HOW NOT TO RACE A GRAVEL RACE! – Gravel Rush 2025

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Father & Son Take On Their First Ever Gravel Race | Gravel Rush Winchester

This was our first proper gravel race – and what a way to start! Me and my dad (aka Del boy) headed to the stunning Mattingley Basin near Winchester for the first ever Gravel Rush event. With rolling terrain, fast sections, and plenty of fun, this was a true test of our off-road legs. 🚴‍♂️💨

From nervous start line chats to battling through the dust and grit, we gave it everything. Watch us take on the course, soak in the atmosphere, and find out how we got on!

💬 Let us know in the comments if you’ve done a gravel race – or if you’re thinking about trying one!

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onboard action all the power all the pain from the gravel rush this was my first proper real gravel race to be honest that was actually on gravel so you can see it’s a mass start and to be honest I was super super surprised it was fairly chill off the start line i thought it was going to be like full CX full mountain bike start where everyone just goes hell for leather straight from the gun but it wasn’t it was I genuinely thought this start was like neutralized or something i mean you have to do do a certain amount of watts just to move because you’re on gravel now but you’re going to see the mistakes I made and they’re not really mistakes i just love to race my bike and I love to race it hard and if you’ve been watching my channel recently yeah I have not been training on my bike so trying to race hard was bloody difficult but you can see everyone is just literally trying to either hold position or get into a better position so I’m going to speed up this first little bit because it was basically like a neutralized start like I said which I was surprised cuz I’ve seen some of the other videos where it’s full full gas but I’m not going to lie to you I actually really enjoyed gravel so if anyone’s got any comments at any events they’ve done where they’re like “Yeah next year definitely give this a bash.” I might get them on the list if I can convince the wife to go really there’s no graveling down south gravel races so up north is where it is but yeah this first bit was basically like neutralized pretty chill heart rate around 150 doing like bit of zone 2 bit of zone 3 spikes but nothing major at all to start which surprised me but you can see guys are just trying to move up here get into a better position because at some point all hell is going to break loose ladies and gentlemen you know how the system works but we started going downhill and I’m not going to lie to you the scariest bit was always wear sunglasses there was stones pinging off wheels left right and center you could hear it hitting the carbon i thought I was going to lose an eyeball because it was like pinball but yeah we went down this descent here uh the speed started to pick up and then it goes up a little climb and this was the first bit where it all started to accelerate guy on the right I think dropped his chain absolute nightmare time to do that but yeah bit of a big effort up this little climb it wasn’t massive it was just like a lump in the road at the speeds we’re going but yeah one thing I did notice is just the speeds you go in gravel racing it is pretty much a road race you need to treat this like a road race i treated it like a mountain bike race and got it horribly wrong but I saw these guys move up around the outside and I thought you know what Georgie boy is going to want to move up as well one because I thought it was going to be easier to see the track and everything from the front and also because I thought it was easy at this point this is where I got it horribly wrong i moved up to the front what I didn’t realize is in the wheels it was easy because there was so much bloody drafting at the front it was actually quite hard and you’re actually having to put some watts in because there was a strong wind out there it was night and day between being in the wheels and being on the front anyway I went up to the front and then all of a sudden your boy gets carried away and thinks he’s got a lot of minerals that he doesn’t actually have and I started to I started to whack it on the front right thinking “Yeah give it some beans let’s see what happens.” and I might be able to get away or string this out a little bit and I was giving it all the beans Georgie boy had down this gravel section and it turns out your boy did not have a lot of beans that is for sure because I was I’ve gone from like that chilled 150 heart rate up to 172 and yeah I’m going to be in trouble in a second there’s no two ways about it i had to I remember getting to this bit here easing off a little bit looking over my shoulder and realizing yeah no one’s gone anywhere i’m literally just towing all these people around and I have got nothing left to give but what do I do i get carried away again in a minute and I start whacking it again cuz I’m like an excitable puppy when I get racing i just I just don’t like that neutralized feeling that I like to feel like we’re going out we’re going to tear each other’s legs off and your boy’s going to get dropped straight away but I guess gravel racing is a little bit different because the time of the event so much longer i’m used to racing like 1 hour cycle across you just the the tactic is go as hard as your body can handle uh but Georgie boys learned you’re better off sticking in the wheels and