A debut win in the champs jersey

This weekend the Ribble Outliers were racing on two fronts, with Abi Smith, Jenson Young, and Ben Thomas taking on UCI Gravel Cymru in Wales while Sophie Wright headed to the Ardennes for The River by Traka, the closing round of her Gravel Earth Series campaign.

Cymru is a round of the UCI Gravel World Series, the global qualifier series for the Gravel World Championships and gravel cycling's main professional racing series. It has grown to dozens of rounds across the world, so, as always, a serious field turned up in the Welsh hills to find a course that rolls through steep-sided valleys on forest tracks and farm roads.

Abi Smith took 2nd in the elite women's race, carrying on the form that won her the national TT title a fortnight ago.

Jenson won the men's race with real panache, wearing the British National Champs jersey for the first time. He attacked just 15km in, taking Jente Michels with him, and when Michels refused to come through and work, he simply went again on a steeper section of the course and rode him off the wheel and the final 80km alone at the front.

Ben Thomas made it two Outliers on the podium, forced into a long sprint for the line and battling an outrageous Welsh cross-headwind all the way to third.

Sophie was in Belgium, among the deep forests and endless short, sharp climbs of the Ardennes, home ground of the spring classics. The River closed out the Gravel Earth Series, the adventure-leaning championship run by the organisers of the Traka that now spans eleven events across six countries. Sophie's ride there wrapped up her campaign with 7th overall in the standings, at the end of a season that included a win in Monaco, a podium at Santa Val, and a national title won six weeks after breaking two ribs. All of it was ridden on the Ultra-Grit, Jenson's 80km solo, Ben's sprint into that wind, and every race of Sophie's.

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