Gravel booms while road shrivels, but many insist the two are complementary
Two parallel trends exist in the United States at the moment: road racing, especially at the professional level, has been on a steep decline, while gravel racing, which is primarily an amateur, participatory sport, is going gangbusters.
Gone in the US are major pro stage races such as the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour de Georgia, the Tour of Utah and others – and with them the number of pro teams has dwindled.
Ten years ago, the US had 19 professional teams at the UCI level. This year, there are 11, and the major squads such as EF Education and Lidl-Trek operate almost exclusively in Europe.
At the amateur level, participation in road racing is also on the decline.
Meanwhile, gravel events continue to explode around the US, with Unbound Gravel attracting 5,000 riders, SBT GRVL selling out at 3,000 riders and scores of other events catering almost entirely to amateur participants.
There are professional gravel racers, but with a few notable exceptions, such as three-person teams supported by Trek and Santa Cruz, these pro riders exist almost exclusively as individuals, not as part of the large-roster squads seen on the road.
Has gravel racing replaced road racing? Is gravel saving US racing? It’s not quite that simple, say many veterans of both disciplines, team managers and race organisers.
Gravel supporting road
“It’s not a replacement; it’s not an either/or situation,” Tim Johnson, a former professional American cyclist who raced internationally in a variety of disciplines, tells BikeRadar. “One way to look at it is that riders have more options now, rather than less.
“At the same time, there aren’t 10 US-based UCI Continental teams to choose from for pro riders. California, Georgia, Missouri, [The Tour of] Albert and [Tour de] Beauce [in Canada] are gone,” Johnson adds. “In terms of UCI races, there is a decline in US-based [road] racing.”
Eric Hill founded Project Echelon in 2015 and says his job running the US-based UCI Continental team has become more challenging in the current landscape. But he’s not about to throw in the towel on road racing.
“Is gravel killing road? That’s not the story. You read that enough times, though, and you start to believe it,” Hill says. “My take on gravel is that it gets people on bikes and that’s a good thing. It’s our responsibility and the media’s responsibility to not create haves and have-nots between road and gravel.
“For whatever reason, we in cycling are really good at separating people instead of bringing people together. Road is equally guilty of it, pooh-poohing gravel instead of saying it’s an interesting discipline.”
Like Johnson, Hill believes gravel can complement road racing. “It’s supplementary to road racing,” he adds. “That’s where we’re going with it. It is a great way to build community, to test depth and skills, to work on bike skills and all these things. Let’s not knock it down, but it’s definitely not a replacement for road racing, it’s a supplement to road racing.”
Amy Charity is the co-founder and co-owner of gravel events SBT GRVL and FNLD GRVL, and raced professionally on the road. She echoes the sentiment shared by Johnson and Hill, while acknowledging that top-level racing opportunities have diminished for road-focused riders in the United States.
“I don’t think gravel has replaced road; there is still a space for both,” Charity says. “Road racing has certainly declined a lot. Looking back on my racing days, California, Utah, Colorado, Philly… most of them don’t exist anymore.
“That said, I don’t think there is a future where there are no more crits, road races, time trials. We often see roadies at our events who do both road and gravel, and the same for mountain bikers.”
For participants old and new
There are a few ways to compare the momentum of gravel and road, and it’s helpful to look at amateur participation and professional riders separately.
For participants, gravel can mean racing or just completing a distance, more akin to mass-participation running events. In the US, most road races are organised with the cooperation of USA Cycling, which, much like British Cycling, categorises riders by experience and skill level. Gravel, by contrast, has no such centralised governing body and no racing licence is required.
This makes it easier to get into gravel, Charity says, and it’s a key factor in lowering the barrier to entry.
“There are very few barriers to entry for gravel; you need a bike and you go onto a website and sign up,” Charity says. “For road, you have to figure out, what category am I? What licence do I need? Because of that, gravel is simple. You sign up with your parents, your friends or your kids and you can all race together.
“That’s one side, but many promoters work year-round to make gravel more inclusive, to make people know they can come to gravel events and feel welcome because of all the opportunities and variety.”
Husband-and-wife team Zack and Whitney Allison got their start in pro road racing, and the couple now both race gravel and put on the gravel event FoCo Fondo in Colorado, which attracts more than 2,000 participants.
While not easy to stage, gravel events can be permitted and carried out with less cost than road events, according to Zack Allison.
“FoCo Fondo, and other gravel events in our area, feel quite a bit more sustainable from a few different perspectives of promotion,” he says.
“We can produce a larger racing event in waves [of riders] with road controls and neutral sectors, and with routes that leave pretty close to downtown Fort Collins. The City and County both understand there’s a positive economic impact to them and pretty low impact on traffic, being mostly on rural gravel roads.”
Allison says if they tried to recreate the event as a road race, the impact on driving would be “enormous” and the chance of getting the authorities on board much lower.
“Another aspect of sustainability is that the costs overall are lower and more scalable,” he adds. “We can have nearly any type of rider participate, from a 12-mile trail route with kids to a 118-mile race with gravel pros seeking to win money.
“We’re not subject to USAC or UCI rules and regulations. You don’t need a licence to race. Each wave is for distance, with all scoring categories riding together. This allows us to have waves over 500 people with 2,500 estimated starters.
