200KM GRAVEL RACE: What I Learned From The Traka200 Girona

An absolutely brutal gravel race. With a stacked field and not a lot of gravel riding for me lately, keeping up was always going to be a tall ask... The Traka200 gravel race in Girona, Catalunya, Spain.
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Big thanks to:
ATTAQUER
BMC
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WINFORCE
The Traka 200 gravel race is one of several gravel races in Catalunya, Spain attended by pro gravel racers like Laurens Ten Dam, Petr Vakoc, Ivar Silk and Piotr Havik. Although it's not part of the UCI Gravel Series it's a tough course and hard racing. A great way to test gravel skills and learn plenty about gravel racing.

[@christophe3358]

light switches': as a lighting control designer, they should always be on the inside of the room, therefore no one can turn off the lights from the outside.

[@JanoschBoesche]

is that something with trust issues perhaps? Hope you didn't have bad experience. My initial thought was the same though, just because thinking outside the box doesn't apply here. Somehow the thought came to mind, that it's wonderful to enter a properly light room, hence an advantage of the switches outside.

[@Michaelsmith21588]

It used to be outside for bathrooms. I don’t know why, because that’s the worst. Imagine someone taking a shit and someone outside switches the lights off 😂

[@marcroca2706]

Hi Tristan I did the traka 360 km and i was devasted at the end!! I truly feel your pain at the end of the race!! As always, super nice video

[@Baggellyh]

another pretty speccy video, that entire race had stellar views

[@TheKytoza]

Awesome episode well done ;)

[@tristantakevideo]

Thank you!

[@wendysuperfan1014]

Well done Tristan!!

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks Wendy!

[@guillermomunoz5531]

Top class video, as usual. Greetings from Boston!

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks mate!

[@DavidK140]

Great stuff mate , well done on the vid and the race .. got it done 🤟

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks man 🙏🏼

[@17cream]

Good effort fella, your right different beast to the road 💪

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks Andrea! 🤜🏼🤛🏼

[@forsnowboard]

Was nice saying hi to you at the end of the race! "Nice videos Tristan"! haha

[@mattrobinson716]

As the young people say, that was a sick video my man. Light switches inside and except for bathroom.

[@antspage]

200 gravel at race pace is full on man ..... good on ya

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks mate 🙏🏼

[@xnoideawhatimdoinx]

i always prefer the lightswitches to be inside the room

[@shaunpratt5521]

Been wondering why no vlogs, moving is a pretty good reason lol. Another great one & well done on 13th

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks man. Yeah moving ain’t easy, that’s for sure!

[@TheTmatsushita]

Hey, what kind of professional dj equipment do you have in the background? :D

[@MarkCRyan]

Another brilliant video. Girona definitely looks like a place no one should ever visit, kinda like Mallorca. I don’t know how you handle it. 😂

[@tristantakevideo]

Hahah thanks man. It’s pretty terrible here..a very hard place to enjoy.

[@MisslanterneRouge]

The light switches should be on the inside so the person in the room can control the lights. Anyways, hello just tuning in a year late to watch this video, I am thinking of doing my first big gravel 90km ride in a few months in NSW Aust, the Dirty Detour, so watching so many videos to get tips and tricks. So hello, my name is Chelsea and I wanted to say just watched a few of your videos and I am enjoying them. Cheers Chels c:

[@petergaskill2753]

Great vlog and stoked to be in it! Thanks man! Traka is just the coolest and you really captured the buzz!

[@markanderson7412]

Nice one mate, The rift in Iceland check it out, epic gravel series is run by haute route

[@tristantakevideo]

Have heard very good things about The Rift. Krysten who was in the Mallorca video I put out a few weeks ago is racing it this year in fact.

[@Stuey001]

Nice result! I was in Girona that weekend and we got caught in that rain you had on your reccy ride. I was wondering if you put your old steel bikes in storage? Especially that beautiful custom Legor XCR? New apartment looks really nice btw

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks mate! I still have the complete XCR built and sitting in the living room. The blue frame isn’t on display but I’ll definitely be hanging onto it and rebuilding it sometime in the future. 👌🏼

[@teffisk]

Awesome race! Can you talk about how these refuels stops work? As someone who really only knows road races, seeing people stop mid race is pretty confusing.

[@tristantakevideo]

They’re set up along the way for anyone who needs a water refill or wants food. As there are no team cars, these are the only way to get refills throughout a gravel race. Some people organise family or friends to be there when they roll through so they can have a quick pit stop and grab what they need, and other people roll in and hang out for ten minutes to recover. Usually the front riders who’re racing for results will make an agreement not to attack each other during the feed zones, and in The Traka the front group (that I wasn’t in) did actually stop all together for about 5 minutes from what I heard, before rolling out again. It’s a way for the racing to stay fair while everyone can replenish what they need in terms of nutrition.

[@jackstanley7052]

Awesome video Tristan! Maybe my favorite you’ve made. Can you ask your friends at BMC how I can order a BMC t shirt in the United States to match my teammachine?

