Travis Bramley

UCI World Championships 2023 🌈

Brutal, technical & unforgiving. The racing was frenetic, aggressive & at points terrifying.

I fought hard early on to maintain position as 240ish of the world’s best gravel riders tore through every corner, narrow lanes & spectacular vineyards.

Shortly before the first photo I’m chasing down a French & Czech rider up the first major climb. I felt good. Nailed bottle grabs in the feed zones, good positioning in the bunch & on top of my nutrition.

Fast-forward another hour & we hit a long stretch of twisty singletrack around a lake. Whilst struggling in this section, I made up dozens of positions on the climbs that followed.

On the way back into town things took a turn. My front brake was rubbing, handlebars spun slightly & was pushing 400w downhill to hold sight of the group in front. Seeing stars, I missed every bottle offered by the team & my family in feed zone 5. By feed zone 6 I’m stopped, sat on the road, completely out of it whilst Mum is almost force feeding me bananas and paracetamol. @jonah_drake25 took the lead on fixing my mechanical woes, and I continued. 200w was all I had in the tank for the next 1hr+ as my body was recovering from the suspected dehydration, as rider after rider came flying past.

40km to go. The hardest climbs yet to come and my hamstring locks up. More riders pass me uttering curse words as I partly block the racing line. After another 5 mins I walk with my bike, egged on by fans screaming ‘di di di’. First climb. Protect the hamstring. Done. Second climb. Just get to the top. I crawl down the singletrack MTB section on the descent, and get safely into the finish. My coordination was not good after my little sit down in feed zone 6 & those last few km were genuinely pretty scary to ride (anyone who says otherwise is a skilled MTB rider or lying).

Hugs from the team, Mum, Dad & Kathryn.

On my day I strongly believe I can be up there. Sunday was not my day, but I’m proud of the perseverance I showed & also so thankful of the people around me for enabling me to continue on my own terms & finish. 2023 done. 2024 in the planning. But first, a well earned break. 🫡