was like, will protect you completely, but there are a heck of a lot fewer cars on dirt roads, and you can still have the road bike riding experience of, you know, endorphins and group rides or solo rides, etc. So I think the safety perceived or otherwise is a huge factor for why gravel cycling is popular. Because we like riding bikes. We don’t like riding bikes near cars being a coaching podcast. I think one fun, engaging thing about gravel is that there’s all these different goals you can set for yourself. And like having the structure of putting an event on a calendar and training for that. I was talking to my friend Ellie barring about the Nationals course coming up. Like the course profile like, hey, there’s nine, one mile, 500 foot climbs. And great, that’s great Intel. I can give my athletes a training program built for that, for the duration and for the intensity of these specific climbs. A lot of us appreciate training for a specific thing, and so there’s like, micro goals as well as you know, working on the skills, whether it’s taking corners or writing in. Pack and yeah, there’s lots of different ways to engage with it. From a training and measurement perspective, that if you want to bring that analytical thing, you can, if you want to be sole writer person, you can,
Chris Case 45:11
as we were talking about, sort of the proliferation of races in Europe and things like that, and how the races in the United States have actually been around for quite a while, and they have a long standing law, in quotes, long standing history and sort of a reputation and all that. But I’m curious. I know Ben, you’ve been to some, probably a limited number of races in Europe. And Alexi, I think you’ve also had a limited experience. But America seems to take things and want to make it bigger, longer, harder, less, sort of audience friendly from a I want to watch Unbound, really. You want to watch unbound? That’s a long thing, like 300,000 people this year. Yeah. But is there anything that Europe is doing differently in gravel, that America could adopt to improve what we’re doing here, or is it just sort of, you know, we just do things the way we do them, and they do things the way they do them, and we do it better.
Ben Delaney 46:13
All right, there’s definitely a one up Smith ship with events like, Oh, your events, 100 miles. Ours on 50. Oh, yeah, here’s 152, look at the registration numbers, it’s almost never the longest event that draws the biggest crowd. I think there’s something to be said for doing a big event, doing something that you’re like, not so much for Alexi, although maybe even so for professionals, like doing an event that you’re scared of the distance, yeah, sometimes, but doing that on the regular is, I don’t think advisable.
Chris Case 46:39
But the European aspect. Are there anything they’re doing over there that you’re aware of that is different and maybe better?
Ben Delaney 46:46
My experience at European events, there’s a lot more front end of the business race and a lot less of the party aspects. It’s like the stereotypically Germanic, like, yeah, we are here to do sports, like, we take it seriously, and less of the party element, which I think is part of the fun of the accessibility thing. One thing I appreciate about the troca, I was just talking about Kim about this earlier this week that is completely unfeasible here in the US, each distance has its own day, so the amateurs can do their thing, be blown out, lay on the grass, go home to the Airbnb or wherever they’re staying, then come back the next day and watch Alexi and folks race, and the vendors appreciate it, because they get multiple days, and Taylor Finney is hanging out in the infield spinning tunes, and it’s a whole four day festival, and I could just see American promoters being like, yeah, that’s the one thing I want to do is take all my biggest expenses, like cops closing the road and, like, quadruple that. Like, I’m barely staying afloat, as is. That’s, yeah, crazy, so, but from a participant standpoint, I thought that was cool. You know, I’d love to see unbound have that like, Well, I’ve been doing the 100 so they can participate, do a bike test, and then still be back to catch the Alexis coming across the line to interview their bicycles, and the finishing grow. And if those were separate days, I think you get a lot more people spectating, instead of just like laying on the ground after their event? Yeah, I don’t
Alexey Vermeulen 48:03
think it’s unfeasible. I think it’s just we it has to be bigger, and that’s where I think you have to pare down the counter to the events that you want to really focus on and fight for. I look at triathlon a lot. They’ve done a spectacular job, and the cities wanting them to be there, triathlon takes a lot. Fact that the PTO is in all these big cities, you know, it’s, I’m sure it’s cost a lot of money, but it also draws big crowds. People are excited to go watch, I think in Europe, compared to the US, the biggest thing is culture. They want cyclists there most of the time. They want to watch again. So it ends up being in bigger cities, or closer to bigger cities, where someone who’s not raising can go and have a nice dinner or yadda yadda yadda. Emporia is overrun. I hate to say it, but it’s hard to eat dinner. It’s hard to do anything there. It’s hard to pay for lodging. Everything’s difficult. Leadville is the same way. And so I think it’s we’ve kind of reached the capacity of the towns we’re staying in, which isn’t always negative, and means you’re providing probably a pretty good impact, positive impact on those communities. But again, it’s a big wear as well. 5000 people coming in and taking over is not easy to deal with. And so when I look at European racing, it’s typically, is more sterile and straightforward. In a way. It’s like, Hey, this is the race distance. There’s not a baby distance. It’s not gonna be super technical. There’s not gonna be as many flats, because it’s more specific. We wanna get everyone through the day easily. A lot of that’s just me coming from, literally, the one gravel race I run in Europe, which is the World Championships. So I know troc is different from that, and they’re growing. They’re learning from what we do in the US, and trying to find that middle balance for everybody. But yeah, I mean, I think there’s a beauty in what the US has built. Is, on one hand, we have this vast infrastructure of roads that Europe doesn’t have very easily, and then on the other hand, those roads typically aren’t in places that you would go and are easy to find, restaurants and XYZ. How
Ben Delaney 49:43
many events would you like to do in a year? Like, what would be ideal? Roughly, I
Alexey Vermeulen 49:46
think that’s really tough, unless you build a calendar that works right now, we bounce every which direction, which makes it tough. You know, April’s pretty simple, because we’re all in California. You could do that pretty simply all year long, if you’re able to kind of move around the country, but 2020, or less.
