Gravel cycling is changing. Teams are coming to gravel cycling. Today I sit down with the 2025 European Gravel Champion and Traka winner Mads Würtz Schmidt who's recently signed for Specialized Racing Team next year in gravel. Gravel world has totally totally changed. It will never be the same again. And to break this news and take me inside what that looks like, it's the European champ Mad Schmidt. Mad Swartith, we're here in the Colosseum Cycl. The gravel king, welcome. Thank you. I wouldn't call myself the gravel king. I can call you the gravel king. I think there are like Cam Jones been pretty uh good this year. Um BL is my teammate. He's also won a lot. Like I think there are a few guys worth mentioning. Can only be one king though. Can only be one king. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say the king is the one who wins Unbound. You think it's that big? Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. Now, I've been inside it for this year and and I just see how much Unbound really matters, which is sometimes I think it's a shame because it's not the most exciting race, isn't it? Is it? It It's not the more exciting race to watch, but it's also not super exciting to race really. No, it's just long and you go straight for uh 10 miles and then you turn right and you see on your garment next turn is in another 10 miles and then you come to Santaal and it's like single trail descents you're jumping [ __ ] your GR is putting the boots to you on this crazy GPX file. Yeah. Yeah. I I haven't done much racing in the US, but what I see on social media and videos is that gravel racing over there is is very much like Unbound, like these like actual gravel roads, whereas in Europe, it's a lot more challenging. I feel like there's a bait and switch going on for European lads. I know there's a load of lads in my club are like, "Oh, no, I'm going to get into gravel. Like, it looks amazing." because they're watching like Unbound and you know maybe these lads are carrying a few extra kg and they're watching these flat rolling prairies and meadows and then you get a gravel bike in Europe and you're you're mountain biking. Yeah. Yeah. Especially here in in Jerona it's like it's almost like the terrain fights back at you. It is it is rough. Like sometimes you would wish that you were on a full suspension mountain bike. Yeah. I'm building a Frankenstein bike for next year. It's like it's going to be like a Jerona specific gravel bike. Parley are our bike uh partner. It's like a slacker geometry on it. Sham's front fork, wide tires. I'm going to stick the new dropper post on it from Sham as well. It's like I'm going full Jona proof in this bike. Yeah. Oh, you'll be you'd be ready. There's a weight penalty though for all that. Well, I'm also carrying a weight penalty on my body. So Oh, you can just let the brakes loose and go. Yeah, I I raced a gravel race back home with uh Greg Callahan who's one of the, you know, top endura guys in the world and getting to the top of climb with him, watch him just drop that dropper post and just send it on the descent. Yeah. I'm like, uh oh, I'm in trouble. Tried to follow. I was like, "Oh, I feel well outside my comfort zone. Hopefully just he knows lines and stuff and I can just follow blindly here." He goes to jump this big thing, jumps it around. I just pinned straight into the handlebars. It's like, okay, lesson learned. Yeah, that's uh that's one of the big important lessons of gravel is always be able to see where you're going. Yeah. Otherwise, you will crash or you will flat. Yeah. My kind of hot take on it is your we big announcements which we want to make in a moment, but my hot take on where that industry is going in flats is we've seen the tires going wider and wider. My thinking on the wider and wider is having seen the data. There's an arrow penalty to going wider. It's not massive, but there's an arrow penalty. Some studies will show rolling resistance is actually better. Some showing it's a little bit worse. The main thing I can see and from chatting to riders is if you're in the wheel at 40k an hour. You're hitting a pothole. You don't want a flat. So, you're going with the wider tire to avoid less flats. I wonder with Shramm dropping the gravel fork, are more people going to run the fork and go back to narrower? What is the gravel fork? It's like a suspension. Yeah. From four. See, I've been having discussions with a friend of mine who's been saying suspension is coming into gravel. And I'm like, what do you think? It's not necessary. Not necessary, but allows you to go back narrower on the tires now. Yeah. I know you always are narrow on tires. I find the 45s to be the best tire. Are you just too lazy to change them back and forth? Um uh but yeah, I think it it's also about like gravel is this in between thing where I I I don't really see if a suspension fork becomes necessary, then I don't find it like then it shouldn't be in a gravel race like we