Surviving My First Gravel Race (4 Hours of Pain!)

Got convinced to jump into my very first gravel race!
In this video I take you along for the week leading up to it — putting in some last training hours on the gravel bike, riding in both Sweden and Amager, Copenhagen.

Race day itself turned out to be an absolutely brutal experience: nearly 4 hours of pushing a high heart rate, battling the course, and hanging on for dear life. I ended up 15th in my age group — not bad for a debut!

If you enjoy gravel rides, training vlogs, or just want to see what a first race feels like, this one’s for you.

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/elnordkild/
Strava:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/reeespeeekt

Timestamps:
00:27 Testing out new tires in Sweeden // Söderåsen
05:05 Small last minute preps in Copenhagen
08:09 RACE DAY

Tags:
#cycling #livinglife #danishnationalsgravel #gravel #gravelbike #cannondale #superx
#bikelife #bike #pasnormal #vlog

[Music] I’m on my way to Sweden for a short gravel ride. The main goal is just putting on some hours on the gravel bike because in just one week I have my first gravel race coming up and I’m super excited. I have also changed my tires. I swapped out my old Pirellis for these S Works Pathfinders and I’m very curious to see if the grip holds up or if that speed comes with a tradeoff. Heat. [Music] Heat. Natal. [Music] We made it up so this I don’t know 50 or 100 m tall but it is a serious climb especially in gravel. It is actually quite nice about the gravel itself. It is exactly as I imagined. Very sporty, very hard pack, very nice, very fast. [Music] [Music] Let’s find a good place to suck a gel. [Music] You’re not eating canel bula. You haven’t been to Sweden. So far we are 40 km into the ride. That leaves us with 70 km left. I just had a tailwind for the last 20 km. I think guess what that means. Fueling everything. Canal bula water. I think this will be the only stop for today’s trip. So 70k left with uh I got plenty of snacks and No, no, no, no. This is for the boot. [Music] [Applause] Me and my friends [Music] [Music] That’s 110 kilometers done. Done. Dusted. Nice one. I think the Swedish gravel has been uh superb, very good. Most of it is uh very hard packed, very fast. Some of it is uh very rocky. This was just perfect. I think we did 110 km and somewhere around 60% of it was uh gravel. Otherwise, I did some uh road segments because why not? I do like road. Those tires are very good for multi kind of a hybrid riding, but uh overall such a good day on the bike as well. Uh it’s nothing like Mayora. I guess we’re going to settle with Sweden and Denmark and I think uh these tires I’m feeling very confident racing on them next weekend. I had zero trouble finding grip. They are very grippy compared to not having any real knobs. Good morning. That’s only two days to my first race. It’s a Danish Nationals and Gravel. Not sure what I’m doing there, but let’s see. I think we will do 3×3 sec uh all out kind of sprint just to firm the legs and prime them so they can be as fit as possible. They are feeling quite sluggish today. We did a group ride the other day and I might have had too much fun. [Music] So, Three reps of all out sprints 36 is done. I feel so much older. The first one is always like, “Oh yeah, we got this.” Uh, starting off a bit easy and then putting off all the power at the end. Second one, you reconsider why the you started. And third one is just straight up painful. It’s only one day till my first race. It going to be a tough competition. My goal is to be top 20% in my group and not sure I’m capable of that, but I’m going to give it my best. My biggest fear is that I’ll burn out too soon. I think I know what pace I can uh maintain for 3 and 1/2 hours or so, but it’s super likely to go faster than that. And it’s super likely that I will follow another rider going faster than my pace. And that’s how you burn out very very fast. I will have a look at my wahoo as much as I can. Trying to keep the watts down. Heart rate at I don’t know zone three or four. Definitely not zone five. Um let’s see. It’s an interesting one. Hopefully everything goes good and no crashes and yeah. See you tomorrow. [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] in my mind. [Music] Yeah. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] I need [Music] it. Oh, race went okay. I think it’s ridiculous how fast it’s going. The first lap I was reaching almost my max heart rate and the power was crazy and I could just look at my wahoo. [ __ ] man. It’s way it’s way too high. I somehow miscalculated the gels amount so I forgot one and I [Music] Oh [ __ ] [Music]