Chris Case 50:00
How many would you like to Ben? I like
Ben Delaney 50:02
to ride every weekend, but short ones? Yeah, right now, lifetime owns the fan market, right? Nobody else has been able to successfully not just put the calendar together. Like belt ride has a series of events. But I couldn’t tell you who won any of them, aside from California.
Alexey Vermeulen 50:16
To be fair, though, I said this about traca trying to watch I don’t know who won what distance at troca. The four day thing was from the outside, if you didn’t, like, really pay attention, yeah, especially with the same team winning all the races. It’s like, what ponder mall guy won what day at troca? Which doesn’t matter. I might not be the demographic they’re focusing on, right? Well,
Ben Delaney 50:35
this is, like, literally, your job, and you don’t know, and it’s my job to cover this stuff, and I couldn’t tell you, like, yeah, then who knows, and who cares? So I think, yeah, lifetime has done a good job of saying, Here’s here are the players, here are the events, and nobody else is doing that. So I I’d be curious if a challenger pops up, like a another lifetime, or if it just going to be, yeah, lifetime owns it, and then everything else is a participatory thing that some local pros may do just for training or phone or as a favor, or is, like, a small little, like, cash start fee, but really, like, lifetime is gravel in us, which is funny because there’s of the six events through your mountain bike, yeah, you know, right? And
Alexey Vermeulen 51:12
I want to keep saying, I think that’s the biggest thing, right? We keep saying lifetime, and I think it’s really important. I think we need that. But I also want to keep seeing races pop up all around, right? Because that’s what grows this sport. More people seeing this option to get their kids out. Like I started riding bikes. My mom put me in a kid’s triathlon, right? Stupid. I don’t know why she do that. Drown. You know, ran with my helmet on, humiliated. Running
Chris Case 51:36
with your helmet on, I was fast. Arrow, please find a picture of this. Someone was the helmet on backwards.
Alexey Vermeulen 51:41
Oh no, straight on, don’t worry. But yeah, like, there’s a new race in Michigan that’s popping up called Irish hills, and it’s, you know, they’re trying to reach out. It’s the tourism board that sees value in in cycling, the same as everything else that’s on the weekend at Big sugar. And they’re kind of having a conversation with me. And I first wanted to be like, Oh, it’s a horrible weekend. Why would you do that big sugar? But then I look at Barry Rubin, and I’m like, Who am I to say that I can’t go specifically? Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great lead up for someone who wants to do Iceman, you know, biggest mountain bike race in the country. So it’s like, how do you balance that with we do want a cohesive calendar, but also, there’s only so many weekends. You can’t control everything, and sometimes you don’t need pros to make a race be worthy of the community. So it’s tough sometimes for me.