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks so much mate! Glad you enjoyed. BMC have an apparel section on their website and should be able to ship worldwide if you’re keen for a shirt 👌🏼

[@kubatosik1676]

I moved to Barcelona a year ago, and my light switches are in the weirdest places you can possibly imagine, after a year I have not gotten used to their location :D (they are on the inside)

[@tristantakevideo]

Haha I feel like every apartment I walk into has a unique lighting layout here. A way of keeping us on our toes I guess..

[@tomrachellesfirstdance7843]

Lights have to be on the inside, if on the outside the temptation to keep flicking the light off to annoy the Mrs would be so high it would have to be done 😂

[@tristantakevideo]

😂😂

[@cyc00000]

How good is cycling!

[@tristantakevideo]

Bloody love cycling 🙌🏼

[@davidbee9563]

The part that you rode before the race looked serious. Not likely to get through on 28c road tires. I changed to 650x38b tires on the road bike so smooth on bumpy pavement and not much slower. Light switches inside.

[@callanrobison2674]

Man, what a brutal race! Other than tyre size, how different is the setup/fit on your road bike vs gravel bike?

[@tristantakevideo]

Great question, Cal. The gravel bike is a little shorter and a little higher in the front end. But that’s mainly for bikepacking and long adventure rides. If I were racing on it continually I’d prefer the fit to be similar to the road bike. Ie: longer and lower.

[@XavierHipolito]

Outside, always!

[@TheBradenright]

Nice ride, can u please share some more detail on your fuelling strategy, from day before to on the day?

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks man. Usually before a race I eat mashed potato for dinner as it has the carbs and doesn’t produce any waste. And sushi always goes down well as an alternative..a lot of rice, salt, and it’s just tasty. On the day I have oats with oat milk and honey for breakfast, I run two bottles with an entire sachet of Winforce carbo powder in each, and then filled one bottle with water at the first feed station and then got another bottle with drink mix plus another bottle of water at the second feed station. At the last feed station with 35k’s to go I ate a handful of haribo, one more bottle full of water and drank the rest of the final bottle of drink mix so I was only carrying one full bottle for the final part of the race. I ate about 6-8 Decathlon jelly bars (equivalent to gels) in the first 3 hours of the race, a Winforce PANFORTE bar around the middle and had a protein shake when I got home as well. That’s about all I can remember!

[@TheBradenright]

@@tristantakevideo nice one, thanks for the info. You missed out the post ride 🍺

[@HansComyn]

Coach Zippy cameo!

[@frankmoran167]

Nice work Tristan, did Brodie finish?

[@tristantakevideo]

Unfortunately not. Her derailleur got torn off somewhere in the first 35k’s so she spent the day feeding riders in various feed zones which was cool (and a massive help).

[@olly1oo6]

Always inside

[@tristantakevideo]

Same

[@_________4292]

I like gravel because it gives freedom, You need do ligth bikepacking trip on new BMC URS mabye to Andora but on unpaved roads :-)

[@tristantakevideo]

I’ve got something very similar coming up! 👌🏼👌🏼

[@scugno]

I wish I would’ve known about the gravel race. I would have done that for sure, I love the gravel, 200 K is the max that I want to do though. That ultra crap is not for me. I was thinking until you mentioned it at the end of the video, I was surprised that BMC didn’t send you a bike. Glad to see you have one coming your way. Enjoy mate

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks man, it was a fun event. 200k’s was a big one, but I’m keen to try out the 360 next year to see just how brutal it is.

[@scugno]

@@tristantakevideo nope! That doesn’t sound fun 🤷🏼‍♂️😂

[@andyking8464]

Nice work, T! How'd the shoes go?

[@tristantakevideo]

Thanks Andy! Really good..very stiff so definitely a race shoe rather than a general bikepacking shoe but I like them a lot. Doing some bikepacking soon so I’ll be spending a bunch more hours in them and will have more of an idea of how they perform by the end of June.

[@andyking8464]

CHeers Tristan.Look forward to hearing what you think of them. Been stalking you on Strava - IMPRESSIVE! :)

[@xscolnago]

Hi Tristan, What gears did you choose for the Traka?

[@tristantakevideo]

Hey man, I run a 40T front and 11-42 on the rear.

[@patrickprouty4415]

Inside

[@abritandhisbikeinpoland6802]

Inside.

[@HansComyn]

And Suleman, if I see that right.

[@1000750]

Wait on the outside of a room that's crazy, never heard of such a thing, middle of the night you need to turn them on and your door is closed hmmmm.

[@yetogoicolea586]

what happened to the rooftop apartment?

[@tristantakevideo]

The owners wanted to move back in

[@monrezee]

Lachlan Morton is Bad Ass

[@tristantakevideo]

Agreed. Super down to earth as well.

[@tommykelly1702]

Don't put shoes on a table bad luck my mum would say

[@goldenretriever6261]

61kg? Ur a little fella.

[@tristantakevideo]

Haha that’s one way to put it