Britain’s Georgia Taylor-Brown, triathlon’s most decorated female athlete, made her gravel bike racing debut at the weekend at the Santa Vall event near Girona.
The Spanish contest is now part of the Gravel Earth Series and featured many of the world’s best.
And on the start list for the two-day event was Taylor-Brown, who went on a training camp with pro outfit EF-Oatly-Cannondale earlier this year and told us recently that the year after the Paris 2024 Olympics is one in which she’ll be trying something new, with bike racing top of the list.
She said: “I’m definitely excited to enter some bike races and see how they go! So that’s the next step because I’ve never done a bike race before so I have to start there and then see how it feels!”
Solid start
That next step has now happened and it sounds like she thoroughly enjoyed her first taste of top-level gravel riding – and is looking forward to more.
Writing on Instagram, she said: “Thought I signed up to a couple of nice days out on the trails, taking in the scenery, having some good chats … turns out I signed up to 2 days of completely savage gravel racing 🫣
“80k on day one and 115km on day two, lots of climbs, lots of sprints, rocks, puddles, mud, huge holes!
“I hung on to the girls for as long as I could until I completely popped! These girls are so strong and now I want to sign up to more so I can play with them for a bit longer next time 🎢🎟️💫 so much fun 🤪”
Denish duo Annika Langvad (Specialized Off-Road) and Magnus Bak Klaris (PAS Racing) were the overall women’s and men’s winners.
And to underline the standard, Langvad is a six-time mountain bike marathon world champion and a three-time Cape Epic winner. Over the two days, her combined time was six hours, 34 minutes and 25 seconds.
And despite being up against such formidable opposition, Taylor-Brown finished an impressive 15th in the women’s standings in 7:00:12.
‘Gravel racing is tough’
Also racing was Taylor-Brown’s partner and fellow triathlon star Vincent Luis, who is moving up from short course to middle distance this season.
And Luis was 33rd in the men’s standings, saying: “I had a blast. Gravel racing is tough!
“Big numbers for a 68kgs guy and still far from the front. I finished around the 30th place both days and even if small mistakes cost me… I was really happy how the legs responded.”
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