This year it seems like there have been a lot of discussions around rider safety, racing on open roads, separate starts, etc.
I was listening to the SBT feedback portion of the Routt County commissioner meeting today and got to thinking about this. There was some feedback provided that the “race” part of the event is what is causing problems. As a participate in many gravel events, some of the risks people take in these races are nuts. On open roads taking blind corners into potential oncoming traffic for one example.
The Robidoux race in Nebraska was recently put on hold for the coming years. In the announcement, the race organizer said he thought a “reckoning” was coming in gravel related to safety. In races as big as SBT, it seems like quite the challenge to really mitigate the risks of having the event on open roads while people are all out racing. I don’t think any amount of self policing is going to mitigate these risks.
As fields in gravel get even faster, more competitive, faster. Safety seems like an ever growing challenge with open roads. Multiple events this year have seen incidents with cars.
Where do you think the future of gravel racing is going in terms of how events are run and rider safety?
I think they will stay exactly the same until someone gets hurt, then that race will be canceled and the others will continue on as nothing will happen. The only way to enforce a yellow line rule in to have officials, and gravel is anti officials. Plus its very hard to race gravel while trying to stay on one side of an already narrow road.
Someone is inevitably going to get hurt or killed at a major race……so many of the races started as underground events that have grown into massive things that have outgrown their small beginnings.
35 riders setting off on a long bike ride didn’t have to worry that much about intersections and stop lights. A bit different when you have hundreds or thousands of rides out there.
Look what happened at Gravel Worlds 2 weeks ago….inches away form total disaster.
The big races are gonna need to get course marshalls, at a minimum for the competitive portion of the race. Gone are the days of just saying ‘Ride to the right, follow traffic laws’. That isn’t going to cut it anymore.
I’ve raced thousands of miles of gravel, albeit mostly regional, most of these roads aren’t all that narrow. There is plenty of room for bikes on the right and vehicles on the left, but it always seems the better line is on the wrong side of the road and since it lacks a lane divider people seem too willing to race on the left.
There is also the assumption that the yellow line rule is breached only by cyclists. Moreover, even if the roads are technically closed, accidents might still happen. The Tour de Hokkaido got canceled last year, because a volunteer failed to stop a driver. I think there was a yellow line rule in place even though the athletes had the road to themselves. So there was some discussion how much the athlete was to blame.
A guy died at Rasputitsa last year; allegedly running a stop sign, on the wrong side of the road, into the front of a truck. It was pretty well forgotten with apparently no changes to the event this year in April.
Wanstall is making claims of both negligence and wrongful death against the three defendants: D40 Gravel LLP of Newport, the organizer of the Rasputitsa Gravel Race, the town of Burke, which hosted it, and the sheriff’s department, based in St. Johnsbury, for law enforcement and security efforts.
It’s obvious they want the town or SO to refuse permitting the event in the future.
I don’t think much changes, overall. Local gravel won’t survive becoming the unpaved version of USAC road racing so it will continue as it is now until it can’t. National level events may become more expensive paying for LE or other professional course marshalling. Overall, individual deaths are infrequent enough that the status quo will most likely be maintained for a long time.
This is a local phenomenon. Most of the gravel roads that are used for racing in the Southeast USA are a lane or lane and 1/2 wide. There is room for an F-150 on one side and a single file rider on the other with not much to spare. Different in other places. Regardless, he’s not wrong, it is hard to race gravel staying on the right side of the crown on many gravel roads. You can watch hundreds of Youtube videos showing this to be the case.
This is my line of thinking too. Eventually big gravel is going to run into all the red tape of USAC road racing. From safety, permitting, emergency services. To make the events financially viable you have to secure the registration numbers.
To run a good event on open roads with thousands of participants with full on race brain or just riding along. I think it’s going to get increasingly challenging in terms of securing permits, emergency services, ensuring safety, etc. The growth of the sport is great, but it almost seems like its going to cannibalize itself to keep it financially viable.