we shouldn't have uh the sense that crazy that you actually need uh suspension. I I do worry about that. I I feel like Santal races like this like you're at the very high end of the skill level. Like you got to think you're winning these races. Most people are their goal is to get through like I'm coaching a bunch of dudes and their goal is to finish Santa like they don't have the fitness but they also don't have the skills that you have like where you're able to jump stuff your reaction speed like Formula 1 driver for swerving around you they're just like pinning stuff down the sense on that in that case yeah I 100% see it as a good thing like people can can go and and and have more like be more comfortable on on the stuff that we do in the races. Um, but Ford top guys, top racing, I hope it's not going to be a thing. Is the worry that if if it does get normalized, the courses just get harder and harder. Yeah. And it plays more and more to the mountain bikers. Uh, that I'm I'm not so concerned about. I just think it should stay should stay doable on a normal looking gravel bike. Yeah, it should stay as gravel, I think, is what we're saying.
It's challenging. it's fighting back at you. You need to be strong on a climb. You need to be good on the downhills. It's technical. There's not that much draft over here. Whereas in the States, like I said, you have 10 miles this way. Europe suits Kegan better than the US. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's why I we also saw him become world champion in in the I don't remember the XC. Yeah, his skills are sick. Whatever. Uh marathon mountain bike distance. Um and two road he's having a clue about mountain biking like yeah it was one of those mountain bike flat bars you know he he he knows how to handle a bike and and here it's in in Europe it's it's more honest like there are some tactical uh perspectives in racing but it's not that much because the drafting is very little when you go 8k an hour up a climb there's no draft since getting back into training the biggest thing that's hit me isn't fitness It's fueling. I used to finish rides totally wrecked. I'd come through the door, collapse on the couch, scroll through Instagram, and call it recovery. But now that I'm actually fueling properly, and that's anywhere from 80 to 120 grams of carbs an hour, depending on the session, it's a completely different story. I'm coming home from training feeling fresh, and my power data throughout the ride supports this. I can actually function when I get off the bike. It's honestly blown me away how big a difference that proper fueling makes. When I started fuel and right, I realized just how good I could actually feel on the bike. A daily staple in my training now. It's for endurance because I know exactly what I'm putting into my body. Every product is designed for performance. It's tested in real racing and it's used by the very best from Olympians to tour to France riders. It's the same science just without the luxury brand markup. Seriously, jump over to their site and check out the prices. You'll be absolutely blown away. It's real fuel, unbeatable price, great taste, no gut issues. Like, that's a winning combo for me. For endurance, built on science, proven in sweat. Check them out at for endurance.com and start fueling smarter. I'm going to put the link in the description down below. Europe and Jirona are like, it seems to be the home of gravel now in gravel's sick around here. Yeah, I've ridden the road a lot in Jerona. I don't know, 2010 or something whenever I started coming out here. The road, not that it's a bit boring, but you know, you've ridden there's not too many new roads. I've been here for nine years now, and I I I can't find new roads anymore. Yeah, I I don't know if I'm quite at that level. I probably could find new roads, but yeah, I end up doing four hours off doing all coasty. Like it ends up in the same Yeah, exactly. gravel. I'm like, every time I go out, I'm like, I've never seen this trail before. Has anyone ever seen this trail? It doesn't look like this. It's funny how I know this area so well on the road like and and I have the whole map of the area inside my head when I look at it like say on Google Maps. I know where everything is. And then I go I make a new gravel route. I try some new roads and suddenly I hit some like come from a gravel path and I'm on the road and I'm like where the hell am I? Yeah, I just experienced in Santa Val. I like popped out on the road. I'm like I have never seen this road in my life before but I'm like 7k from Torona or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's it's super nice. Like and you just see the the network of gravel roads here. It's insane when you fly out from Jerona airport and you you you climb in up to the air up in the air and you look out the window, you can just see these dirt roads. Yeah. Everywhere. Yeah. No, it's it is insane out here. Is there any party that's worried