Who’s riding the gravel championships
In its second year, the British Gravel Championships is growing and has attracted more big names for its second edition. That means competition for the overall title and age group jerseys should be hotter than ever before.
While neither of last year’s title winners are able to attend this year’s races, there are plenty who have made the trip for the second time, though there are some new faces too.
One of those returnees is Danni Shrosbree. The 28 year-old finished fourth in the 2021 event and, after a good season on the road riding for CAMS-Basso, prepared for her return to Suffolk by finishing second at the 160km Hutchinson Ranxo Gravel event in Spain last weekend.
“I think it’s probably the best preparation I can do,” she said. “It’s over double the distance of King’s Cup and in terms of surface it’s pretty similar, it’s quite fast. Last year here was a sand section towards the end but now they’ve removed that, but I think because we’ve had a little rain it might be more compact.
“I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself, especially towards the end of the season. I’ve had some good results so I know my legs are there, but you never know what’s going to happen on the day. That’s the thing with gravel racing, especially King’s Cup, there’s some sections where it’s single track and if you miss the gap…”
Another rider coming back to Suffolk for the second King’s Cup is Maddy Nutt. Rather than head to Spain for her final preparation race the Spectra-Wiggle rider headed to The Netherlands where she was eighth overall at Gravel One Fifty.
“Last year I came fifth at King’s Cup which at the time I was pretty chuffed with, especially considering I was working a 60 hour week job with little time to train, and didn’t have the backing of a team like Spectra,” Maddy told us.
“I resigned my job to focus on cycling back in January and I’ve gained a lot of experience - and a few watts too!
“I think most likely the race will start fast and continue to be pretty much full gas throughout, given it is short on the scale of gravel racing. What I love about gravel, is riders aren’t able to coast and save energy drafting others in a bunch as much, and this makes races very attritional. I can see the race splitting into several small groups from the gun, with some individuals scattered between them.”
Spectra are bringing a strong line up to Suffolk this weekend, with former national criterium champion Becks Durrell, top cyclo-crosser Amira Mellor and former road pro Gabriella Shaw among their starters. Also look out for India Lee, who was second last year, third placed Helen Ralston (Paceline RT), Sian Botteley (Team LDN-Brother UK) and Abbie Dentus (Team Canyon).
Maddy has team mates in the men’s race too, with Mikey Mottram starting on the back of 15th pace at the Gravel One Fifty. He’ll be joined by last year’s race winner, New Zealander Ryan Christensen (Bolton Equities-Black Spoke) who is coming off some strong performances on the European professional road circuit.
The men’s start list boasts a host of big names though, with Seb Herrod (Rotor Racing) hoping better his fourth place last year, Will Brown (Ribble-Weldtite) was also in the 2021 top 10, but Alex Richardson is perhaps the strongest newcomer.
Not only does Richardson lead a strong St Piran contingent, he’s a well established pro road rider recently in the Tour of Britain breakaway, but he also represented GB on the mountain bike, so is surely one to watch.
There are even some well known faces in the Masters races, including former Team Sky rider, Jeremy Hunt.
Whoever is racing the King’s Cup races are sure to be fun to ride and entertaining to watch.
See you Saturday!