drafting ladies and gentlemen cuz we come down this next bit and this little spike in the road this little climb was it was only short it was bloody steep and it was absolutely savage and people started to come up past me here i’m doing like 5 600 watts up here 700 800 and guys are coming past me absolute nightmare but yeah so the bike I’m on I’m actually on a giant TCX got 40 mm tires spoiler alert I have just received delivery of a gravel bike so we are going to be doing some more gravel racing hopefully but yeah I think this was Rich Freshwater come up by the side me he’s like national gravel champion for the vet 50 or vet 40 I think so super strong rider and I realized I wanted the line he was on so I started I basically stuck the elbow on him here but he was all chill about him just let me go in front sort of once he had moaned about me stucking it sticking the elbow on him but this was a smoother line here but then it was yet again Georgie boy on the front when he should not be on the front heart rate’s up above 170 again and where I haven’t been training my heart rate couldn’t go much higher than this because it was my legs that wouldn’t allow me but we’re going down this descent it was super fast like hitting like 25 mph you It is scary in the Pelaton when blooming look 28 mph rocks are pinging up left right and center and a few guys come back past me here absolute horrible cornering but they they it was such negative racing at the start they’d like go to the front and then sit up i was like “What the hell is going on?” So what did Georgie Boy do again went to the front and uh yeah whacked it again i know what you’re thinking you’re a numpy yes I am and lesson learned if I do another gravel race I will not be doing this and going off the front i will literally be sitting in the wheels being an absolute wheel sucker because I gave it another big effort up this like drag this drag was killer doing like 400 watts and absolutely selling my soul but I think everyone was sitting behind me thinking “Oh thanks for setting a nice pace here George.” And yeah look 600 watts up here and this is where it all went horribly horribly wrong gravel Rush was killer from this point charlie I think it is comes past me here and yeah I was like heart rate 175 i’ve got to recover now i’ve got to recover i hadn’t seen the course so I had no idea what it was like i didn’t do any practice lap or anything like that which was my own fault being a dad you just don’t get time for them things now you got to be in dad mode before the race but we come around here and this is when the first attack started mr david Bone went for it i semi thought I’ll go with it and then realized Jesus I’ve given all my beans and I can’t go with it i’m dead my legs I’m absolutely shell city and I was trying absolutely everything i think the most annoying thing right now is I was like out the saddle trying to do it and it just wasn’t aerodynamic like when people attack in the saddle you need to stay in the saddle so you’re like more arrow i was like “Look you can see my wheels going from side to side i’m out of the saddle in the least aerodynamic position ever and I am going nowhere i’m not Every wheel that goes past I just couldn’t quite get on another wheel goes past couldn’t get on it another wheel goes past.” There’s Tom who actually won the solo race i’m doing pairs so I am going to switch at some point but yeah every wheel that went past I got dispatched and just here I just eased off the gas too early i needed to jump straight on that wheel get on it but I’m doing like 100 watts cuz I’ve absolutely sold my soul in that first 13 minutes and because of that the gap opened up and then I was in the wind and you cannot shut the gap down once once that group gets a gap I I started to try to close it back down but I literally just couldn’t you’ve got to be in that group when it goes and thankfully Matt on the mountain bike came past me and honestly they I thought we might actually shut this gap down here and you can see people trying to bridge over but in all honesty your boy had no beans for it and when I got on Matt’s wheel down here and he was taking a headwind and it was like a absolute kite i was just like you know what i’m just going to have to sit here and do like 150 200 watts because I need to recover because I’ve still got to do the the first lap before I get to pass over to my partner Dellboy and yeah you can see people are like have missed that front group now and you can see it just round the corner there it’s not a million miles away but once that gap goes it’s like in a road race your boy is toast and everyone every man is dogs trying to bridge over now but I’m glad I leaded it out for everyone and I got this little bit of recovery down here and I thought go on George let’s try and bridge over to that group again now and I I tried with everything I had and unfortunately your boy went pop again the lights went out gravel racing is actually seriously fun though it’s like how can I explain it it’s basically a road race but off-road on gravel pure carnage and I tried again at the top of the climb to go with the boys but your boy had absolutely shelled himself it was wicked fun if you’ve got any other gravel races I just thought I’d show you how I got this race so horribly wrong but it was wicked fun this race and if you’ve got any recommendations that you’ve done let me know in the comments but I’m going to wrap this one up here this is Georgie Boy blowing his biscuit in the first start loop let’s go