Gravel national champion and Ribble Outliers rider Jenson Young tells Cycling Weekly about his experience in the weekend's Gravel World Championships in Australia, where he recorded, he says, his biggest result of the year.
The 25-year-old joined a breakaway early in the race, which covered 144 kilometres and featured technically challenging pea gravel.
"To be honest, I didn't really expect much out of it. But I ended up going on the attack from the gun, pretty much. There was a group of six or seven of us, which was quickly down to three. We stayed away a long time – I think I got caught by the chasing group at 110k or something like that.
"The group that caught us, I think there were 12 of them. All the hitters were there, all the top guys riding, which was mega. I was just suffering with a bit of a bad back that far into the race, and on one of the big climbs, with 20k to go I got dropped from that group. I just paced it and held my position. I was 14th in the end.
"At the start I said top-20 would have been a mega result… the course is not that suited to me with how hilly it was. But actually, the way I raced it and being in the breakaway, it was a much better result than it looked on paper.
"The course [with its pea-gravel] is honestly like nothing I've ridden before. There's no other course similar to it really, so it was good experience. The rain had washed the slippy, dusty layer off the top, so it actually got a lot grippier for my race. The women on the Saturday had wet conditions, which made it a bit muddy, but it had dried up a little bit for us. I think our race had the best conditions it could have been for the kind of gravel it was.
"I think the season before the Worlds went so much better than I expected, winning the National Champs, a UCI race [Graen Cymru] and plenty of top-10s. So the Worlds was a bonus, really – I didn't expect anything out of it. I wanted to go and race in Australia and enjoy it, and then it actually turned out to be probably my best race of the season. To come 14th, it's a bigger ride than anything else I've done, really.
"True, it wasn't accessible for many people. I think they picked the furthest point away from anyone really to do a gravel race. But I can see why they did it. It was such a good course and race, and well organised. I wouldn't have wanted to go unless I thought I had a chance of doing well, just because of the cost.
"The quality was really good in the field. That just shows that all the top riders are willing to travel. In the elite race, we had just over 100 riders, and looking at the start list, every one of them could have got a top 20.
"I was sleeping all right, but [with the jet lag] I didn't feel great on the bike for a couple of days. And then a couple days before the race, I got a bit of a cold, so I had that through the race – I've still got it now. So, feeling pretty rough with the cold, it made the ride even more unexpected. I felt rough in the race, but actually went all right.
"[Next] I might do the [cyclo-cross] National Champs and maybe a couple of races around it, just to get ready. I've chatted to my coach about that, and I think we're happy to do it. Then it's straight into another gravel season in February."
Jenson Young was talking to James Shrubsall