The Gravel World Championships sees women racing 140km while men race 194km. Alison Tetrick stages an intervention
A dusty Alison Tetrick on the ground after the gravel race in Kansas(Image credit: Specialized / Steve Driscoll)
Dearly beloved gravel, we are gathered here today to tell you we love you.
You are so much to so many of us. We buy new bikes for you. We take uncharted gravel roads for you. People make careers out of you. We lower tire pressure and break rules for you. You are edgy, cagey, unpredictable, and a whole lot of audacious fun.
It is like shopping at Hot Topic when I was in high school but without the eyeliner and cheap fishnet tights. But there can be eyeliner and fishnet tights if that is what your heart desires. But it’s about the miles on miles with a chosen family of like-minded adventurers and individuals.
We love you. You are worth it. Hell, we even pay to ride unmarked courses that require hike-a-bikes through terrain that will certainly cost us a slashed tire or at least damage an ego or two while pushing ourselves to limits we didn’t know we were testing. Normal relationships would make us go to therapy with or for you. But you are different. I carry all my baggage with you, and you accept every bit of it.
Gravel is a beautiful dance between adventure and challenge and an arduous love affair that can be a sizzling and beautiful mess of bonks and exploding sealant.
It’s exciting and a bit chaotic at times, like us. But let’s not forget our foundation. The gravel roots are real. All are welcome, period. Ride fast or slow, enjoy technical trails or wide-open fire roads – road bike, mountain bike, gravel bike, or even NO bike. Show up with open arms and you are a part of the community. Our pillars are built on equality, inclusivity, diversity, and the more the merrier. And even if there is prize money or points or prestige, a competition in gravel is still friendly competition. And we love that too. There is an equal podium for all.
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You have been changing, my dear gravel, and growth is okay and cheered for. We all change over time, that is the point of time. We don’t want to be exclusive. You change with us, and we’ll change with you. The one thing that remains the same, is that we are here.
We will all toe a starting line for whatever the day holds. And if that’s different than what we expected, thank you for something new because that is what you bring. Something new…
In the dawn of the UCI Gravel World Championships, we are all still here. Some are watching. Some are racing. Some are judging. But I hope we all applaud the people participating for their bravery in tackling the unknown in this inaugural experience. We are an anomaly. We want to be different but perhaps there is a time to conform and join a few rules from time to time. If it can expand gravel into further reaches of the globe and introduce more people to what we already know and love, then how great is that?
But, I hope we don’t lose the vision that we can do better than this. Why better? Let me give it a start.
This is your chance, my dear gravel, your one beautiful opportunity to do something right. To own your truth, your foundation, what has brought such a groundswell of joy in adventure.
Like most gravel races, the similarly named Gravel Worlds in Nebraska offered parity between men's and women's events (Image credit: Pure Gravel)
You have had sages, and legends, and hippies, and rebels, and cowboys building this rocky but shameless roller coaster into a movement that has made bikes better for all. Now you’re on stage, your debut performance. You’ve been rehearsing this for decades in the Flint Hills of Kansas, the white dusty roads of Italy, in the backyard trails of everyone’s youth.
The rules are there to make sure we’re reading the same script and at the end of the day we can applaud the performance of all and marvel at what we witnessed. And guess what. We’re all on that stage, together. It’s the same performance.
So make it [insert swear word here] equal.
Burn the rule books. Or keep it for posterity, I like a coaster. But, it is 2022. Equal prize money, equal distances, and equal coverage. Everyone has a home in the gravel family. It doesn’t matter how you classify us or how we identify. Competition is fun, racing can be exciting, and we’re all for it. But there is no excuse for forcing inequality into a part of cycling that has tried to spurn inequality from the start.
This particular event failed me and failed so many others. Yes. It is an interesting and stunning course. I am proud of those racing. But, why. Just why, would you not take this unique moment to make a difference? Add the 54 kilometres to the women’s race to match the men’s. Make the men AND the women the champions of the day. Showcase and create fandom around our hard-working athletes that have the tenacity to risk failure to support and be present. Why wouldn’t you make the stage big enough for everyone? This is a regression in sports. This is reverse-engineering of everything we have worked for and built.
I found gravel after over 10 years of racing at the highest levels of WorldTour road cycling. Gravel is my people and my family. Kristi Mohn of Life Time’s Unbound 200, literally just married me and my husband.
As a three-time winner of the original Gravel Worlds run by The Pirate Cycling League on the gravel seas of Lincoln, Nebraska, I will still wield my swords (the winner’s trophy) high and proud. Aye-aye. We are here to make sure we make this better for all. I will support taking our gravel family worldwide for more heroes to participate if we are promoting a safe and flourishing oasis for people to fall in love with our sport. The more people on bikes the better. I’m disappointed but not deterred.
The UCI World Championships is a start towards a broader landscape for gravel and that is a good thing. And if the race organizers try to undo the equality and inclusion that is at the heart of gravel, well, we have something to say about that. Because the gravel community is loud, proud, and moving forward, leaving a trail of gravel dust for the old guard to chug. And we’ll be over here, chugging a beverage, watching you. We have been here awhile. The tab is open. It always has been and will be.
Our dear gravel, that has created a world for so many to discover that they do belong and that there are new rules now, which are to be accepting, kind and humble, may you continue to bring people and community together. Go be a belt-buckle-wearing pirate bike rider. Remember why we are here. We will do it right.
We will continue to love our sport and our community on an equal footing with all and chase whatever rainbow we desire.