Chris Case 52:23
So to wrap this all up and give some practical advice for somebody out there who is now convinced that gravel is the thing they should be doing if they’re not already doing it, you come from this road background. You’re now fully entrenched in the gravel and some mountain bike world. I’m curious to know how your training has changed from that life to this life, and to generalize that to some degree so it is applicable to the listeners out there on the road. I mean, it
Alexey Vermeulen 52:50
was a lot about repeatability. I think a lot of people always wanted to hear these big numbers are the six watts per kilo or seven watts per kilo, or this or that. My biggest reminder at a race was that it’s it’s about how many times you can do 5.8 watts per kilo. That was the big thing. Now it’s probably 6.4 where it keeps getting faster. Yeah, but no, I think gravel training, generalized to me, is a lot more like marathon training. You don’t need to do the distance before you do the distance. Work your way up. Enjoy riding with your friends. Figure out the nuances of gravel. That’s usually what puts a pin in it. For a lot of people, is what happens new flat? What happens in new crash? Do you have the right tools in your saddlebag? CO twos don’t always work. Neither do CO two heads. All these little things get really annoying, and figuring out the side of the road makes it even more annoying. So to me, the biggest training has been just go out and pick a ride, pick a journey, right and go have that adventure, and hopefully you have some of these negative aspects along the way so they don’t happen in the race. Gravel is a lot more about getting through it sometimes, and it’s just about racing. It. Do you do
Chris Case 53:45
a lot more off the bike work now, because the experience of riding a gravel bike is harder on the body generally. Chris, I’m
Alexey Vermeulen 53:53
just getting old. Yeah, no, I do. I’ve always done gym, but in the road, I would just do it in the off season, kind of rebuild. And now I think our going phrase is just, you know, I want to, want to be as strong as I am at 30 as I’m at 35 cycling is, I think for most of us, we know it’s not a very healthy sport in terms we move one direction the whole time. Yeah, I do a little bit. I think gravel and mountain biking, anything off road, you have a little more pounding on your body, and you’ll feel that, whether it’s your wrist, your hands, or your feet. But I think a lot of that is also like technology’s gotten better, so you could probably pay attention your tire. Pay attention to your tire pressure. You can probably pay attention to these other little things that will make it more comfortable. Yeah, I just want to plug Ben for being the first person to ever do an article on Willie. Do you see his recent reel? Ben, you know, 12 point 5 million views. It’s been watched for six years, one reel of him getting in the backpack. I told Neil, I was like, I need a million dollar contract for my dog. Contract for
Chris Case 54:43
my dog. Yeah, you just use the words your dog and yeah, we have
Alexey Vermeulen 54:47
an ongoing discussion. If we ever broke up for any reason, we were really going, I think he’d follow the meat, but no Willie Sophie’s dog. But it’s funny, because he’s definitely attached to him, because how much we ride, which he hates. On days where I have a room with him, he will follow me around the firmer to the bed. Yeah. And so if you get so annoyed,
Ben Delaney 55:03
I just typed sir Willie into Instagram search, not sir Willie the dog, sir will the Wiener, just sir Willie. And it says sir. Willie refers to multiple individuals, but the latest information available is about sir Willie the Wiener, a dog known for his cycling adventures, AI man, et cetera, et cetera.
Trevor Connor 55:18
All right. So before we let you guys go, we like to end our episodes with what we call our one minute take homes. So this is where each person at the table gets one minute to say what they think is the most pertinent lesson or thing to take away from this episode. So Ben, why don’t we start with you? You look pensive. Oh boy.
Ben Delaney 55:37
This is heavy, I don’t know, but encapsulate everything in one minute. So I’m just gonna blabber for 30 seconds. I think gravel cycling continues to encapsulate a lot of the very best things about the sport of riding bikes in general, whether that’s racing or following professional athletes like Alexi or just getting out with your friends and riding your bike up to Gold Hill and having pie and arguing about tire width. So I am a proponent 100%
Chris Case 55:59
come a long way since 2017 and that, yeah, when I was conversation, he was an idiot.
Alexey Vermeulen 56:05
Yeah, my take home is gonna be for athletes get a dog. It’s a lot easier. Good take home.
Chris Case 56:15
I think that the type of riding that I’ve always done would kind of be considered gravel riding. It was mixed surfaces, and it was all this and it was all that, but there’s no denying that what we’ve done to bikes and what we’ve added to bikes has made it far more enjoyable to go out and explore and adventure. So I love it. This is basically all I do. I still own a road bike, but it’s dusty, and all the group rides that I do now are on dirt roads, not pavement, and that’s for various reasons. It’s more enjoyable to me, it’s arguably far safer. So in terms of the racing, yeah, I think there’s some things that need to change, to improve it, so that everybody gets what they’re looking for in a safe way. And that’s gonna be hard. There aren’t obvious solutions right now, but I think it can be solved. And I think the sport has, you know, it’s just going to continue to improve and grow. So Trevor, are you convinced? Are you going to do one? Yeah, what
Ben Delaney 57:11
are you signing up for? I actually
Trevor Connor 57:12
really want to do one. That was kind of going to be my take home. And the least valuable take home here is the guy who’s never done a gravel race, but there has been a big appeal to me. It’s something different. It’s a different goal. There’s an adventure side to it. You’re not sitting in a peloton the whole time. Just the whole idea of doing something different is really exciting to me. The reason I haven’t done it is simply because I need to get around to buying a gravel bike.
Chris Case 57:36
Yeah, well, let us know how it goes. I will. All right, let’s close out by doing the forum question that we always ask, gravel racing, the best thing in cycling, and why or a stupid fad that’s broken or about to burst, and why? Head to forums.fasttalklabs.com, and join the conversation. Thank you Alexi, thank you Ben. Thank you Trevor. Thank you Willie. It’s been a pleasure. Thanks. Thanks, guys. That was another episode of fast talk. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcasts. Don’t forget, we’re now on YouTube, and as always, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. To learn more about this episode, from show notes to references. Visit us@fasttalklabs.com and to join the conversation on our forum. Go to forums.fasttalklabs.com for Alexi Vermeulen, Ben Delaney and Trevor Connor, I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening. You.
