DOWSETT’S SURPRISE GRAVEL MISTAKE | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

1.Gravel racing debut regrets

What do you make at our gravel graveyard you're gonna join ah I will be a participant maybe sometimes a competitor I did enjoy it I did enjoy it I got it I I got the vibe that's a word that is commonly used in gravel yeah I think yeah I think I felt the spirit um I I just wished I'd raced it a bit harder because uh everyone was like how are you gonna do I'm like look this is my fifth like tomorrow's gravel race will be my fifth ever gravel ride I wish I was like oh right an amateur I was like I did get around Strada Bianchi once quite well though so um and yeah so zero expectation on myself and I was like I will be my sort of line was I will be a part I will be a competitor until the point that I am a participant um and it was a 15-minute climb straight out the blocks which when I'm full race fit is my worst nightmare um and so I was like right well we'll see how this goes so I got my elbows out off the start line um stayed in for like seven minutes and then got piped out the back um 10 minutes at 400 watts which I am not capable of doing at the moment I am now but I wasn't then um I'm getting fitter and yeah so now I just settled in I was like right I'm just going to enjoy this 113 kilometer ride round uh and usually Sunny Scottish Countryside and so I was filming for the YouTube channel I stopped for eight minutes to help Alastair Brownlee with a puncher it's like tagging on to groups letting groups go chatting to people got to the Finish um and yeah I didn't look at the results until the evening and Nathan was like oh we'll see if you qualified for worlds I was like yeah I'm not like it's like oh you qualified because you were like sixth in your age category I was like cool and I thought when I finished overall they were like 41st is that how far off like the top ten they're like oh 11 minutes I was like ah I should have given it a good nudge um probably could have cracked could have cracked the top 10 and then I was like oh careful Alex you're starting to sound like you're getting there getting the itch um so yeah they all went home it was just a good it was a really fun weekend just that low pressure and I get I I think what I noticed is about the whole gravel scene is everyone says oh it's off-road and for me I was like off-road means mountain biking like gnarly and Technical and and whatnot um but I think in gravel what it more means is you are off the road I think that's probably a better definition of of that those two words is not to put it in line with mountain biking but actually just to say we're going for a bike ride that is not on the public highways um yeah I think it's very dependent as well I've noticed uh I've kind of got into it last year or so and what country you're riding gravel in hugely dictates the terrain like over here in Ireland you're getting a lot of Club dudes sportif dudes kind of catching the gravel ball because it's so hipster and trendy at the moment and everyone's buying gravel bikes but the reality of owning a gravel bike over here is you're basically gone up the side of a mountain and they're on the side of a mountain so it's super steep climbs going up and super technical the sense gone down and we don't have much else where you look at dirty kansa and the people buying the bikes have this anticipation like oh it's flat prairies and Meadows like we don't have that like we've cities with mountains that's it yeah yeah Scotland they had gravel it was it was grave it was flat well fairly flat rolling um gravel roads it was it was beautiful here in Essex it's mud right when Grandma started I was like well that's we don't have gravel here it's on gravel is on people's driveways and that is as far as it goes this was an extract from my podcast conversation with Mr Alex Delson if you want to check out the full podcast you can click here don't forget to subscribe to the channel foreign