Last Saturday was the 3rd edition of the British Gravel Championships aka The King’s Cup Gravel which took place in the Kings Forest just north of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Our Andy Owen took on this race and here is his race report.
The Senior Men’s and Women’s races were first up with some big names competing, Connor Swift (Ineos Grenadiers) was favourite for the Men’s title but got beaten on the line by GB rider Joe Blackmore.
The Masters race kicked off from 3:30pm, it was hot waiting on the exposed start line for the younger of the masters to start, then my new age group, the M50’s were off to a flying start to get first into the pinch point of the forest entrance. 4 laps of 15.3km then pursued over a mixed, dry terrain of gravel, sand and very bumpy hard packed soil. I managed to stay in the lead group of around 15 riders for 3 laps but then got stuck behind a couple of ‘technically challenged’ riders before entering the 400m grassy start/finish field where a group of 7 opened the taps and pulled clear of the rest of us leading into the forest for the final time.
I had to go super deep for a couple of km’s solo to chase back on, eventually did and was rewarded with the group sitting up and some much needed recovery! We were now 8 and I thought that was it, I would take 8th as a minimum…. but no, racing’s not that straight forward, we got caught by the chasing group with half a lap to go and it got really sketchy with everyone jostling for a position near the front. We all knew that there’s a short, punchy, gnarly climb in the last km which was key to come over the top first in order to tackle the following technical sandy descent and sharp left-hander into a single track section which prevented overtaking. Somehow I found myself slung out the top of the climb in 5th and there was no way I was giving that position up, so another red line effort to hold off the rider behind into the fast finishing area, empty the tanks and cross the line in 5th.
The whole event was great from when I arrived to camp on Friday afternoon to the post race beer and banter. There’s also a 40km and 100km Gran Fondo on Sunday and live music Saturday night so it’s a fantastic weekend in a stunning area, would be great to see more Wheelers at these gravel events, come on give it a try!
