RADL GRVL 2026 - Race Review

RADL GRVL, what's with all the missing vowels? Don’t worry, they didn’t lose the vowels, they just put them on low‑weight gravel wheels to save grams. For one week each year Adelaide turns into a cycling mecca as thousands of cycling enthusiasts, pro-teams and aspiring pros turn up for the Tour Down Under and the myriad of support events around the week. RADL GRVL is one of those events and came about through the commitment of Adelaide local and current pro cyclist  Tiffany Cromwell and her partner Valteri Bottas of F1 fame, to create an event that captured the essence of the varied terrain and the beauty of the McLaren Vale region from a different perspective. The event is now in its third year and caters for professional, elite and age group riders, has gone from strength to strength. With over 100 elite men and women racing, the field represented the strongest ever assembled in Australia for a gravel race. 

The event gathered even more cache, when it became the inaugural Oceania Gravel Championship. This offered the winners in each category an entry into the World UCI Gravel Fondo in Nannup, WA in October this year.

thanks to patrickboerephotography

My interest in the event was sparked when my mate Ben, who had done the event the year before with two of his boys and raved about it, threw out the invitation. Into the training plan it went.

The Course
There were three course options with distances of 35, 65 and 128km, each one progressively requiring more riding skills. The long course is not for the first timer! With over 2000 metres of climbing and a few category 3 and 4 climbs, which are significantly harder on gravel than bitumen. You can check out the course in more detail via RideWithGPS. The solid lines represent paved roads and the rest is gravel, rocks and sand. Most of the gravel is "champagne gravel", but I did find the sand unrideable on a couple of occasions. At times, perhaps because of the uphill drags, it did feel like there were more paved roads. I'm not sure of the exact ratio, so I will go with 67% gravel and 33% paved. While the course presents itself as having a nice gentle descent, don't be fooled. We were on the gas almost the whole time, with the exception of a few steep descents, which meant high average and net power numbers for the day.




The Start
With a mass start for the 300 age groupers on the 128km course. Turning up to the starting chute with 4min before the gun went off didn’t help my chances of getting into an early bunch. I hitched onto the guy in the pink knicks who had a similar ambition and off we went passing over a hundred riders in the 1km neutral zone. Within about 15 minutes, we commenced the aptly named Bang Average Climb of just under 3km at an average of 8.2%. Some riders had already run out of gears and were pushing their bikes up hill.


Catching the Bunch
This bunch had been within sight from the first climb. A few of my early co-conspirators such as Mr Pink Knicks and the dude with the white hydration pack were there. I managed to pick up about five of them to become a little breakaway bunch of our own. We managed to get some cohesion within the bunch and started pulling turns, which had us motoring along. At times with the cross winds, we were echeloned across the road.
 

Aid Station 2
Initially I wasn’t planning to stop at any of the three aid stations out on course. I had a 3 litre bladder with water in my back pack and 2x850ml bottles with 200g of carbs and electrolytes in each. Plus enough gels for every half hour from hour one. With temperatures in the low 30s and the intensity of the race, I knew I needed to stop fill up the bladder and grab a couple of extra gels. Just as well I did. About 3hrs in my remaining full bottle of carbs bounced out of its cage. Fortunately I had enough gels with me to keep going,  so I didn't bother retrieving it. In the end I ran out of water with almost 45min to go. Fortunately a corner marshal gave me a bottle of water, which saved my bacon.



The Finish Line
After 4hrs and 43minutes in the dust and heat, it was over. The finish line was a welcome sight. Finishers were given an event hat, a cooling towel, a meal and drink voucher. What more could a gravel racer ask for? The male pro category was won by Frenchman Romain Bardet and the women’s by Tasmanian Nicole Frain. Testament to the quality of the field. Thanks to Tiffany, Valteri and their team for putting on a quality event. Over 50/400 recorded a DNF, if that’s you, hope you’re ok.


Summary
RADL GRVL was a quality event. The event setting and attention to detail was on point. The course was very challenging, with fast flowing descents with a range of surfaces, from perfect limestone, rutted out  tracks to scary sand. I was just happy to get around and keep it upright. The village vibe post event encouraged the riders and their families to hang around for the presentations and tell a few war stories of the day that was RADL GRVL 2026.

For more race footage, take a look at Justyouraveragecyclist.

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