REFLECTIONS ON GRAVEL - Castelli Cycling

The secret is, there is no "gravel."

Gravel is what it is not. Not road, not mountain, not anything you can put in a box.

For me it is a chance. It’s carving a space where the only requisite to success is a stubbornness, refusal to quit. Gravel is a gray area. A space between, liminal, less “this” and more "not that." Indecision, glorified.

I never had a strong sense of self. I floated, trying on different personalities, but none of them stuck; I was sure everyone could tell I was faking it. I was always an athlete and a worshipper of the outdoors, smitten with its indifference to my anxieties. But I was never sure enough, never dedicated enough, never fast enough.

What is freedom if not the absence of hard lines? The bike and the mindset to go anywhere, through anything, accumulating people who never found their place and places that see few people. An existence on the threshold, necessarily ambiguous, a chance to escape through the borders of classification and disappear into the unknown.

All I hope for is that nobody ever makes a rulebook. No categories either, please. Imagine a sport that evolves with every place and person, mutates endlessly through every rider who refuses to stay on the pavement. I hold dear my weird little slice of it. The rides with no plan, the long breaks for pocket sandwiches and taking in views. The obliteration of my limits alongside people I know are my friends for life.