USA's Gravel Champion on Paris-Roubaix dream and Mathieu van der Poel: "He's proved he's incredibly dominant on a mountain bike, on a cross bike, on a road bike, anything with two wheels"
Cycling
Brennan Wertz became Gravel national champion in the USA this year and has gained a lot of notoriety in the national and international scene. He has talked about the Gravel World Championships won by Mathieu van der Poel but also of his dream of racing Paris-Roubaix in the World Tour peloton.
However, despite being a top rider in the discipline, it remains a tough job to make a living to be able to fully focus on gravel - even in the USA where financial means are far superior than in most other places where the sport is developed. "I would say the prize money this year, I got some prize money at nationals and some stuff like that, if you do bonuses for afferent results that really helps but I try to look at that as bonus and don't factor that into the budget," Wertz said in the Odd Tandem podcast with Jens Voigt and Bobby Julich.
"The way it works for me is I have multiple sponsors and they provide me with accommodation and equipment, and also financial support - they basically pay a lump sum, and then I'm on my own to manage it all. I'm booking all the flights myself, all the accommodation, trying to be economical in all of that..."
Wertz is a talented rider but at the Gravel World Championships he was faced with another set of talented riders who dominated the event. The Belgians and Dutch in particular, with plenty road and cyclocross specialists battling for the top places and ultimately with Mathieu van der Poel taking the win. There is a still a split in the US scene when it comes to "what gravel is", with a side accepting of the professionalization and internationalization of the discipline, whilst others still enjoy more the traditional side that developed in the late 2010's.
"I love it. For me I really look at it as the more the merrier," Wertz says, being clear on what he enjoys the most. "Van der Poel he's a legend, Marianne Vos... They're just two absolute legends not just in road cycling or a specific discipline of cycling, they're legends in the sport of cycling. I've thought about of van der Poel a lot and I always thought about him at a lot of these raced and just wondered 'what would it look like if he showed up'. He's proved he's incredibly dominant on a mountain bike, on a cross bike, on a road bike, anything with two wheels he's pretty incredible with".
Wertz believes that regardless of the competition, there is benefit to hosting riders of such talent and notoriety in the gravel events: "It elevates what everyone's doing when riders of that caliber come in and check out what we're doing [...] It really just elevates it, it makes us all better and I think it's cool when they come over. It also brings an additional level of media attention and fans to the sport as well". The 27-year old was 161st in the Gravel worlds.
He was also asked about the hypothetical scenario of moving to the World Tour, with an American team - luckily for the country, a few teams maintained their structure - and he tells that the 'Hell of the North' is an absolute favourite, even a dream to race one day: "The opportunity to race like Paris-Roubaix would be really a dream, it was cool to get a little bit of taste of some of that terrain [...] It would be a pretty hard offer to turn down".
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
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Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
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- Yeah, unreal.
parisbound0008-11-2026 - there needs to be space in life for pointless comments!Ketterechts08-11-2026
- That is a very lazy way of putting it but so far on this website it seems like everyone is happy to look at everything lazily, even things that annoy them intensely. All they want to do is state their feeling and position but ask most to analyse a problem or come up with solutions or improvements and you’re stunned by silence. Nobody even really knows how this all happens. It’s very simple and quick to just say the UCI did it but I bet you they didn’t, I bet you not more than 2 people were involved, more likely just 1. The UCI may be ultimately responsible but it is not their decision, this is about hierarchy, power and delegation. The fact that protest is possible also means it isn’t over and that MORE people could get involved for a thorough review which could throw up anything. It is highly likely it was a sole commissar who decided and has that power in a first round. Therein might lie the problem the UCI has to consider, is it acceptable to give so much authority to one single person when it is quite possible for them to have a natural bias or be too easily susceptible to imposed bias. Who is to say an individual in this position isn’t susceptible to collaboration with outside players with interests in the results, nations, families, teams, betting companies, etc. On the one hand we have sports where these problems have been worked on way more to reduce such problems, on the other hand we have sports with far stricter and more draconian rules not even concerning safety or obstruction that nobody really questions like false starts or stepping out of lane or zones in athletics. If cycling hastowork on itself, it would be good if protagonists (all kinds) would start doing a little more than just moaning over outcomes.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Yes, so why not make comments less pointless?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
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Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026 - There really was nothing in it. Schreiber was so much faster, and Brand was fighting to stay in the wheel in the sprint. Schreiber did move a bit, but to say she closed the door doesn't make sense because Brand couldn't enter it anyway, abd she wasn't impeded.Rafionain-Glas08-11-2026
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- i did not see it. was the relegation justified or an overly hard decision? and don‘t cross riders deviate from straight lines all the time? bumping into each others when they cut corners, etc … why being more strict with the rules on the finish sprint?Ketterechts08-11-2026
- seems like we are advertising the website with pointless comments…Ketterechts08-11-2026
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