about next year? Nervous how it's going to play out? No, not really. Um, I'm just excited like it's it's going to be super cool uh to be just fully supported uh from Specialized and it's maybe the biggest bike brand in the world. Um, and to I'm also honored that they wanted me in the team. Like it's it's a massive step for me. Um, also considered that this year was a gap year and this was I had to really this year was to take a chance like it was a risk going into this year. Um, and if I didn't manage to have the success that I had, then my cycling career would have been done. Does it feel surreal in a way? It's like, you know, we talked in the past. It's like, yeah, I got the impression you thought your cyclone was maybe done. Yes. Your best years were maybe in the rearview mirror and now it's like, oh [ __ ] maybe this chapter is just starting to get written. Yeah. like uh I was I I still I always believed that I could I hadn't reached my full potential. Um but I never found my way. I never found how to do things right, how what would work for me and and the physical part as well as the the mental part. Um but somehow I I found a new way of doing things over winter last year. Um and and through this year uh I pieced everything together that I learned used it in the correct way and and then my my whole process uh mentally on how to uh go through things, how to think about it, how to feel about everything just came together like I finally found my way and and I'm reaching the potential that I always believed that I had. um seeing me become better just a better cyclist. What's really interesting about the way you approach it is like the way you approach equipment seems symbolic the way you approach it all. It's like simple actions compound and done really well. Yeah. It's almost like no one does boring and consistent. Yeah. Better than you at the moment. Like we never have a conversation where you're like pinging me a message and you're like I'm trying this wild new breeding technique or you know I found this magic supplement. So it's like how's it going? Yeah. Trying dip away like Yeah. Yeah. Just I'm I'm Yeah. I say I I found my way and and I really enjoyed uh I I find enjoyment in in in not doing anything special. Just consistency is key. I learned that I don't need to you don't need to go on these epic monster rides.
And I even mean that from a brand point of view like if you a Castelli athlete on the spirit of gravel like what's when they sit back at the end of the season like what's success? Is it winning races? Is it social media reach? Is it number of podcasts they appeared on? It's not that clear. Like in the road, it's very clear. I don't care if you appeared on 2,000 podcasts. How many UCI points have you got? Yeah. Like, yeah. We're there to win. Gravel hasn't really figured that out. And that's where I worry with the private model now that results are going to get harder and harder to come by. Yeah. If you're not on a team, does it just kind of disappear a little bit? I think the privateeers they will always have uh a good chance of of of sponsorships if they are good on social media. Yeah. Um but I also think that this sport will be more and more driven by results. Maybe it would be more driven about like on wins than actual just okay I top three here I top five there um just suits you don't I cuz you hate social media. I I don't hate it. Uh but you're like last year I need to build social media. But I also don't love it. Um I'm trying. Uh then I have one good week and then I have three bad weeks and then I have one good week. You got to hire an intern now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That' be that. Yeah. Mod should be the M TV should be the name of it. Um, so, but yeah, it's so like which races are the important ones, which races aren't. Uh, UCI versus gravel world, gravel earth series versus uh lifetime. There's so much that aren't really, you know, it's not like on the road where everything is by history and tradition and you have the monuments, you have the grand tours, you have the oneweek stage races and then you have the pro series and the point debating what the big races are on the road. Yeah. And okay on gravel we know track and unbound they are big but then there are bunch of other races where like is this an important race or isn't is is it not like the the UCI series they're basically all the same I think. Um then there's the world championships where road guys come and changes the dynamic and everything and the courses are historically been super easy criteriums. Yeah, like predictable, easy to race. Um, and then you have race like the rift which is out of gravel earth series next year. Is it an important race? Uh, you have Santaal season opener here in Europe. Then there's the love gravel worlds in in the US. Um, the lifetime races like under unbound. Um, sea otter. How important is that? How important is the odd in Europe? Like it's not defined. Yeah. Which