The Spirit of Gravel Edition

On cycling, competition, and the unwritten rules of racing

Andrew Vontz (AV) is the creator of the Choose the Hard Way podcast, a former Strava executive, and a communications advisor. 

Andrew here. In 2004, Jeff Kerkove and Guitar Ted, then employees at Europa Cycle & Ski in Cedar Valley, Iowa, dreamed up the 350+ mile Trans Iowa gravel race. More than 90% of the race took place on gravel and dirt roads. Riders carried what they needed or picked it up at Casey’s General Stores and gas stations along the way. 

People have ridden around on dirt roads, gravel roads, and trails as long as there have been bikes. Trans Iowa repurposed terrain most cyclists wrote off as unremarkable to forge a new racing format that was equal parts competition, camaraderie, and radical self-reliance. When I heard about the event, it reminded me of the DIY ethos I’d experienced playing in punk rock bands, helping put out ‘zines, and street skating.

By 2013, gravel was still a fringe cycling genre but popular enough to merit a feature in the New York Times about the race today known as the Unbound Gravel 200. That year I entered and competed in the race known today as the Unbound 100, actually a 104-mile race, which was more than enough challenge for me. I didn’t know what to expect, and my goal was to win. 

Instead, I got a dose of why gravel was different and special. Thousands of people lined up and started at the same time, set off in a dust cloud, and drilled it. I took a wrong turn and rode an extra 40 miles. I stopped to fix a few broken bikes so their riders could finish the race. I got to take in the beauty of the last remaining swathe of Tallgrass prairie on a route with few cars and limited rules—just a start, a finish, a timing chip, and a checkpoint to refuel. A stranger gave me a chocolate chip cookie. We all chose to do something hard and had more fun doing it together.

Gravel racing has always had completers—participants whose goal is to finish the event—and competitors whose goal is to win. Both are there for the challenge and the vibe they experience, and to contribute to the challenge and the vibe, which is often characterized as The Spirit of Gravel. It’s a phrase that’s shorthand for a feeling, and also an unwritten code that governs etiquette and competition in a gravel race.

Why is this interesting?

In the years between the birth of gravel racing and today, cultural tailwinds accelerated the growth of the discipline. Smartphones, screens in cars, and the pervasiveness of distracted driving made cyclists more weary of road riding. Social media made it possible for elite gravel racers to sell their status, storytelling, and lifestyle to sponsors rather than just race results. The pandemic put a pause on many live events, but gravel races kept going, and they tapped into cyclists’ resurgent hunger for adventure and getting outside. 

Guitar Ted was among the inaugural inductees into the Gravel Hall of Fame when it opened in June 2022. It’s located in Emporia, Kansas, which has come to be known as the global epicenter of the discipline. The Unbound Gravel 200 is now the most prestigious event in the sport. It has drawn World Record holders, World Champions from other cycling disciplines, and riders who have raced at the Tour de France and other World Tour events, the highest level in all of cycling. 

Entry into Unbound is now via a lottery that sells out more than 4,000 slots to events of varying distances the moment registration opens half a year before the event. The level of talent in gravel races is so high that Keegan Swenson, America’s top gravel racer, was selected to represent the U.S. at the road cycling World Championships, organized by the UCI, the governing body of cycling, and held for the first time in Veneto, Italy, on October 8th and 9th. A protracted debate about the way the UCI organized and executed the event and its intersection with the Spirit of Gravel raged following the event.

Conditions have changed. Yet pro gravel racers, particularly those who have lost a race they felt they could have won, continually invoke The Spirit of Gravel as a shield to defend their performances or use it as a cudgel to attack their competitors who they perceive to have violated the unwritten code. 

Pro gravel racing doesn’t pay NFL or even MLS money. The athletes at the top of the discipline make their livings from sponsorships and their ability as storytellers and promoters on social media and in the press. That’s where the debates about The Spirit of Gravel happen. 

Is it in The Spirit of Gravel to use aerobars: handlebar extensions usually reserved for races where drafting is forbidden, and riders can’t be in packs? That has been an ongoing debate that led sometimes gravel pro-Geoff Kabush to write an article in 2018 declaring, “You’re an idiot if you are running aerobars.”

Is it in The Spirit of Gravel for pro athletes to bring teammates and work in a coordinated fashion to shelter a leader and provide them a better shot at winning, as is common practice in road racing? Or should it be every person for themselves as it was in the early days of the sport?

Professionals and amateurs, people of all ages and genders start at the same time in most gravel races. What happens if a rider in the pro women’s race drafts teammates in the race who are men? Is that in The Spirit of Gravel?

What if a rider in the women’s race drafts her husband and ends up winning the race? Is that in The Spirit of Gravel?

What happens if some riders in a lead pack have plenty of water because they wore hydration packs and attack at a water stop when riders who brought water bottles have to refill? Is that in The Spirit of Gravel?

Each scenario has spurred an intense debate on social media and in the press. Rules vary from event to event and organizer to organizer. There hasn’t been a move to standardize rules for the biggest and most influential races—all of which happen in America. But the sport is evolving fast, and the rules may change over time to explicitly ban or permit these behaviors.

There once was a time when gravel events were temporary autonomous zones, and every participant helped author the collective code of The Spirit of Gravel. Now, the loudest voices with the highest status on social media fight to control the narrative about what constitutes The Spirit of Gravel. Narratives drive behavior in organizations, communities, cultures, and society. 

For now, the story of The Spirit of Gravel is not a story about what’s sporting or not. 

It’s a story about narrative control. 

Yet when elite athletes enter a timed race with a start and a finish, their purpose is to win or finish in the lowest cumulative time. There may be times when they compete as a training exercise or to prepare for a bigger objective. But in general, the point of being there is to go as fast as possible within the boundaries of whatever rules circumscribe the event and the sport globally in service of earning a win. 

What happens in between is fodder for The Spirit of Gravel. (AV)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Andrew (AV)

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