Justine Barrow breaks up US foray with Australian Gravel Championships

Justine Barrow has for years been one of the riders to watch for at Australia’s Road National Championships, particularly after she took second place to Amanda Spratt in 2020, and now the Roxsolt Liv SRAM has clearly demonstrated just how formidable a rival she can be in the chase for a national title in another discipline.

The 44-year-old, who made a late switch to cycling from running, has continued on from her UCI Gravel World Series win in Beechworth last year to deliver an impressive podium-filled start to her United States gravel foray. She is now ducking home and lining up at the AusCycling Gravel Championships on Saturday in Tasmania, with the 106km Devil's Cardigan playing host to the battle for the green and gold jersey of a national champion this year.

Barrow took on her first gravel national championships last year, finishing fifth in Noosa after an early puncture destroyed her chances, though, with the results amassed since and a course that suits, she will clearly be entering as a favourite for the race which she has made the long trip back to contest.

"There's a decent amount of climbing in it, so that looks like a great course,” said Barrow. “The other appealing thing about gravel is just that often races are in such beautiful locations, and Tassie at the Devil's Cardigan is a place that I've really wanted to ride, and I never have.”

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The race starts in Derby – a small town in the north-east of the state which has established itself as a mountain bike epicentre in the last decade with the construction of an extensive trail network – taking in 2,300m of elevation as it loops out and back toward a finish line at the nearby Branxholm.

“It’s quite a diverse course; there are mountain tops, there are screamingly fast descents, rocky descents, and there are open road sections as well,” Danny King, one of the event organisers, told Cyclingnews.

“It really does incorporate a lot of disciplines and different terrains, and it is the perfect course for a national championship because it is going to produce a winner that can handle a bit of everything,”

The course, which is 87% gravel, with the small sealed proportion coming from four short sections, is also bound to deliver cold weather, with Australia’s southernmost state certainly not known for its temperate climate in the winter month of June.

Plus, the forecast of rain on Saturday could provide an extra chill. However, King said that the “robust forestry roads” held up well so there is no expectation that Barrow or the other competitors will have to face sticky mud, the likes of which played havoc at the most recent edition of Unbound.

Going international

Barrow has raced in Europe and in the US on the road as well as represented Australia three times in the UCI Cycling Esports World Championship but also made her strength clear in gravel when in September of last year, she swept up victory at the Gravelista UCI Gravel World Series in Beechworth, dropping New-Zealand born mountain biker Samara Sheppard with an attack on the final climb.

Gravel was something the physiotherapist who rides for the multi-discipline cycling team of Roxsolt Liv SRAM had by then clearly recognised was a discipline where her strengths as a rider shone through.

"I think that gravel racing is more honest than road racing, less places to hide. And so I like that,” said Barrow. “I like hard racing, and yes, the not riding in large pelotons is also appealing, for both the reason of simply not being in a large peloton, but also because there are less places for others to hide.”

Barrow – who said she found nothing but support for her plans from her multi-discipline cycling team of Roxsolt Liv SRAM and sponsors –  is one of a growing number of Australians who are taking on the sport internationally, from European-based road rider Tiffany Cromwell to a group of Australian-based multi-discipline riders including Adam Blazevic, Ella Bloor, Brendan Johnston and Tasman Nankervis.

"You start with gravel riding, and it wasn't very long at all before it was gravel racing,” said Barrow. “And yes, I definitely had some success in Australia and wanted to challenge myself with bigger fields, longer routes and just take it to an international level, and yeah, it's been amazing so far.”

Barrow, who was delighted by the depth and strength of the women's fields she encountered as well as the friendly and welcoming gravel community, took on her first gravel race in the US in May at Desert Gravel. She may have been unprepared for the lack of water stops, getting through much of the 201km race on just 1.5 litres, but even riding on a cracked rim and ultimately a flat tyre with inserts, she still managed to take third.

It was a strong start to the Australian's five months of racing in the US, which she had also expected to include some time on the road but seems to be coming more and more gravel oriented. Barrow then also managed to take to the podium at Gravel Locos, taking another third and displaying powerful form into the run-up to the all-important Unbound.

However, she was hit by a chest infection which then left her doubting her chances as she lined up for what turned out to be a brutal edition of the 200-mile (more than 320km) race after rain led to a long sticky stretch of peanut butter mud that destroyed the hopes of many.

"I woke up in the morning and just had turned a corner, and I was feeling, like, probably not 100% that, but my lungs weren't limiting me,” said Barrow. “We had a hard start, and with the mud, I don't know that anyone really perfected it."

"For me, I actually navigated the mud, not fantastically but better than most, and I think I left the maybe sitting in about 20th position. But I always like to be at the pointy end of a race, and I actually was just thinking then my race is over, but then there is so much that can happen. Over the next hundred kilometres, I progressively kept passing women.”

Barrows was then in the chase for fourth place, and as it turned out, one of the riders she had been with, Sarah Sturm, actually made it onto the podium. However, while she had overcome illness and the mud, there was still another obstacle to come.

“I was feeling really good, and then ten kilometres later, came down in a crash.”

Prior to racing Unbound, Barrow said she thought it would probably only be a one-time thing, but not anymore, as after her 2023 experience, she now has been firmly drawn in by the mystique. “Unbound got me,” said Barrow with a chuckle.

There is still, however, much more of Barrow’s US gravel season of 2023 left to play out first, with the rider having already added another podium just before heading back to Australia, with a second place at Telluride Gravel.

She will also make it back in time for Crusher in the Tushar in July to continue with a program that includes SBT GRVL, Gravel Worlds, Rebecca’s Private Idaho and The Rad Dirt Fest.

And perhaps she could be racing them all in the green and gold colours of an Australian national gravel champion.