Paris to Ancaster bike race to include debut of gravel championship

Cyclists riding for health-care research will take to the road Sunday for another edition of the Paris to Ancaster spring classic.

Tim Farrar, co-race director of the Paris to Ancaster Race says the inaugural Canadian Gravel Championships is an addition this year amid “exploding popularity” of the gravel discipline, enlisting bikes with better stability and tires with more aggressive tread patterns.

“Bike manufacturers have responded with bikes that look like traditional road racing bikes to the inexperienced … but have much fatter tires,” Farrar said.

The 100-kilometre race, which has been happening since 1994, has always had a gravel course but organizers didn’t realize it was a discipline until a surge in interest around 2010.

Farrar says his preference for the Hamilton-area event is a mountain bike, but expects to see tandems, road bikes and gravel bikes this weekend.

Completion times of the participants will vary depending on a rider’s commitment, with the experienced finishing in some three hours and the bulk of participants in the four- to five-hour range.

Modelled after the famous Paris to Roubaix event, which takes place each spring over brutal cobblestone roads in Europe, the Paris-Ancaster race goes through some of the roughest farm lanes, trails and gravel roads found in Ontario.

Some 3,000 have registered for this year’s sold-out event, which will see minor changes to the course when riders hit the road early Sunday.

“There’s always some change; this year it’s mostly in the private property sections,” Farrar said.

The race partners with St. Joseph’s Healthcare Foundation to raise funds to support research tied to finding treatments for common illnesses and diseases.

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