It might only be February, but for keen gravel racers, the season is already in full swing. Jorge Padrones lined up between the tapes for the season’s opener in the UCI Gravel World Series in Valencia, Spain and sent in this great ride report from his day at the races.
The Castellón Gravel Race was the first UCI Gravel World Series event to be held in 2025 and took place recently in Valencia, Spain. It was super popular, with all 800 available spaces selling out in advance. This gives us an idea of how popular and trendy gravel racing is nowadays. Many of the participants came encouraged with the idea of qualifying for the Gravel World Championship that will take place in Nice [a new destination, yet to be announced by the UCI – Ed] later this year. Participants who wish to race at the World Championships need to finish in the the top 25% of each category of this UCI Gravel World Series event to qualify.
This has been the most internationally popular gravel event so far in Spain with around 250 people travelling from abroad. I guess they came attracted by the mild weather we are used to having in the Mediterranean area at this time of the year. The weather was nice the day of the race, bit chilly in the morning but with temperatures around the 15 degrees Celsius along the race itself.
The race was not a walk in the park. Castellon is the second most mountainous region in Spain, something you don’t realise until you arrive in Llucena, the starting point, and see big mountains around you as the only exit from the village. It means we knew we will have to climb during the race - more than 2600 meters of elevation to be exact in 97 km, but a hard test is the mark of a World Cup race like this.
The parcours included fast descents, with a good surface and big climbs. This was not a very technically demanding race, if we can say that descending a gravel path at 65 km/h with some sharp corners is not technical! What I mean is that there are no singletrack or rocky sections to pass. It was a fast course, with a good surface in which the first flew at more than 25 km/h average.
The competitive field was filled with well-known names, such as Carolin Schiff, Marta Romeu and Maddy Nutt lining up in the women’s category. In the men’s race was the eternally competitive Alejandro Valverde, who is now more than 45 years and still competing in Elite! Tiago Ferreira and Luis Angel Mate were among other big name racers.
In the women’s race, Carolin Schiff was the first one arriving to the finish line after a long breakaway. At the end of the men’s race, Alejandro Valverde won in an uphill sprint arriving to the finish line just before Tiago Ferreira.
Next, lots of gravel racers from many countries arrived, all of whom wanted to check if they were qualified for the Worlds and were taking home the appreciated golden UCI medal that is only given to the ones who qualified.
The organisation had prepared a nice party with food and drinks for all the participants while we could see the prize ceremony and enjoy it with other fellow riders chatting about how our day in the saddle was.
I want to give a big shout out for the organisation of this Castellon Gravel World race as it was flawlessly organised making it a real party in all senses. It has all the ingredients to be considered as a reference gravel event in Europe - good weather, good course and good organisation.