As the summer gravel season is winding down and fall gravel is picking up, we're taking a pause to check in on the our region's trend line of race registrations. Looking back from 2013, we've charted a sample of races along with their annual registrations to get a picture of the regional gravel scene.
The Growth of the Gravel Biking Scene
Gravel racing has been growing regionally, nationally, and internationally in the last several years. Gravel's growing popularity can probably be attributed to several factors both on and off the bike. One aspect is the versatility of gravel bikes, which tend to handle a variety of mixed and rugged terrains. That flexibility gives riders to explore more remote, scenic, and adventurous routes that aren't very easy (or comfortable) to reach on traditional road bikes.
The gravel biking community itself has also played a role in the sport's growth. Known for being inclusive and welcoming, the gravel community tends to be more open to riders of different skill levels, backgrounds, genders, and ages.
One other interesting factor is the post-pandemic bike boom. While the industry's spike in bike sales during the pandemic was short lived, and has since declined, there seems to be a strong after effect of the community's growth.
Wisconsin, Minnesota, & the U.P. Gravel Scene
Full disclosure, I am very much a newbie to our region's rich and diverse gravel scene. While I've been adventure cycling since the early days of the races below, I've only been more active in the gravel events, community, and culture for the last couple years. If you've been around a long time, you'll likely notice my lack of knowledge around the earlier events and communities that preceded my involvement.
Observations on the Growth Trend Line
From this (unscientific and incomplete) data set, we'd like to offer some observations about the gravel scene in general as well as localized to our region here in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Here's what we see:
1. Consistent Growth for Across the Board
There is a rising tide in the gravel community and new and old races are generally seeing a consistent growth curve. Due to several factors like the international growth of gravel and the cycling media giving more production value visibility to gravel biking, there has been a very noticeable growth curve across the board for gravel races
2. New & Old Races That Are Rapidly Growing
This chart only shows a small sample or races, but shows a wide range of new and old events that are experiencing strong growth in recent years. A few events to note are Heywood, Hungry Bear, and the Coon Fork 40 having significant year over year increase in event participation.
The Heywood, while it's a pretty new race, was able to build off of some of the energy from the legacy Almanzo race which took place in Northfield when the race ceased to occur and likely contributes to its rapidly growing popularity.
Hungry Bear is a longstanding grassroots event in the Cable area that has also been accelerating its growth. New Moon Ski & Bike recently took over the race and saw a ~60% increase in participation in one year from 2023 to 2024.
The Coon Fork 40 just had its second year this August and welcomed 500 racers to a unique beach-to-beach gravel race in August, Wisconsin.
3. Seasoned Races That Hit Their Limit Year After Year
At some point, the most popular races tend to hit a ceiling and set a registration limit that then gets reached every year. Seasoned races like The Filthy 50 and the Heck of the North events were popular even before the more recent wave of widespread gravel growth. With other races like Hungry Bear and Heywood now approaching (or exceeding) the size of those events, it'll be interesting to see their growth curve (or registration caps) in future years.
Notes on Data
These numbers are not exact. Trend lines may not account for people who register on the day of the event but didn't get entered into an online registration system. This also doesn't account for people who register but didn't show up on race day.
This is a small sampling. This isn't meant to be a scientific study. We took a few larger well established races and a few races that are only a few years old in order to get a general look at the gravel race scene.
Historical numbers are estimates. Some of these races like Heck of the North and Filthy 50 didn't have easily accessible numbers from events that are several years old. Those data points reflect estimates from the race directors.
Chart does not include the year 2020. Most races were cancelled but some still took place. In order to have a meaningful comparison, the year 2020 was not included.
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