“While we do have lead and follow vehicles, a fenced-in finish chute, and timing chips and a timing company, we don’t have to have massive rolling enclosures, USAC course marshals, 50 different categories for age groups and genders that all leave separately.
“All of those things become a burden and take budget away from promoting the event to the wider range of people that make up a larger gravel event.”
BikeRadar contacted USA Cycling for statistics and a comment on road racing in the US, but did not hear back.
Privateer pros
Very much unlike many road events, where amateurs have followed or emulated professionals, gravel began as an amateur endeavour, with a smattering of professional athletes – many of them recently retired road racers – racing gravel as a second career.
Johnson raced in Europe on the road before making his way as what we now call a privateer, including in cyclocross. Being a professional gravel racer is now a career option in its own right and gives top-level riders a new option when competing.
“The higher the elevation gravel racing gets in terms of professionalism, finances and quality of events, it really is about being the best cyclist, which is music to my ears, and riders can have more choices,” he says. “Coming from where I did, we were told to specialise and were actively told not to do things that weren’t [road racing].
“When I was racing cyclocross, ’cross was growing faster than people realised, and I was racing for more money and had more sponsors than people assumed, for many years,” he says. “It may be similar for some riders now with gravel.”
For Hill with Project Echelon, the dearth of elite racing in the US has proven a challenge and has prompted his team to seek out more racing in Europe.
“It’s made us be more intentional about what our goals are and how we are going to achieve them,” Hill says. “I don’t know if we would be racing as much in Europe as we would be now, and getting the publicity and attention that we’re getting as a programme if all those US races still existed. I wish they were still there. It supports a bigger ecosystem. We would probably carry a bigger roster.”
“For American road athletes, there are far fewer opportunities now, and the path to pro cycling is a lot narrower than it used to be,” Hill adds. “When I was racing at the pro level, there were 14 teams I put on my list of teams I wanted to get on, plus there were development teams like Hot Tubes, Axeon and Aevolo. At this point in time, we are the only team doing it.” (Aevolo still exists as a development team and recently announced a partnership with EF Education for 2025).
SBT GRVL marketing director Ryan Steers says the path to getting a job on a road team is much more circuitous than in gravel. “In gravel, you can carve your own path,” he tells BikeRadar. “If you’re strong, you can win and get noticed. In road, you can’t just sign up for a cat one race and win solo on strength alone. For gravel pros, you’re either fast or you’re good at social media, or both. That’s not a thing in road.”
Allison echoes this sentiment, with up-and-coming riders now heading straight into the gravel scene.
“At nearly every race I’ve been to this year, which is about 10 on two continents, there’s more young people jumping straight into gravel and seeking out a career right away,” he says. “Gravel has a ton of brand support, and with good results, privateers with good social media and contacts can hack out a decent pro lifestyle in gravel alone.
“Going from gravel to road is probably much harder; you have less knowledge of tactics, teamwork and the mechanics of road racing, on top of all the rules and licensing systems.”
Window of opportunity
While gravel has been cycling’s booming discipline over the past decade, Allison believes the increased popularity – and number of riders trying to ‘make it’ – will ultimately reduce the number of opportunities for pro athletes.
“The money in brand support is slowing down and getting spread out,” he says. “I think the window to actually make enough money to consider yourself pro in gravel is closing.
“I think the best pathway overall is to pick a field and stick to it. If you love road racing and want to move up through the ranks and get on a team that pays – there’s like two [in the US] – then do that and stick with it. If you love the mixed-terrain lifestyle and you want to race and gain contacts, results, sponsors and work the social media well, then commit to that.
“In general, unless you’re a WorldTour rider, be prepared to race, train, seek sponsorship and have another side hustle. The ‘I just race bikes for a living’ model has been dead for some time and if you dig just a little bit or have honest conversations with even the top gravel pros currently, you’ll find they’re running an event, have a successful podcast, or a part-time job to cover costs and keep the lifestyle.”
In his role of soliciting funding for his UCI Continental road team, Hill believes gravel privateers have affected the overall financial picture and some brands invest in gravel at the cost of investing in road racing.
Financial competition
“On the competitive side, gravel and privateerism have greatly degraded and hurt the road cycling infrastructure,” Hill says. “Ironically, you look at a lot of the gravel pros and most of them come from an elite road pro-cycling background.
“They are diverting funds away from teams and the very programmes that helped them get to where they are. The number of times I have heard that ‘we would rather support an individual than a team’ is hard to count and hard to hear.”
Hill’s Project Echelon team recently swept the podium at the USA Cycling National Championships in the criterium and took second in the road race – then the squad headed directly to Europe to race the Tour of Norway. The rest of the year holds more international road racing – and a team appearance at SBT GRVL.
“Like I said, gravel is a great supplement to road racing. It just is,” Hill says. “When I put together our team’s gravel programme, I told the riders that it will include races that suit you well. I’m not going to send you on a 200-mile adventure that leaves you fatigued and behind in the rest of your programme.
“With SBT GRVL, Amy and her team put together an extremely well-run event. And they partnered with us to run a military veteran activation.”
Project Echelon is a military veteran non-profit, and outside of the UCI team, it includes veteran riders.
“We are using gravel as part of our mission to bring attention and greater ROI to our sponsors,” Hill says. “That SBT course does lend itself to team tactics and the skillset that road racers have. So we are going to leverage it and getting a result or a win at that race would be huge.”