What's in a gravel title? The opportunities and pride fueling the new Australian champions

Gravel was once an area that took an irreverent approach to some of the usual markers of cycling success and just a few years ago Australia's national titles in the discipline felt more like a sideshow than a seriously charged competition among a deep field of elite riders. However, it was clear at the Devils Cardigan on Saturday, as the AusCycling Gravel National Championships unfolded, just how much has changed.

We are a long way from the era when the elite men's and women's field didn't even crack a dozen riders combined and bragging rights were pretty much all that was at stake. Top competitors from across the cycling disciplines swept into Derby, Tasmania for a chance to claim the gravel stripes while specialists in the discipline hurried back from Unbound to arrive ready and prepared for the event in the heart of the Southern Hemisphere winter on Saturday.

The field was deep and plenty was up for grabs – the increasing profile and professionalisation of the sport has seen to that. It was a hard-fought battle over the 106km race with 2,300m of vertical elevation gain in the scenic northeast of the island state, and two riders with very different motivations prevailed in two very different ways.

Brendan Johnston (Giant) launched solo early while Courtney Sherwell clawed back ground on defending champion Justine Barrow to take the victory with a tight sprint to the line. For Sherwell it was a result "that means absolutely everything".

Sherwell may have won many of Australia's key gravel races, from the long-range Dirty Warrny to the Gravelista UCI Gravel World Series race in Beechworth and her home-town Sutton Grange Gravel event, but adding the national title was a big deal – a serious addition to her gravel gravitas.

“Hopefully this means when I’m heading to race internationally, and that’s my goal, I can get more support," Sherwell told Cyclingnews in the hours after her win. "It helps show I belong there, I belong at the top racing the best riders in the world."

Sherwell went over to the United States for a relatively short stint earlier this year, focussing on the Belgian Waffle Ride Tripel Crown, where she secured second overall behind the dominant Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized), who last year won the lucrative Life Time Grand Prix series.

The 35-year-old from Bendigo, who also claimed the Australian Marathon MTB title last month, is hoping she will now be in the running to make a mark as one of the thirty women vying for a top result at the seven race series, which includes Unbound among its events.

“I applied for the Life Time Grand Prix this year and didn’t make it," said Sherwell. "I will apply again for 2025 and hopefully now these results are more than enough to get me a ticket into that event. I think that will then be my focus, hopefully spending a lot longer in the US and doing some more of the prestigious bigger one-day events."

For Sherwell the title may help provide opportunity though for Johnston, who has already grabbed his chance with both hands, the drive to clinch the gravel national stripes for a second time didn't mean any less.

The Giant rider first secured his place in the Life Time series last year, enabling the long-term contender in Australia to finally branch out internationally and embrace cycling full time. Even in his first year it was clear that he belonged among the strongest competitors in the established US gravel field, finishing seventh on the series leaderboard in 2023. That left the rider being offered a place again this year and already he has upped the ante, sitting on fifth after two events, even after being plagued by punctures at Unbound. 

Johnston may not have needed to reclaim the gravel national title to prove anything or create his chance, but there is clearly pride in delivering for his sponsors and nation now that he has made it onto the world's top gravel playing field.

“I felt a lot of pressure, I really wanted to win the race and I think I felt the pressure so much because the course doesn’t actually suit me that well, but you know I [feel I] should be up the front of the race," Johnston told Cyclingnews after claiming his second Australian gravel title at the race with three long climbs.

The rider, who also took his sixth Marathon Mountain Bike Championships national title earlier this year, added that it was a very different race and very different circumstances to when he won in Noosa, Queensland in 2022, saying he played the race well back then but "today I felt like I was showing my strength".

 Johnston has grown and evolved as a rider thanks to the opportunity the international growth of gravel has provided. The prestige and power of the national gravel title has unquestionably evolved as well.