There is another new arrival to bolster the early season gravel calendar in Australia, with the Sutton Grange Winery - Uncorked Gravel delivering a healthy prize purse and the promise of strong competition when it sets off for its first edition on Sunday February 18.
The event in regional Victoria, organised by the Bendigo District Cycling Club, is the second recent addition to the summer calendar with RADL GRVL to debut in January alongside the Tour Down Under.
Given that a growing flow of riders in the discipline are heading to the US or Europe for the peak events of the international season, the summer season is evolving as an increasingly important slot for the nation’s top gravel riders to face off on home soil. What’s more, it is also proving the most lucrative patch as while the discipline may deliver substantial winners cheques at a number of races in the US, up until now prize money has been light on in Australia.
Sutton Grange Winery - Uncorked Gravel, however, will offer a prize purse of $5,500 (Australian dollars), including $1000 for the men’s elite and women’s elite winners. That follows on from the announcement from RADL GRVL – delivered by Tiffany Cromwell, Valtteri Bottas and SBT GRVL organisers – that it would split $10,000 equally among the top 3 pro men and women.
The February event already has Australian gravel champion Connor Sens on the start list, along with Courtney Sherwell who stood on the top step of the podium at the Gravelista UCI Gravel World Series race in Beechworth, as did Sens. Then there is also the winner of the SEVEN Gravel World Series race in Nannup, Tasman Nankervis, who will be heading off to take on the Life TIme Grand Prix Series for a second year in 2024. All are from Bendigo, which has delivered a hefty swathe of Australia's leading gravel talent.
There are expected to be plenty more key riders quickly added to that start list, with Dirty Warrny runner up Mark O'Brien for one quick to respond to the Instagram post announcing the event with the comment "count me in".
The elite and 40+ racing will start and finish at the Sutton Grange Winery, a location south of the Victorian regional city of Bendigo and near Harcourt, where the club has run a gravel race in recent years.
After the start, the 94.5km race will head to a 27km circuit where riders will take on three laps before heading back to the winery to complete the 100% gravel course. Riders will tackle a mix of fast open terrain, technical rocky and hilly sections through the Pilchers Bridge Nature Conservation Reserve and the Lyell State Forest. For the first edition, numbers will be limited to 240 and prizes in the elite category will pay down to 6th place.
