I’ve wanted to race in America for a while. The gravel scene there is different to Europe — louder, more festival-like, with a culture around the sport that’s been building for longer. Sea Otter felt like the right introduction. Monterey in April, the hills above Laguna Seca, and a start list that told me the sport is genuinely global now.
Ninety miles. Three laps of the course, which starts and finishes at the motorsport circuit and heads out into the hills above the Californian coast. It was warm, dry, and fast — and about as far from a wet March morning in Lancashire as you can get.
What America Does Differently
The organisation of Sea Otter is worth mentioning because it’s exceptional. The Sea Otter Classic is one of the biggest cycling festivals in the world, and you feel that from the moment you arrive. There are brands, demonstrations, amateur events, junior races, track sessions — it’s a full weekend built around cycling rather than just a race with a registration tent.
The gravel field was around 500 riders, which felt intimate compared to Turnhout’s 2,500. The elite women’s start was tight and high quality. American gravel racers are exceptionally strong — the sport has produced world-class talent there for years — and I was under no illusions about the standard I was racing against.
The course itself is demanding in a way that surprised me. Three laps sounds manageable, but the climbing accumulates and the fire-road sections are genuinely rough in places. By the third lap, the race had sorted itself out considerably. That’s where I wanted to be — in a smaller group, late in the race, making decisions that matter.
The Unbound Qualifier
Sea Otter is one of the qualifying events for Unbound Gravel in Emporia, Kansas — the most famous gravel race in the world. Two hundred miles across the Flint Hills, on roads that have a reputation for being unforgiving. It’s been on my target list since I decided 2026 was going to be a full gravel season.
I qualified.
I’m not going to make too much of that right now because the race itself is still five weeks away and a qualifying start means nothing until you’re actually in Kansas. But it confirms the direction. California was a step, and the step landed.
The American Gravel Culture
Something I wasn’t expecting: how welcoming the American cycling community is to someone they don’t know. At registration, at the start line, in the feedzone — people talked to me, asked about racing in Europe, wanted to know what the UCI circuit was like. There’s a genuine curiosity about how the sport is developing globally, and a real pride in having helped build it.
I also had some good conversations with riders who’ve done Unbound multiple times. Their advice was consistent: respect the distance, don’t go out too fast on the first hundred miles, make sure your nutrition is completely sorted before you get to Kansas. That last point I’ve been working on with OGT since January. The fuelling plan for a 200-mile race is a different kind of problem to a 124km race in Italy, and we’ve been treating it that way.
Six Days to Girona
I fly back on Sunday. The Traka starts on Thursday. Girona again — 360 or 560 kilometres of it, across a few days, through Catalan terrain I’ve come to know well this year. It’s a very short turnaround from California to one of Europe’s biggest gravel events, and I won’t pretend the timing is ideal.
But this is what the season looks like. You adapt. You trust the training. You get on the plane and you race.
See you on the other side of the Traka.
Supported by Merlin Cycles, Ventum Racing, OGT, Gravaa, and Questa Financial Planning. Coached by Jacob Tipper at JT Performance Coaching.