Freeroading Report: Sea Otter, Mid South, and ... What is Gravel Anyway
Recap of results from Sea Otter and last month's Mid South and musings about the Lifetime Grand Prix
With the calendar poised to tick over to May—although here in the Upper Midwest it still feels like Smarch, brrrrr—the American cycling scene is poised to turn the page to the heart of the 2022 gravel season. Events such as Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego, Unbound, and the Crusher in the Tushar are seemingly right around the corner.
And while the ostensible heart of the gravel season is to come, that doesn’t mean there haven’t already been some big races on the non-existent National Gravel Calendar. On a recent episode of the Groadio podcast—which I assume the valued reader has already listened to—Amanda Nauman and I tried to make sense of the early-season results and see who’s showing out on the scene thus far this season.
This Freeroading Report (must credit Jenn Jackson!) is a look at some of the big races, results, and stories from the first month or so of the proper gravel season that unofficially started with the Mid South in Oklahoma in the middle of March.
While Groadio has gotten some mileage playfully musing about a National Gravel Calendar, last fall we learned that there might be something resembling such a calendar when LifeTime announced the LifeTime Grand Prix.
However, the existence of a calendar of events might be as far as the analogy extends.
There are races … on a calendar … but they are not really national, and they all coincidentally happened to be owned by LifeTime Events. Also, athletes had to apply to be eligible to participate. Also, the six-race series includes not one, not two, but three mountain bike races.
And herein lies the issue when talking about gravel—or groad—or freeroading—or whatever you want to call it. The LifeTime series features the biggest big race in American bike racing—Unbound—as well as the Crusher in the Tushar and Big Sugar, and a number of selected riders are athletes who have proven themselves on the gravel scene. At the same time, it also includes the Sea Otter Mountain Bike Race, Leadville, and the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival. As such, a healthy chunk of the rest of the Grand Prix series field is made up of mountain bikers.
This conundrum of how to define events came to a head at Sea Otter a few weekends back. The first race of the LifeTime Grand Prix was an 80k backcountry mountain bike race. Riders, including those who are quite new to fat, squishy, knobby tires, did the race and scored their points for the series. There was also a 40k “gravel” race held on the same course that admittedly did not have the same field strength as the XC race.
So what to make of all this? Yeah, I dunno.
If you listened to the Groadio Power Rankings episode, the Panda felt that the Sea Otter MTB (and thus I’m assuming Leadville and Chequammy) should not count on the Groadio Power Rankings. Under this school of thought, while the Groadio concept has been massaged to include gravel + road (and thus Spring-Classic-style events such as BWR), mountain biking is a bridge too far. One could argue it’s about the surface, the equipment, or the vibes, but MTB is out, even if it’s part of the LifeTime series.
When we sat down to record our pod, my feelings were a bit different. The LifeTime series is very much a mix between mountain biking and gravel, but the vibes I felt when it was announced was that it would be a gravel-oriented entity. Again, this is based solely on vibes, not like facts, man.
Given the presence of so many elite riders in the LifeTime series and since it is half gravel events, it seems hard to overlook its primacy on the 2022 gravel calendar. Part of the approach we have adopted for the podcast is considering both an event’s history as well as the strength of its field when determining what we want to cover on the show. Per the second part of this ethos, the Sea Otter MTB field was stacked and thus it seems hard to ignore covering.
Life is already hard out there for the gravel purists, with the discipline becoming the death star in American bike racing it currently is, and the LifeTime Grand Prix and its corresponding debates probably make life that much harder. For that reason, this is called the Freeroading Report, a term everyone is free to interpret as they see fit.
Sea Otter GRVL and MTB
The Sea Otter gravel race was first slated to take place in April 2020, but lulz, we all know how that turned out. Sea Otter eventually took place last October, and the gravel race made its debut at the rare autumn bike expo.
The event returned to its usual April date for 2022, with the 80k Fuego mountain bike race taking place on Saturday and then the 40k La Gravilla gravel race hitting the trails on Sunday. And by “hitting the trails,” I mean “hitting the same trails as the MTB race.” Bwahhhh?
As discussed above, the Sea Otter event was seemingly designed to create confusion. One race that is usually shorter was longer, and the other race that is usually longer was shorter. Since the gravel race was on a mountain bike course, perhaps it is only proper to call it the Sea Otter Underbiking Challenge. IDK.
One tech item that came out of the Sea Otter La Gravilla was the continued proliferation of front suspension on drop-bar bikes. This isn’t necessarily new, with Geoff Kabush finishing 3rd at the 2019 Iceman Cometh in Michigan on a gravel bike with the Fox 32 AX gravel fork, and Kerry Werner finishing 2nd at the race in 2021 with the newer Fox RAD fork.
Spoiler alert, Andrew L’Esperance won the La Gravilla race for the men riding a Fox 32 TC fork on his gravel bike. On a mountain bike trail. Or freeroading. Or whatever.
Men’s La Gravilla
Andrew L’Esperance
Ryan Standish
Curtis White
Ian Lopez de San Roman
Tanner Visnick
The Women’s winner was one who technically probably should not have been. Flavia Oliveira, who led last year’s Unbound for a good part of the race, was selected for the LifeTime Grand Prix, but backed out a few weeks before Sea Otter, reportedly due to equipment issues.
She still had a gravel bike available and won the Women’s La Gravilla.
