With gravel riding becoming increasingly popular in the cycling community, some rumours and speculations have been doing the rounds over the last couple of months about the first official gravel bike series in South Africa. These rumours have now been confirmed with the announcement today by Country Roads Events that they will be hosting the new prestigious Gravel Grand Prix Series that will roam the beautiful countryside of South Africa in 2019 with a series of events that will take riders and their supporters to some of the most scenic areas and beautiful back roads in the country with a mix of single day and 2 day gravel events.
Country Roads Events has joined forces with established and well-known sport event organizers, WildTrail SA, to put together a top class gravel series that will cater for all types of riders and their bikes. Event director, Debbie Agenbag, feels quite passionate about creating a fresh and affordable series. “We will strongly rely on sponsors to carry most of the cost of the events so that we can offer participants an affordable but quality series in these financially challenging times that most people are currently experiencing. People love their sport and love doing events but lately, it has become a big challenge to make ends meet and still be able to save some money in the budget to do events and we are very sympathetic to that” says Debbie.
Although the full Gravel Grand Prix Series will only officially kick off in 2019, a fun-filled 2-day launch event will take place in October 2018 at the picturesque and charming hamlet of Verkykerskop in the Eastern Free State. This launch event will provide a full taste of what the series will have in store for mountain bikes and gravel bikes and their eager owners and will place a strong focus on having family and supporter friendly venues for all the events in the series with race camps and villages that will also be open to family and friends.
The organizers will release full details on the series at the middle of July with a special announcement on the launch event by the end of June. The future of gravel biking is looking bright and busy.
