Former Valley of Tears champion Keegan Swenson returns to Texas this week as commentator for Filth Crit broadcast as he stays sidelined from racing – Gravel Bits

2024 Valley of Tears gravel race champion Keegan Swenson makes a return to Turkey, Texas this weekend, however will line up alongside veteran announcer Brad Sohner within the broadcast sales space reasonably than pin on a quantity to race.

The reigning UCI marathon cross-country mountain bike World Champion suffered a fractured pelvis resulting in Santa Vall in Spain, when a driver immediately opened their door, inflicting him to crash throughout his coaching journey. He completed effectively off the rostrum in gravel debut for 2026 after which withdrew from Cape Epic.

“Sadly, not fairly able to race but,” Swenson introduced on Instagram from Texas, after day off the bike at his winter house in Arizona. “We’re ok to go hang around doing a shakeout journey with the Valley of Tears crew at 3 p.m. [Friday]. So should you’re there, come be part of for a pleasant little shakeout proper earlier than the race on Saturday.”

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He mentioned he regarded ahead to commentating the Filth Crit Friday evening with Sohner, proven on the Valley of Tears YouTube channel and Instagram feed, and “possibly handing out some primes”. The professional girls hit the dust for 20 minutes plus two laps at 5:30 p.m. CST, with the professional males competing in the identical format at 6:05 p.m. CST.

Solely the 2 professional criteriums on Friday will probably be broadcast, the primary occasion on Saturday not having a stay stream, simply periodic updates posted to social media.

There’s a $45,000 prize purse paid evenly throughout the elite males’s and girls’s high 10s. A stacked discipline for the primary 93-mile gravel race contains defending champions Daxton Mock (Trek Driftless) and Sofia Gomez Villafane (Specialised Off-road), in addition to two-time podium finisher Emily Newsom (Ventum-BikeTiresDirect), 2024 runner-up Chase Wark (Lunchbox Racing), and an inflow of worldwide riders similar to Simen Nordahl Svendsen (PAS Racing), Simon Pellaud (Cervelo-Assos-Maxxis) and Minke Bakker (Ça C’est Gravel).

Canadian MTB World Cup rider Owen Clark surprises with males’s victory at Homegrown Gravel

Three months faraway from spinal fusion surgical procedure, 22-year-old Owen Clark (Pivot Cycles-OTE) lined up at Homegrown Gravel in Franklin, Georgia on Saturday and gained a six-rider dash for the elite males’s title.

Clark completed the 100-mile mixed-surface race in 4:49:35, edging Will Hardin (Crew Winston-Salem) and Ben Kolbie on the line. One second again trailed the trio of Jura Gerlach (Milligan College), Nathan Surowiec and former Unbound Gravel 200 winner Ian Boswell (Wahoo), who rolled in for sixth.

A males’s U23 Pan-American mountain bike champion in cross-country, the Canadian informed Cyclingnews that the gravel race throughout Georgia and Alabama dust roads was the longest race of his profession thus far. In 2025, he scored a number of high 10 finishes in U23 XCO races on the World Cup circuit, together with fourth at Lake Placid.

“This was a fairly large wild card for me, my first race of the season and truly the longest race I’ve ever finished in my life. I had no concept what to anticipate,” Clark informed Cyclingnews in Franklin.

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“Like an hour and a half into the race, I used to be like there isn’t any likelihood. However I used to be within the lead group and it settled somewhat bit as soon as we obtained into a gaggle of six. I stunned myself with a dash ultimately. In order that was cool.”

Clark was hit from behind by a driver of an car whereas on a coaching journey in western North Carolina, the place he attends Brevard Faculty. He underwent surgical procedure to fuse 5 vertebrae in his again in late November.

He took to Instagram after the profitable process to say: “Mendacity on the aspect of the highway after affect was the scariest second of my life, however figuring out how fortunate I’m is even scarier. I could not care much less about how it will have an effect on my race season, I am simply glad to nonetheless be aside of this world.”

Former Girls’s WorldTour rider Emily Newsom (Ventum-BikeTiresDirect) gained her debut outing at Homegrown, holding off a late cost by two-time defending champion Lauren De Crescenzo (The Feed-Argonaut-Castelli-Maxxis). Newsom’s successful time was 5:34:10, De Crescenzo 30 seconds again in second and Sierra Sims in third, 8:04 again.

With fourth place within the elite males’s 100-mile race, Gerlach secured the highest spot within the males’s collegiate division. Katie Prowell of Piedmont College was ninth total for girls throughout the lengthy route and took honors as the ladies’s collegiate champion.

Whitney Allison earns total title at Transcordilleras

USA’s Whitney Allison (Bike Sports activities) and Dutchman Michiel Van Vliet (Metec – SOLARWATT p/b Mantel) earned victories on the eight-day Transcordilleras stage race, which included 10,000km and greater than 20,000 metres of elevation achieve by crossing the three sections of the Andes Mountains in Colombia.

Allison completed in 42 hours, 6 minutes, 44 seconds, incomes the victory in her third look, which included a thirty eighth birthday celebration on Sunday after stage 8. Maddie Nutt (Q36.5 Off Street Racing) completed second total and Natalia Franco (ENVE), who gained 4 of the 8 phases, took third total.

Van Vliet accomplished the eight phases in 34 hours, 57 minutes, 22 seconds, successful two phases and the general. Cristian Ricardo Yepes Arroyave was second and Yelson Alejandro Rincon Alvarez took third, every rider on the rostrum separated by greater than an hour.

Multi-time Transcordilleras opponents Thomas Dekker and Laurens Ten Dam didn’t end this yr’s occasion. Ten Dam gained the eight-stage total in 2023 and the following yr gained the continuous division.

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