Peter Stetina on the increasing popularity of gravel racing: "Road pros are realising that this isn’t just a retirement programme"

Gravel racing in the US is continuously becoming larger and larger to the point where there have been some 700 gravel events in the North Americal country alone. This inevitably brings a certain level of professionalisation of the disciplinem, which is something one of the pioneers of gravel racing, Peter Stetina, only welcomes.

"There are so many different ways to paint things but gravel is in a really interesting space right now," Stetina tells GCN. "I don’t think gravel has lost what made it special but there’s certainly been enough money put into it that it’s become extremely professional."

"Now there’s a component of gravel that’s elite-only racing without all the other ingredients that set it apart, so to speak. That’s just a natural progression of the sport and I’ve said in interviews, that it might be partly my fault as one of the first gravel pros, or these big race series starting, or the UCI coming in."

"The road pros are realising that this isn’t just a retirement programme. It’s its own discipline and it’s hard in its own unique way. Kasia Niewiadoma and Mohoric have both been saying this. It’s finding its place professionally and it’s breaking down that barrier in racing that thought that if it wasn’t WorldTour racing then it didn’t matter."