UCI Gravel Challenge Blaavands Huk – Too much mud – NOT MY DAY

The UCI gravel race in Blavands Huk was my first A race of the season.
A gravel race I was very excited about.

My goal for the race was to qualify for the gravel world championships. I was in awesome shape so I was very optimistic about qualifying.

The UCI gravel race in Blaavands Huk was a 162 km gravel race. A mix of fast gravel, some pavement and some very muddy sections.
Unfortunately it wasn’t my day. Luck wasn’t on my side.

I’ve done some of the hardest bike training ever coming in to this race. If you haven’t seen it check out my high intensity training experiment series

00:00 – Intro
00:26 – The day before the race
02:50 – The UCI gravel challenge Blåvands huk
05:20 – What happened
08:14 – The crash
10:53 – My race numbers

#gravelracing #gravelrace #bikeracing

[Music] welcome to BL and and welcome to my for the next 24 hours OB sleep being in the car tonight I’m here for the UCI gravel race and hopefully to get my ticket for the world chimps fingers crossed just got home from a test ride did the one entire Loop we’ll be doing four laps tomorrow and uh it’s around 38k started out in pouring rain and I’m totally covered in mud but now the sun is actually shining but I’m very happy I saw the entire route because there’s a few sections that I’ll definitely be mindful about tomorrow uh a few places in the very beginning of each lab and uh in the kind of middle part as well so it will for sure be interesting but I am extremely excited about tomorrow firstly because I’m really hoping to qualify I feel like I’ve worked hard to get into a decent shape and speaking about shape I’m also very excited to see how it all will work out after my high-intensity training experiment for the last five we five weeks my Longest Ride have been just below 3 hours so I am curious to see how it will be working out tomorrow when I’m deep in the race but uh yeah now I’ll jump in the ocean to get some of this sand and of me then I’ll find me some pizza find some place to park the car stay for night and then it’s race time good morning race day is here finally woo starting to feel the nerves a bit but uh that’s all good so this is where I’ve spent the night uh at some rest stop close to a forest it’s been okay it’s my first time sleeping in a c but uh yeah it’s been nice so now I’ll uh get ready get into town and find me some coffee much [Music] he [Music] sorry [Music] race done what an absolute show started out good but uh yeah finish off less good but before all you high intensity training haters going to comment that this was bound to happen because I’ve been training too hard and not [Music] enough h of the low intensity stuff the result of today’s race had absolutely nothing to do with that uh within the first 5k I had my first crash of the day and might notice that I say my first crash it was actually not that big of a deal I landed very soft so uh I was fairly quick back on the bike and uh the only problem was that the group which are still all together we’re riding very very fast so uh I had to chase as hard as I could found a a little group but I was definitely one doing most of the work but uh because it was so early in the race I thought that I was still a decent chance to get a great result I was pretty sure people would would start falling off at some point um then we entered the more technical stuff and the next stage group caught up that was actually good because they were riding very very fast and I thought okay that’s that’s something that will help me a lot then we entered into a part of the ca that yeah if I was course designer I would definitely not make this as a part of the course so extremely muddy and it only got worse by every run because there was so many people running through it um and uh guy in front of me end up having to get off his bike and uh of course that set me back quite a lot not too long after that uh good M of mine went back home got up to me and we rode together he rode very very strong and uh after riding with him for some time uh I had my second crash of the day sorry okay yeah yeah yeah I ended up you know hitting the banks of this tire track and um yeah lost the bike underneath me my hip actually hurt from yeah right away but you never know sometimes you can ride it away and that that’s what I thought so I tried to just get back on the bike as quickly as possible but I pretty soon realized that that might be what would cost me my race because my my lower back which is something that I’ve been struggling with sometimes really started to hurting and started acting up and only got worse I sold it on for 2 and a half rounds then I did the only Smart Choice called my wife got some outside perspective and uh yeah then I found the quickest fastest way home and call it a day I it really it really annoys me because I think my legs are good and I it would just have been super cool to test the body over the longer distance to see if I could keep on pushing uh also in the later hours of the race ended up riding little less than 4 hours that’s it that on to the next one I really want to find a different race as soon as possible I haven’t given up yet on the r CHS dream um and really feel like I’m my form is good so it’s that only makes it even more annoying to have to go quits but uh yeah that’s life but now time to get W trying to wash off some of all this mud if possible uh and then the long drive home [Music] [Applause] [Music] see [Music]