New National Gravel Champions shine out of the Tassie mist

Two new elite men and women's National Gravel Champions were crowned in Tasmania recently as part of The Devil's Cardigan.

The 106 km route with only 12% of bitumen and 2400m of elevation gain took in some of the North East Tassies finest scenery.

A thick mist descended on the township of Derby with a mass field of riders on the line for a long day in the saddle.

Both the mens and womens race was a see-sawing affair, with the winning men's move being made just after the 3rd KOM section on Mt. Albert Road, with Conner Sens being rewarded for an attacking tenacious race.

After being dropped from the lead bunch and fighting back on, he eventually made an attack that stuck and rode strongly for the last 30 km solo to finish with a three minute time advantage over second place, local favourite Alex Lack and Scott Bowden who took the final place on the podium.

In the elite women it was Brittany Petersen who put down the watts in the opening KOM stage but Justine Barrow would be right on her wheel.

By the third hill climb Peta Mullens crept up to put pressure on her Roxsolt Liv SRAM teammate, relishing the fast technical descents.

The top step of the podium would come down to the final climb here Barrow pulled away to cross in 4:20:01.3 just over a minute to Mullens.

Cassia Boglio would be a further five minutes behind to claim third.

The age group categories were strongly contested with deep fields of local and interstate riders up to the Masters 9 category.

Full results

Photo credit: Beardy McBeard / Kristina Vakova