Lauren Stephens takes solo win at US Gravel National Championships

Lauren Stephens (EF Education-Tibco-SVB) has quickly adapted from road racing to gravel, claiming the elite women's stars-and-stripes jersey at the first-ever USA Cycling Gravel Championships.

Stephens covered the 131.4-mile race, held in Gering, Nebraska on Saturday, with a winning time of 6:45:53. She took the victory by 2:41 ahead of runner-up Alexis Skarda (Santa Cruz Bicycles) and 7:29 ahead of third-placed Crystal Anthony (Liv Racing Collective).

"I had no idea what would happen. I haven’t been racing much gravel so I don’t know many of the girls but it was an awesome race,” said Stephens. 

The rider used her winning effort at the long-standing grass roots Gravel Worlds in Nebraska to successfully tune her form for Gering after finishing her road block, which concluded with an 18th place at the World Championships elite women's road race in Glasgow.

The host location, Gering, is a small town in the far western part of Nebraska just across the border from Colorado near the base of the Scotts Bluff National Monument. 

The elite men's and women's national championships race was held along a 131.4-mile course that included 5,600 feet of elevation gain, and 90% of the route was on gravel roads.

“I’d never ridden one of these long races so Gravel Worlds over in Lincoln, Nebraska is 150 miles so I thought that’d be a good, you know, checkpoint to make sure I could survive 130. Luckily this was about two and a half hours less.”

Stephens went out early with the lead group of four, then when the attacks began put down some counters of her own, dropping her rivals one by one to continue on solo and claim the title, along with the generous prize purse that comes with it, which totals $60,00 with an even split across the women's and men's categories.

Skarda had held on out the front with Stephens the longest, though the last big climb at around 20 miles to go was where the leading duo split.

“When we got to that last climb I thought I’m going to attack her and see if i can hold it, but I didn’t really have that edge for a good attack and she was able to hang on my wheel and then she counter-attacked," said Skarda. "I was too tired to respond at that point and she just slowly rode away from me.”  

The race was also a qualifying event for the UCI Gravel World Championships that are set to take place in Veneto, Italy, on October 7, and the top three of the elite women's race at the National Championships – Stephens, Skarda and Anthony – automatically qualified for the second UCI sanctioned Gravel World Championships. 

Stephens was the top US finisher in the first edition, coming 15th in the 140km women's elite race.