GRAVL: traka 2025

It’s been a bucket-list type of race. The kind I had to try at one point. The biggest Gravel event in Europe - TRAKA. With 4 different races and distances over the course of 4 days, it seemed more like a little bike festival than anything else. I decided to do the 200km race on Saturday, which seemed to be the most competitive in the not-ultra-long gravel scene. I mean, the longest distance you could sign up for was 560?! Mama Mia. And also the 200 was a distance that for me would be challenging, but achievable, while still feeling kind of ultra…

I arrived to Girona the Wednesday before the race, and G town was already buzzing with gravel cyclists. The energy was through the roof. 
I was there with my clothing sponsor, GripGrab, who had rented a big country house outside town. Incredibly beautiful and with a Catalan charm. It was a mix of other GripGrab ambassadors and people from the office. It was so cool to get to know the people behind the brand even better. 
​The crew there also raced either the 200 or 100, but was mostly there to embrace the GG brand, connect, share,

​and ride their bikes. But for me I had a little goal in the back of my mind. It was actually great for me to stay in a easy-going, non-performance-focused environment, it made me relax, because inside of me the little competitive bike racer was starting to fire up. 
I had no idea what to expect, as I hadn’t raced on the world stage of gravel, and I had never done 200km in my life. But nevertheless, I still expected myself to be able to race well out there, because I’m a bike racer after all. 

I had no idea what to expect, as I hadn’t raced on the world stage of gravel, and I had never done 200km in my life. But nevertheless, I still expected myself to be able to race well out there, because I’m a bike racer after all. ​

We started at 7.00 in the morning, I had the route downloaded to my Garmin, a bunch of energy with me and one of the guys to hand me fresh bottles at kilometre 119. Did I have enough? Was my stomach going to survive? I had no idea, but you never learn if you never try - so out of the gate we went and up the first climb. ​

I felt quite strong, but a little scared about the speed they took off with, as I knew the race would be more than 7 hours, so I found myself in the second group just behind the leaders. In this group we stayed together for the first three climbs and more or less also on the long flat section. I felt good and absolutely thought I totally got this long distance thing. But around 4 hours in I made 3 mistakes in a row, that really made me struggle. 

 First I took a wrong turn with the front of my group and we had to hunt back the lost time and distance. This effort I felt and when I saw a feedzone in the horizon I quickly took of my hydration pack and got ready for the FZ action. Unfortunately it was not the correct feed zone for me and I had to get the bag back on again, lost the group, hunted them down, got to the 'pro' feed zone, didn’t really know how to do a quick shift of two bottles and a hydro-pack so I lost my group’s wheel ones again. .. Oh, how we learn, ey haha, some lessons are more painful than others.

Almost caught them again, and then the biggest climb of the day came as a wall in front of me. 
The temperature was rising up to 30 degrees, we were almost 5 hours into the race at this point, and I was having my first proper crisis. Time to find the famous 'panic'-gear (the smallest I had). 

After the downhill, there was a longer flat section again, where a group from behind caught me. I did my best to stay with this group, but I really felt how the pain and efforts were creeping up on me. And there were still 60km and 2 climbs left. My mind was questioning everything at this point. I had no more left in me, I felt how my brain started to work more slowly and how the effort made me dizzy. How much longer? 
​

I was in this situation for almost 2,5 hours and when I crossed the finish line I was so empty. Holy moly. 

In those hours, I promised myself to never do this again. Now it's Monday, as I’m writing this, and I’m already kind of keen to try something similar again. Haha. How the brain works. 
​

One of the best parts of the day was my equipment to be honest, the bike was so comfortable to ride. Okay, well, on the rocky sections I definitely missed some suspension (but which mountain biker wouldn’t want that??). But the way the Scott Addict gravel is handling the corners, climbs and downhills is so cool. And the gears and brakes, just wow, was an absolute pleasure. For mechanical emergencies, I had a saddlebag with a tube, tools and CO2. Besides this, I also carried a pump and a plug ready to go. I had all my fixing stuff with me from Topeak, which I fortunately didn’t have to use. I was terrified to flat on those little tires tbh. 

An overall great experience with a fun group of friends and a challenging yet spectacular race to finish it off!

What now? Maybe it’s time to shift to another bike for the next month? A little change never hurt nobody ;-)