Big Sugar is a race that is primed for a tragedy. You have fast, loose, off camber descents where it is almost impossible to stay on the right side of the road (at least at speed).
Combine that with some narrow roads and a lot of farmers out in the roads in their pickup trucks and it is a potentially fatal combination.
I wonder if a decent compromise is more events using the enduro format. Time discrete segments, which can have flaggers and can be designed for safety (uphill, few intersections, etc.), and capture the racing element here and let the rest be riding, with no results penalty for say, stopping at a stop sign, or taking a downhill more cautiously.
The issues raised aren’t just “racing” issues. I’ve done non-racing Gran Fondos / centuries, and seen people run lights / cross yellow lines / ride dangerously.
Whether or not an event is officially a “race” isn’t the main issue. The issue is people. Whether that is people being competitive to be competitive, or the impact of influencers who get “fame” / “fortune” from “winning” events thereby turning even what starts out as non-races into races.
If you are an organizer and want to discourage “racing”, you can minimize people “racing” by:
Don’t time the event / don’t have timed sections
Don’t corral people for the start - just have a course open / closed times based on sunlight (assuming the event is meant to be ridden while the sun is up) and aid station open / closed times. E.g., if you are doing the 100mile course, you can start as early as 6am (assuming the sun is up) and should start before 8am.
Yep, I think the enduro format is the answer. The racing sections can be closed off and/or marshalled. In the other sections there is no incentive to go fast because you’d just be wasting energy for the race sections. You also bring back the fun, party atmosphere for much of the course and it’d resemble gravel back when there was the mythical spirit of gravel. Not saying every race should do this, but it’s a much better option than not having an event.
I like the enduro format and all good things that come with it. I also like the tactics and group dynamics between a group of strong riders.
I would argue the most problematic portion of some of these events is no doubt the start. With how strong the fields are now a days, having a group of 100 for the first 20 miles can be sketchy for a variety of different reasons. If the road was closed, it would be less sketchy. The separate pro starts help a bit.
Every year at SBT the start feels so hectic and dangerous. Fanning out the whole width of the road, where oncoming cars have to pull onto the shoulder of the road as riders try to sprint around the groups and towards the front. At many events this stuff goes on for the first hour with crazy risks of all sorts being taken. Maybe that is just gravel racing and you need to put up with navigating that first hour. I’ve never done Leadville but wonder if the corral starts help with that sort of thing?
Thats true, certain areas have very wide gravel and not an issue to use half the road, where i live in Appalachia we have more narrow gravel and hella blind turns. So definitely a regional thing
Reduce, not minimize. I just came back from Haute Route, and witnessed the aftermath of an accident on the very first day. Two guys were following each other on an untimed descent through some fog, overcooked a corner, and went straight over a rock retaining wall into the ditch/ravine. One destroyed his collar bone/ribs, other his shoulder, and both flew home early in significant pain. There was nothing to be gained from riding that descent fast, especially with low visibility and slightly damp roads, but adrenaline takes over and we all get excited. Unfortunate finish for them, but fortunately it wasn’t worse - there could have been a car coming, or they could have gone down a few hundred feet anywhere else on the exposed roads.
But Haute Route is explicitly an enduro style road race. My point was how an organizer can minimize the chances that a non-race event turns into a race.
Race events, no matter the format, will always attract a certain segment with more adrenaline than brains
Timed sections, like a fondo right? There’s a few of these in CO and they seem to do well number wise. I think the running joke is that gravel races are just fondos on dirt for 95% of the riders. If you want to make money, fondo/timed section with aid stations seems like a sure fire bet. Copper Triangle, Triple ByPass etc solid models to follow for that area.
Ive done plenty of road segments races and a couple gravel ones. They are fun, but are quite a bit different than traditional races. I like both, but they really aren’t equivalent in experience. It would be a sad day if thats where gravel racing went, as that is pretty much all that is left for road racing near me.
Right there with you. I haven’t done a timed/fondo type ride in probably four years. I pretty much only do point to point off road races with a 5-10 usac races throughout the year. No interest in those types of events.