This 12 months’s inaugural Gravel Burn stage race will not be solely the most important occasion of its sort on the calendar, it additionally boasts a mammoth $150,000 (£121,400) prize purse that places it on the map earlier than a pedal has been turned.
It’s, in reality, the most important single-race gravel purse that has ever been provided.
The 850km, seven-stage occasion takes place for the primary time this 12 months in South Africa, from October 26 to November 1. The occasion, which additionally options 11,000 metres of climbing alongside its size, expects to draw a few of the finest riders within the sport to the big-money elite class. Certainly, 2021 Milan-San Remo winner Jasper Stuyven has already been recruited.
Nonetheless, it’s open to all, with age group racing catering to non-elites.
South African rider Matt Beers, who gained the final 12 months’s Belgian Waffle Experience, mentioned that Gravel Burn and its big prize checklist was a sport changer.
“This modifications all the things,” Beers mentioned on the Gravel Burn web site. “Gravel Burn is placing the give attention to stage-racing within the gravel class. A prize purse of this magnitude exhibits how critical gravel biking has develop into.”
He added: “It’s an enormous step towards additional professionalising the self-discipline and giving it the popularity it deserves. It’s going to additionally encourage worldwide gravel racers, particularly from the US, to come back to South Africa to compete.”
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Gravel Burn will not be the one race within the information this week having revealed an unlimited prize fund – former US star Levi Leipheimer has additionally unveiled a whopping $156,000 pot for his Levi’s Granfondo street race.
Gravel Burn is run by Kevin Vermaak, who additionally based the Cape Epic mountain bike race again in 2004. The vastly profitable eight-stage race has put South African mountain bike racing on the map. Now Vermaak desires to do the identical with gravel racing.
“I imagine gravel biking in South Africa is now at in regards to the place the place mountain biking was 20 years in the past,’ he says. ‘It’s rising exponentially in Europe and america, each amongst skilled and newbie riders, and we expect the timing is ideal for a serious, long-distance, full-service pro-am gravel race.”
The massive prize fund has apparently been made doable because of a multi-year sponsorship deal, particulars of which will probably be revealed on February 13.
The Gravel Burn begins on the city of Knysna on South Africa’s south coast, taking rivals into the semi-desert inside of the Nice Karoo earlier than looping again southwards in direction of the coast. Riders will camp every evening in provided tents.
Entries are actually open on the occasion web site.