'Riding to the start line is not a sacrifice, it's a gift' – One man's quest to cycle between America's 9 big gravel races

Alexis Cartier riding his bike — (Image credit: Phil Rouleau)

At the outset of the 2025 season, Canadian cyclist Alexis Cartier decided to compete in all nine of the big American gravel races, including every round of the six-event Life Time Grand Prix, which begins in April with the Sea Otter Classic. But, alarmed by the ever more apparent damaging effects of human-caused climate change, the 34-year-old adventurer was determined not to fly repeatedly across the continent. So he wrote himself a code of conduct, ruling out flying and driving, and rode between the races instead.

The odyssey he subsequently embarked upon involved spending seven months on the road, bikepacking a grand total of 15,000km (around 9,000 miles). And when he arrived at the starting line of each event, he competed in the races. All on the same bike (except for one time, when he rented a mountain bike for Leadville). A newly released short film, The Spirit of Gravel, tells the story of Cartier's incredible year. And it's a spellbinding (albeit somewhat humbling) watch.

A map of Alexis Cartier's route — Alexis Cartier's route across the continent

"I love bicycle racing, but I'm also increasingly conscious of its environmental impact," Cartier says at the beginning of his inspirational mini-documentary. "We are in an ecological crisis. Maybe it's time to review what sporting excellence should look like."

"Human activities are slowly defacing this plant. In its current model, professional bike riding is one of those. The racing itself is fairly inoffensive. The motorised travel around it is not. And yet there is a beautiful solution to this. Ride to the startline, and keep on racing."

And this is exactly what we see Cartier doing. Traversing stunning terrain as he pedals through all kinds of conditions, across the continental divide from one side of American to the other. And he's always smiling - at least for the camera. But you get the sense that Cartier's gentle effervescence is far from contrived. He comes across as the real deal. Deeply committed, but never sanctimonious.

Alexis Cartier competing — Cartier competing

And while his mission might seem extreme to the average rider, Cartier makes a compelling case. "Bicycle racing takes place, obviously on bicycle, which just happens to be the best way to move around…fast enough to go far, but slow enough to feel everything," he reasons. "The plane and the car are teleportation devices that make you skip the best part. Riding to the start line is not a sacrifice. It's a gift."

"Getting together to see who can go the fastest on a bicycle is a fun game," he says. "If you add a no-flying no-driving challenge to the game, it changes how you play it. Riding to the race should be your new gold standard. If you can win on top of that… that's great. But it's also secondary. There is no merit to being better than someone else anyway. The real challenge is to live up to your own standards."

And who can argue with that?

Watch the full short film here

Having recently clipped in as News & Features Writer for Cycling Weekly, Pat has spent decades in the saddle of road, gravel and mountain bikes pursuing interesting stories. En route he has ridden across Australia's Great Dividing Range, pedalled the Pirinexus route around the Catalan Pyrenees, raced through the Norwegian mountains with 17,000 other competitors during the Birkebeinerrittet, fatbiked along the coast of Wales, explored the trails of the Canadian Yukon under the midnight sun and spent umpteen happy hours bikepacking and cycle-touring the lost lanes and hidden bridleways of the Peak District, Exmoor, Dartmoor, North Yorkshire and Scotland. He worked for Lonely Planet for 15 years as a writer and editor, contributed to Epic Rides of the World and has authored several books.