races are the important ones? And even with the Lifetime Grand Prix series, it's like you were saying made one of the points like gravel should stay gravel. That's not Lifetime Grand Prix Series. No, that's mountain bike with a road bar. Yeah. So it it's like Leadville, Schwamagan, Little Sugar, all mountain bike races. Yeah. So So I guess they're not important to a gravel team. But then they are because it's part of the lifetime. Yeah. See, it's a weird and the lifetime is important. It's a weird dynamic. So I think over time it will be defined which races are important and which aren't. Um so far we just have track and and unbound that are like the the pinnacle of gravel. There's track in Europe, biggest race in Europe, like undoubtedly, and Unbound is the biggest in the US and the biggest in the world. Um, but everything else is what is good, what is not. Every rider chases that feeling. The one where the bike just disappears, where the pedals turn easy and the road hums beneath you, and for a few fleeting seconds, everything just clicks. No effort, no noise, just flow. That moment isn't luck, it's engineering. The kind that only comes from obsession. For over 20 years, Parley has refined the art of carbon. Every layer placed by hand. Every angle tuned by feel and data until response, balance, and speed exist in perfect harmony. You don't notice it apparently because it's flashy. You notice it because it feels right. Because every input, every climb, every corner happens exactly how you imagined it would. customer production. Every frame goes through the same uncompromising process, traceable, tested, and finished by people who still believe craftsmanship matters. Parley doesn't chase trends. They chase that moment every rider lives for when the bike and the body move as one. Parley cycles engineered for that feeling that keeps us coming back. If you consider your tracker preparation last year, obviously you won it, trained well, but you most likely rode across from your house to pick up your own numbers. Yes. Cued with everyone else. No like VIP queue. Next year most likely looks probably gluing your own. You're playing around with tubeless the night before. Glue all over yourself like figuring out air pressure like Yeah. Yeah. you were like I am going to a race. Yeah, I will still have to go pick up my own numbers because that you have to do. Oh, you do have to do that. There's no race. You have to show up yourself um and show your ID to get your number. You know, which I'm fine with, but I can't wait to not mess around with the bike the day before the race. Oh, the stress. I hate that. I was up in the Pyrenees during the UCI race up there and uh I needed to change my tires. And then the so I put new tires, but I just couldn't get the tires seated. Uh, you know, you want it seated before you put the sealant in. So, I couldn't get it seated, and I needed needed a an air compressor to do it. So, okay. Then I go in the car, drive down to uh the the the village, find a bike shop. Their air compressor didn't work. Luckily, there was another one, but the whole city like village was um shut down because of like I couldn't drive from one place to another. So, I had to walk through the entire place, get the tire seated, walk back, drive back up only to figure out something else was wrong. Had to come back down again and then my entire afternoon was gone. Yeah. No, it's and overcooked pasta and this year I was furious that night before Badlands uh Victoria sent me their new tires, the Trentino T60, the beige ones. I'm not sure if they're Yeah, this Jackie, but yeah, they're used.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I was helping them uh with them, giving them feedback and stuff on them. But Vtori is on zips are a tight fit at the best of times, but wherever is going on with these tires, I'm trying to put them on onto my bike and my girlfriend's bike. Uh I just like I can't. She comes in, she's like, "What is going on?" I'm like down to my boxer shorts, like cuz the sweat's just everywhere and I can't get them on. Yeah. I had to put them into the bathtub in hot water to stretch them and make them more pliable for a while. then soap up the whole rim to try and get them on. Like it was a [ __ ] show. The whole apartment's messed. I'm like, I would give anything to have a look at it right now. Yeah, I think I think that's the thing I look forward to the most that my pre-race day will be so much more chilled. But this is what I mean with the gap. I go do my training and then but that's the gap, isn't it? Between now where I'm saying it's going to get harder for privateeers. You were the privateeer last year running around town, going to a bike shop, looking for a compressor, coming back up, recoveryy's compromised, your food is [ __ ] now because you're after overcooking your pasta. The stress with all that, you're going to be kicking back next year, no problems. The private still coming around