'This changes everything': massive prize pot for brand new seven-stage gravel race

This year's inaugural Gravel Burn stage race is not only the biggest event of its kind on the calendar, it also boasts a mammoth $150,000 (£121,400) prize purse that puts it on the map before a pedal has been turned.

It is, in fact, the biggest single-race gravel purse that has ever been offered.

The 850km, seven-stage event takes place for the first time this year in South Africa, from October 26 to November 1. The event, which also features 11,000 metres of climbing along its length, expects to attract some of the best riders in the sport to the big-money elite category. Indeed, 2021 Milan-San Remo winner Jasper Stuyven has already been recruited.

However, it is open to all, with age group racing catering to non-elites.

South African rider Matt Beers, who won the last year's Belgian Waffle Ride, said that Gravel Burn and its huge prize list was a game changer.

“This changes everything," Beers said on the Gravel Burn website. "Gravel Burn is putting the focus on stage-racing in the gravel category. A prize purse of this magnitude shows how serious gravel cycling has become."

He added: "It’s a big step toward further professionalising the discipline and giving it the recognition it deserves. It will also motivate international gravel racers, especially from the US, to come to South Africa to compete.”

Gravel Burn is not the only race in the news this week having revealed an enormous prize fund – former US star Levi Leipheimer has also unveiled a whopping $156,000 pot for his Levi's Granfondo road race.

Gravel Burn is run by Kevin Vermaak, who also founded the Cape Epic mountain bike race back in 2004. The hugely successful eight-stage race has put South African mountain bike racing on the map. Now Vermaak wants to do the same with gravel racing.

"I believe gravel biking in South Africa is now at about the place where mountain biking was 20 years ago,’ he says. ‘It is growing exponentially in Europe and the United States, both among professional and amateur riders, and we think the timing is perfect for a major, long-distance, full-service pro-am gravel race."

The huge prize fund has apparently been made possible thanks to a multi-year sponsorship deal, details of which will be revealed on February 13.

The Gravel Burn begins at the town of Knysna on South Africa's south coast, taking competitors into the semi-desert interior of the Great Karoo before looping back southwards towards the coast. Riders will camp each night in supplied tents.

Entries are now open on the event website.