Women’s La Gravilla
Flavia Oliveira
Whitney Post
Kate Seiler
Hannah Shell
Kelly Brennan
Not surprisingly in the 80k Fuego XC race, the mountain bikers cleaned up in the first leg of the six-race Lifetime Grand Prix. Well, with one exception. One kind of big exception.
In the Wild West of the 2021 gravel season, one of the names that rose to the fore was that of native Vermonter Moriah Wilson. Wilson was a nordic skier in college, but grew up riding mountain bikes as well. After moving to California, she jumped into the gravel scene and has quickly ascended to the top of the ever-changing discipline.
Wilson put her childhood mountain biking skills to good use, sticking with the lead group and then making a move on a climb in the last lap to get the win. Sofia Gomez Villafane, winner on Saturday in Fayetteville, finished 2nd, and Alexis Skarda 3rd. Mountain bikers packed the rest of the top 10 to get off to a good start in the series that takes a rider’s top 5 results.
Women’s Fuego XC
Moriah Wilson
Sofia Gomez Villafane
Alexis Skarda
Lea Davison
Evelyn Dong
While Wilson stole the show for the Women, the top of the Men’s field was dominated by mountain bikers. U.S. mountain biking scene mainstay Keegan Swenson took the win, with Russell Finsterwald and Alex Wild rounding out the podium.
Bulletin fave Tobin Ortenblad had a standout ride, finishing in 4th.
Men’s Fuego XC
Keegan Swenson
Russell Finsterwald
Alex Wild
Tobin Ortenblad
Andrew L’Esperance
No real need to post the overall standings for the Lifetime Grand Prix right now because your top five are … the top five from Sea Otter. Next up on the schedule is the granddaddy of them all, Unbound, which takes place the first weekend in June. You may hear a thing or two about that race from the BIG CYCLING MEDIA, idk.
Mid South
Technically we could have had a Freeroading Report for Mid South but I was like on vacation or something and the event kind of came and went. Mid South, which takes place on the red dirt roads outside Stillwater, Oklahoma, is one of those OG gravel races that built its popularity in the decade preceding the Great Gravel Boom and was there to capitalize as one of the premier races on the gravel calendar.
Mid South represents the unofficial start of the annual gravel calendar, with a usual date in the middle of March. This year was no different than any other year, with impressive fields coming out to race the iconic red roads.
Picking up where she left off last year was the 2021 Gravel Rider of the Year, Lauren De Crescenzo. De Crescenzo won Unbound, SBT GRVL, and Gravel Worlds, among others, during her tear through the gravel scene. The Cinch rider won handily in the end at Mid South, finishing 12 minutes ahead of 2nd and 3rd, Mo Wilson and Savilia Blunk.
De Crescenzo’s teammate Holly Mathews, winner of Iceland’s The Rift last summer, finished 4th and Michigan’s Paige Peters took 5th.
Mid South Women
Lauren De Crescenzo
Moriah Wilson
Savilia Blunk
Holly Matthews
Paige Peters
Emily Newsom
Ruth Winder
Austin Killips
Jessica Cygan
Amity Rockwell
In theory, the “gravel” racers should have a leg up at an event such as Mid South, at least vis-a-vis Sea Otter, but in the Men’s race, it was another mountain biker getting the win.
Twenty-four-year-old Cole Paton escaped from a lead group of nine and was able to stay away to capture a surprising win. The rest of the group finished together, with mere seconds separating the rest of the riders in that group.
Mixed among some of the Ted Kings and Adam Roberges and Peter Stetinas of the gravel world were two upstart Minnesoootans my current residence obliges me to give a shoutout to. Chase Wark, who finished 3rd at Gravel Worlds last year, finished 6th, and Innokenty Zavyalov (pretty sure the kids just call him Inno) rolled in in 9th.
Mid South Men
Cole Paton
Dennis van Winden
Adam Roberge
Brennan Wertz
John Borstelmann
Chase Wark
Peter Stetina
Ted King
Innokenty Zavyalov
Matt Jablonski
Up Next
This weekend is the annual SoCal Spring Classic Belgian Waffle Ride. Held outside San Diego, the 130-ish mile race ventures fully into freeroading territory, with stretches of paved roads broken up by off-road sectors.
In the most recent Groadio podcast, race director Michael Marckx revealed he has come to think of it as an Unroad race, with the dirt sectors representing the Unroad part. Top riders have typically done the race on road bikes, but with the course designed to be a bit gnarlier, there is a chance the slicks might be a bit wider this year.
Such is part of the fun of freeroading. Every event is different and sometimes the best bike for one race might not be the best for the next.
If you want to stay up on the latest freeroading/gravel/groad space, follow the Groadio podcast for all unroad #content you crave.
And…. Time to reconsider West Coast bias on early season gravel. Check out Southeast Gravel Series - Dylan Johnson, Bobby Julich in #1? Ted King and G. Hincapie did it in 2021. Just sayin there is more happening than Cali and grasshopper series.
Zach, Zach, Zach……..bottom line on all this is the Lifetime GP is a freaking marketing play - and not a sensible gravel / MTB / any other discipline evaluation. Given the $$ on offer everyone would want to “ be in” but otherwise it is a severely compromised series. For example how did Kerry Werner not get selected with his YouTube cred?
Honestly I could care less about the Lifetime series but do follow who wins what gravel event - are you listening UCI? Oh and the Panda was totally off base not considering The Sea Otter results.