town. It's a nonzero difference. Yeah. When you get to race day, you already they're picking the most talented lads to go on to the teams. Now you have an extra edge on infrastructure. You're going to have access to the best equipment, probably stuff that's like unbound traditionally specialized roll out a new fleet of bikes for the coming year that's normally better than most bikes everyone else is riding. There's an equipment that it's like the gap starts getting pretty big pretty fast. Yeah. Um and I know it's it's hard to say, but it's it's that sport. That's professional sport. Yeah. I just think about when I rock up to nationals, but it it is also like you can also you can compare it a little bit to what's happening on the road now with this fusion of in Mare and like guys are being left behind. Um and it's it's it's a tough world out there. Um I managed to pull everything off this year and have a nice have a great year so so that I could move up the ranks. But but I also, you know, I can also take it into perspective and think what if I had punctured half of my races and I didn't have uh if I didn't win tracker, if all of this like it would have been completely different and it is a Yeah, it's a tough game. It is. Yeah, it's elite sport. It's not Yeah, it's not for everyone kids. Yeah. And and I was in in elite sport on the road and I lost. So like I I even when I still wanted to, I couldn't get a contract. So I've also been on the other side where you're fighting and fighting and fighting and and nothing uh nothing comes your way. Um and it it is damn tough. You must be proud. I'm super proud. Yeah. Because it's been a grind. Yeah. Like I could see the slight quiet confidence change in your attitude from last time we talked. Yeah, where you're kind of like, oh, I'm doing gravel. But those those undertones of insecurity of like I feel like a bit of an impostor. Maybe I should be back in the world tour. You know, how long can I do this for? Is this sustainable? I have a kid. Should I be looking to get a job? Like it was almost like what you were saying without what you were saying. Now this feels like a career. It is a career. It is. Yeah. Yeah. It's my It's a second career. I I uh I got uh as a second chance and managed to with hard work and dedication. You sound like a cancer survivor. Managed to Oh yeah, but uh but yeah, I managed to pull it off and and with support from the family and and personal sponsors and but it a lot of hard work. Is it a multi-year contract or can you say uh it's two years? That's brilliant. Yeah. I almost think one year contract should be legal. It's like they give you almost no more job security than having a no contract. Yeah. Like as soon as you sign it, you need to look for another contract. Yeah. Yeah. It is hard. It is hard. Um but I do sometimes a one-year contract is also good because keep on your keep on your toes and say you you lose the security, but if you have a great year, you have a chance to make more money. So that's good. You can take the old ro road model now and you can just be pure chill in year one and then go get some results in year two. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's Yeah. two years and I'm stoked about it. Is there a scenario where like we joked about him but like the the UCI points come to gravel your UCI points hall isn't insignificant last year. Is there a weird world here where you're almost back at world tour as a gravel rider on a world tour team? Uh that's luckily at least two years away from now, but I don't see that happening. No, it's going to be a Yeah, there's a there's a gravel has to figure itself out, I think, this year. It's a big figure itself out year. Next year and the next two years is going to be Yeah. just have to see what happens. But it it needs to be more defined. Yeah, I think so. I see gravel as a mass participation event. Yeah. Like I know people say it's a mass participation. Now, how many people do track like 2,000 or something? I think four. Four. So, but I see a future where it's not Jirona, it's Barcelona. Yeah. And it's not 4,000, it's 40,000. Yeah, it's like the Barcelona marathon. I just don't see why it's not mass participation at that time. But this way, you can compare it a little bit to triathlon because you have the pros like the Blumenfelds, the the top guys on the front, but then you have age groupers behind and it is also like a mass uh can't remember what you said. Yeah, mass participation. Yeah, like a lot of people are doing this, but you still have the top professional guys on the front.
