3RIDES is a stage race, which makes it a different animal to everything else on the gravel calendar. Three days around Winterberg in Germany: a 14-kilometre time trial on the Friday, then 103 kilometres on the Saturday and 122 on the Sunday. My own Strava files read slightly longer, as they always do, and the climbing came to 2,605 and 3,066 metres across the two big days. I finished sixth overall, 45:11 behind Nele Laing.
Stage by stage I was 11th in the TT, then 10th and 10th. That’s the shape of a consistent race rather than a spectacular one — I was never far off the pace, and never quite able to go with the front group when it went. Elena Hartmann took second overall at 3:49 and Nicole Frain third at 9:59, so the podium was set early and the fight behind it was where I lived all weekend.
The Numbers
| Stage 1 (TT) | 14.23 km · 324 m — P11 |
| Stage 2 | 103.72 km · 2,605 m — P10 |
| Stage 3 | 123.05 km · 3,066 m — P10 |
| General Classification | P6 (+45:11) |
| Winner | Nele Laing — 9:13:04 |
Distances and elevation above are from my own Strava files; the official stage distances were 14km, 103km and 122km.
Why It Matters
Sixth on GC at a three-day UCI Gravel World Series event is the most complete result of my season before Wales, and it says something different to a single-day placing: it says I can back up. Three hard efforts in three days, no bad day, no collapse. For someone who races the ultra distances I do, that reliability across consecutive days is the whole foundation.
It also replaced The Rift in my calendar — the Iceland race ran on the 18th of July and I was in Germany instead. I’ve written about that separately in a correction post.
Supported by Merlin Cycles, Ventum Racing, OGT, Spatz, Coros, ABUS, and Kenetik.