The (Socially) Distance(d)

What do you do if you’re the organiser of well-loved UK gravel event, The Distance and had put a vast amount of effort, time and money into planning a successful 2020 running only for the whole world to be turned upside down by the arrival of Covid19?

It would have been easy to look at the logistical, moral and practical problems that Covid19 has brought on our beloved sport and admit defeat, postponing the event until 2021. Many events this year have chosen this route and for the bigger events, this may well have been their only choice.

The organisers of The Distance did some blue sky, out-of-the-box, big picture thinking – actually they had a series of beer-fuelled Zoom meetings and decided they wanted to go ahead with the event, but just in a way that kept the entrants safe and as far as possible kept the original ideals of the event.

So, what did they come up with? Essentially, if it wasn’t really safe to ride gravel together, then they would ask the participants to ride gravel at a safe distance! Entrants will ride a route of their own choosing, making and planning and then share it via komoot In order to keep some of the competitive spirit alive, event sponsor Bombtrack Bikes offered a Hook EXT frameset as a star prize, but numerous smaller spot prizes.

So, if you fancy the sound of this, get your thinking cap on, click on this link to enter and get route planning!