Um, and yeah, it's the same with gravel. Like I think it's going to be difficult to do gravel races and events like we see on the road where it's only the professionals. Even at world championships, you have age groupers starting behind. Um, cuz there's also as an organi organizer of a gravel race, you also need some income. you need people to come there and and do the race and pay what it cost to get a race number and and do the course. So, um I don't see it going that way. It's going to be that mass participation. I one thing I'd love to see next year with the I'm calling this the professionalization of gravel now. It's got to be professionally safe. Yeah. Like% got to start marshalling [ __ ] junctions. Like it's unacceptable to be going through one Marshall J. I get there's a lot of junctions on these things, but it's like unacceptable to be going through unmarshal junctions to be in the middle of nowhere without medical support to not have, you know, some sort of marshall on a motorbike within Yeah. you know, a couple of minutes of a rider that goes down. Yeah, there there needs to be done something there. Um like the horror example was Claraara over in Unbound. She was 90 minutes in a ditch with a broken shoulder. um could have been much worse and she didn't get help. There were um which is just there were still motorbikes on the course passing her but that was all media people and no one stopped to check on her. Yeah. Um there's an helicopter in the air filming the race but there's not a helicopter around to pick up for medical people who are because it's dangerous like it is Cycling's dangerous in general, but gravel, especially when you're racing, it's like, yeah, you're one of the best gravel riders in the world. You crash occasionally, you know. Yeah, I had one crash, you know. So, you you got to roll that back down to the age groupers talking about that just don't have the skills that are doing this because it is participation now. Yeah. You can't absolve yourself of your duty of care to look after participants by saying like, "Oh, it's epic." Yeah. We're selling as this epic adventure. It it needs to be epic. And also it's very rare that we have phone service. Yeah. Out there in the middle of nowhere. Riff this year almost no cell phone service for the entire race. And H said he stopped with a girl who he thought had a broken back. He seen her crashed. Yeah. And he stopped and yeah he recounted just this. Anyway, most of the time I don't even race with my phone. Yeah. So it it is it is an important subject to be discussed. Yeah. And I never I I hesitate to talk about it because like I'm a massive advocate for cycling for gravel cycling and I it's not like I'm trying to dog on the organizers and say you're doing a [ __ ] job. They're doing an amazing job at creating this new genre where you know you're able to make a good full-time wage from it and I'm able to talk [ __ ] about gravel and get paid for it. But it it does need to keep evolving. Like we're still talking about safety in the world tour. Like I podcast with Froom and he went off on one about UCI and safety and we're not doing enough. And you know big data we we need to be tracking. You know like if you and me sat down right now we could probably list races on the calendar on a spreadsheet. Mark the dangerous ones red. Then if we pulled up GPX files of the dangerous ones, I'd go, "Well, where's the dangerous corners on the dangerous races?" and you go, "Well, here's the four dangerous corners in Parise." And then you'd be like, "Cool. Let's make a GPX file that doesn't have the dangerous corners." Like, it's not that hard, but we still don't do that on the road. And we're years behind road safety levels and gravel. Yeah. Um, I think it that's it's going to be difficult to go on the same level, but it's better prevent some stuff like make sure there are medical assistants on standby all the time and that if someone crashes, it's that the guys who organized the race that there needs to be more people on the courses, but it's it's it's also a difficult thing to It's tricky. Yeah, it's you should only do a lapse like we do in most UCI races. Like when you do a big course, unbound 320k track at 360, you can't really do much there. Yeah. And look, I'd love to talk to the organizer. Maybe it's those course. Maybe the economics just don't work for them like in terms they got to make cash out of this. People Yeah. need to make a living. But yeah, like you're saying, the course needs to adapt. Yeah. Um because the danger is part of it. Um, but there should be a safety network around the race to uh to help people. It's d I I split it between danger you consent and danger you don't consent. I consent to like you know if I try to follow you somehow miracle I'm in the same group as you over a climb and I try and follow you on a descent. It's like that's your own choice. Yeah. I'm choosing that danger. Yeah. If we're in a paseline and we go through a junction and we get plowed by a 4x4 coming at an unmarshal junction. Yeah. It's like I don't I don't feel like I've consented to that level of Yeah. So, it's different. But regardless, I think it's going to be a super interesting year and watching how this Yeah. gravel genre develops. And yeah, I guess congratulations. Thanks. Thanks, Lance. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me.