The European gravel racing season kicked off in earnest recently with La Santa Vall. Organised by the company behind The Traka and held in Girona, Spain, La Santa Vall promised plenty of gravelly fireworks. Some pretty appalling weather in the run-up to the event didn’t seem to dampen the enthusiasm, as Jorge Padrones found out when he lined up between the race tapes. 

We can consider La Santa Vall as the first dance of season. There’s no better place to do that than one of the best known gravel areas in the world - Girona. It felt a bit like the first day back in school after the holidays. Everybody was excited to meet the friends and to catch up on the things that had happened over the winter. Not only that, but all the new teams and also the continuing ones were there. It would be easier for us to explain who was not there than to make a list of all the relevant participants and teams that were part of this Santa Vall. This event undoubtedly marks the official start of the season of gravel racing in Europe and internationally.

La Santa Vall has a very interesting format - it is a two-stage race, so we can enjoy a full racing weekend. It’s nice because it’s not just the one day race and makes the trip worthwhile. On the other hand, it’s not as long as other stage races, where the greater overall distance makes it more challenging. 

Each stage has its own personality. We have a first stage with a total of 120 km and 1800 meters of elevation, making it the Queen stage. It is quite hilly and has very long climbs, like the now-traditional climb to Los Angels, which takes place in Les Gavarres, just outside Girona. 

This year was unusual in that heavy rain fell just hours before the start of the race. We would find some muddy sections, which made the course very technical, but also made it more fun - at least from my point of view. Luckily, the type of mud in this area is not sticky, so we didn’t have to stop to clean our wheels - we just had to make sure our tyres didn’t slide too much. By the way, I think these conditions and the included river crossings have left some of the most epic gravel pictures and videos we have ever seen on social media, but let me clarify this was only at very particular points - not all the course was havoc and carnage and we could also enjoy a lot of champagne gravel. 

At the end of the stage, a nice recovery area was waiting for us with good food, nice coffee (speciality coffee, obviously, because we are in Girona and this is gravel). Not only that, but free massage for all the participants who wanted to have it. A good recovery that we were going to need as the second stage was just hours away. 

Stage Two was a more rolling stage, in which we could enjoy lots of the famous champagne gravel of Girona and I have to admit it was a pleasure to roll on that terrain, with fantastic views of the surrounding fields. It was an 84 km stage with 1200 m of elevation, but nevertheless, it was a hard stage for many riders. It was even harder than the previous one. As it was flatter, we raced in groups and as it was a very twisty course with constant changes in directions on ever-changing roads, when you joined a group, you had to go full gas.  It was pretty tricky because you had to sprint after each corner to be able to continue in a group. You ended up doing so many sprints that your legs started to feel powerless.

For me, gravel riding (and racing) is all about versatility and if we utilise that description, the courses of Santa Vall will fit just perfectly. In just two days, we had all the possible different types of terrain, from long climbs to small, steep and punchy climbs, champagne gravel, singletrack, small roads and some tricky terrain to spice the course up.

The Santa Vall was the first time this year that all the main gravel players were competing and from what we could see on the course, we predict it is going to be an exciting year full of battles. The level of competitiveness in gravel racing has just gone crazy. On the first day, even with all the elevation and muddy sections, the front group rode an average speed of almost 34 kph, while on the second day the speed rose to 38 kph and we could see some of the top racers were producing close to 400 watts of normalised power for more than three hours. Those are big numbers and the same applied to both the women’s and men’s categories – the racing seems to be more competitive by the day.

So this first dance was really positive, making it one of the most interesting races in the calendar from my point of view. Because it was the first, because of its variety of terrain making it fun and because it has the backup of being organised by Klassmark. On top of that, what better place to compete than Girona, which is one of the epicentres of cycling worldwide. Not only does this amazing place have trendy bike shops and cafes to offer, but also there are a lot of cultural options to visit when we are staying in the area. Now, we feel excited and we are looking forward to continuing the season.

Results