Going toe to toe with cyclists like WorldTour veteran Nathan Haas and Paris-Roubaix winner Niki Terpstra may not have been something Adam Blazevic was expecting this time last year, but the introduction of the Trek UCI Gravel World Series changed all that.
The 23-year-old has made racing across the disciplines ever since he started racing as a 10 year old, in Nannup, Western Australia.
But what happened next was definitely not expected, with the Giant Australia Off-Road Team rider getting the better of a favored race Haas – who would later refer to him as “a bit of a hidden talent”.
“I never knew where I would be, especially when I saw that, I was like, oh, this is going to be a hard day out, ”Blazevic told Cyclingnews.
That, however, didn’t stop the Melbourne-based rider – fresh from the 228km-long Grafton to Inverell National Road Series race the weekend before – from making a mark early in the 125km gravel event.
“Going off solo like that wasn’t planned at all.” chased for a little bit, but then they didn’t really jump on it.
“For me, I was like ‘OK, this is good’ because I knew I had done a lot of training and done Grafton the week before, so I knew I could ride the race solo like that, until they caught me, and then still have cards to play once they caught me. It actually worked out pretty well because I was sort of, you know, in control of the race at that point but I still knew they could come back and it would be OK. ”
What worked out even better was that a group came back, just Haas who had to make a big effort to bridge the gap alone. When Blazevic pushed the pace on the final climbs, Haas had nothing left in response.
Blazevic has no longer been hidden talent, but now the winner of a UCI Gravel World Series race.
Would Europe change things?
Winning in Australia, on home territory, was one thing but now Blazevic was heading to Europe, as he had before stepping to the first step of the podium in the small Western Australian town of Nannup.
Blazevic, like many Australian cyclists with aspirations to turn professional, has been poured over to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, however, was one of trying to make up for some of that lost time.
“This year was going to come to Europe anyway, and then I saw the gravel series pop up and it looked really good and I decided to add it to the schedule,” said Blazevic, who will also be Kermesse racing in Belgium with his NRS team, Giant Racing. “Western Australia was to see how it went for me”.
Blazevic had ventured overseas to race cyclo-cross in 2017, lining up at the World Cup and the World Championships as the reigning U19 champion, and then returning to race in the U23 category during the 2018-2019 season. The leap from the only-recently emerged Australian ‘cross scene to that in Europe was substantial and at the U19 World Championships in Bieles he came 51st. Of his 20-year-old in 2019, he raced the U23 category in Bogense and came 61st.
It’s no surprise, then, with that experience round in France on June 5.
“After Western Australia it changed a little bit… I thought maybe I’m going to be able to do something a little bit more. But then going to France, you see some of the riders that were turning up, and I wasn’t sure yet how well I could go to the event. But then you know that the event ended up going pretty well too, ”said Blazevic, in something of an understatement.
Riding with road pedals and driving on a TCX Advanced Pro gravel / cyclo-cross bike, as he did in Nannup, and adding a slicker tires to make the most of a road section, up on the climbs. Though Blazevic’s matter-of-fact response was not, because Blazevic’s matter-of-fact response was not.
There was clearly no room for disappointment, with the result still being a third place behind Team TotalEnergies’ Terpstra and Piotr Havik (Westland Wil Vooruit).
“I was really, really happy. I’ve never come over to Europe and just, the first race after being here for a week, gone and got a result. ”
Poland and beyond
The Australian, who is studying mechanical engineering, is now training in Girona and then heads to Poland to take on the next round of the series on June 18 – a 100km race with 1,950m elevation gain in the Izerskie Mountains. The Gravel Adventure delivers a steep climb early in the race, which starts and finishes in Świeradów-Zdrój, and the course in south-west Poland also includes a small amount of muddy and narrow single track.
After Poland, the series heads to the United States, with the Highlands Gravel Classic on June 25 in Fayetteville, Arkansas and the Jingle GX Gravel Race in Amana, Iowa on August 6. Blazevic, however, won’t follow the gravel racing there , as he’ll instead be racing kermesses in Belgium with his Australian-based road team.
However, it will turn to the Gravel Grit n Grind in Sweden and Houffa Gravel in August, before heading to his home state of Victoria to take the second round being held in Australia – Gravelista in Beechworth.
Blazevic said there’s little difficulty in plotting out training that sucks both road and gravel ambitions, with his Grafton road race the weekend before Nannup clearly hasn’t done any harm, but the racing itself is vastly different.
“At the end of the day, the strongest ride is going to win in a gravel race, even if they have issues,” Blazevic said. “The racing is full gas, there is no rest all day. It’s not like a road race where you let go and you sit up. The racing is just on. ”
With the combination of cross discipline skills and ability to “fully gas” over the Gravel World Series distances, Blazevic has clearly found a place in the cycling world which plays to his strengths. But is a career in the relatively new discipline of gravel racing the aim?
“I want to professional ride my bike, that’s the goal for me,” Blazevic said when asked to outline his dream scenario. “I just don’t know what that’s going to look like yet.
“Racing on the road would be really cool. But obviously, you know, it’s a super tricky thing to do. So I just gotta keep working hard and see what happens and see what events from this year. ”