The British Gravel Championships has discovered a brand new house on the paths of the Gralloch UCI race in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Riders will tackle a troublesome 87.5km course with huge climbs —together with the ominously named Slaughter Hill— in pursuit of the pink, white and blue bands.
It will likely be held this 12 months along side the Raiders Gravel occasion after its unique host occasion, the Kings Cup in Suffolk, was cancelled because of forestry charges, which might have approached 20% of occasion income and posed “an existential risk to the occasion,” based on the organisers.
All entries for the Kings Cup, which might have been held on the King’s Forest close to Thetford, stay legitimate for the Scottish relocation whereas a full refund can also be accessible for these unable to journey.
Raiders Gravel is an annual three-day gravel occasion and, just like the Gralloch, is predicated on the small city of Gatehouse of Fleet.
This 12 months’s British Gravel Championship is held on the second ‘Grannoch’ stage on Saturday, August 31 — two weeks sooner than the unique championship date. The Scots course is 87.5km (54.3 miles) lengthy and finishes on the Large Water of Fleet viaduct.
In contrast to the broadly flat Kings Cup occasion, the Scottish model options quite a few powerful climbs, together with the 7-kilometer-long Fuffock Hill and Slaughter Hill, with additional troublesome ascents in the direction of the top of the race.
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The Grannoch is sandwiched between the primary Raiders stage —Clatteringshaws— and the third, which is known as Skerrow.
“This relocation ensures that our neighborhood will nonetheless have the chance to compete and crown the season’s champions,” wrote Kings Cup organisers on the occasion web site. “Whereas plans for a brand new 2025 venue are already at a sophisticated stage (however not but able to unveil), we would have liked to be pragmatic to seek out an interim resolution and guarantee a 2024 occasion may nonetheless happen.”
The championship weekend options races for elite, junior and masters age group riders, who all race over the identical 87.5km distance.
Final 12 months’s British Gravel Championship noticed younger pretender Joe Blackmore (Staff Impressed) energy away from Connor Swift (Ineos Grenadiers) within the last of the lads’s race, whereas Xan Crees (Spectra-Cannondale) outsprinted defending champion Danni Shrosbree (Amius DAS-Handsling) within the ladies’s occasion.
Blackmore has since signed full-time with the Israel-PremierTech group, the place he has already racked up 4 wins in his first season.
