Rosa Klöser (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) has become very familiar with finding a path to the podium after bike races. In the past three years, with a focus on gravel, she's made that trip 22 times, including the win at Unbound Gravel 200.
This year, Klöser would like nothing more than to make her first trip to the podium at the UCI Gravel World Championships in a third try, with an eye on the rainbow jersey. She's on form with a string of seven wins in nine gravel races, but the path to a rainbow jersey in Maastricht, Netherlands, on Saturday has one big hurdle, namely a large contingency expected from the home nation.
"The current way the UCI handles the World Championships, you do not really have a restriction on the amount of participants per nation. There's a lot of Dutch and Belgian riders. I need to be really cautious and aware of what the Dutch and Belgian people do," Klöser told Cyclingnews about her expectations from the biggest national teams.
"If you have like 30 Dutch people sitting back, and one Dutch person rides away, and it's a person with potential to win, nobody will do anything. That's basically what happened last year. So yeah, don't let the Dutchie go! I guess that's the story."
Last year, Marianne Vos won the elite women's title for the Netherlands, with the race taking place in Belgium. Germany had two riders in the top 25 with Romy Kasper in fifth and Klöser in 21st. Vos outsprinted Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) for the victory, with 11 other Dutch riders making up the top 25.
"I think it's a course [Worlds] that I really like a lot because it plays into my strengths. It's a lot of cumulative climbing that might not seem as hard on paper, but over time, really, really adds up. You have to be a really powerful kind of rouleur, a type of rider who can push hard all day, and maybe also know how to race strategically."
The German champion won a pair of UCI Gravel World Series events this summer, Eislek Gravel Luxembourg and Hegau Gravel in Germany, which she noted were short on distance but bigger on elevation gain than the standard 'punchy' series events. After enduring 10-plus hours at Unbound Gravel 200 the past two years, with a win and a fourth place, a short four-hour race like the Gravel World Championships was welcome, especially in familiar territory.
The South Limburg course for elite women covers 131km with 1,190 metres of elevation gain in the Netherlands, taking in some similar territory used in the Amstel Gold Race. Klöser's childhood home is only 40 minutes away by car, where her parents still live, so she was able to check out the route earlier this year. But she said that doesn't mean the area are 'home' roads.
"I only started cycling in 2021. I never cycled when I was a kid or when I still lived at home. But for me, it's a pretty special championship in the sense that I connect a lot with the area because I pursued my bachelor's degree in Maastricht for more than three years. So it's a city that I really love," she said, adding she earned her Masters degree and PhD afterwards at Copenhagen Business School on "green eco-systems".
"The course itself, I think, is definitely more gravel worthy than maybe the last edition in Belgium. It definitely has some nice stretches, some small tracks and narrow lanes, which are fun to ride. It's not super technical, for sure, the pure roadies will still be within their capabilities to tackle this, and in terms of elevation, the course is not super hard. But, there are a lot of shorter, punchy climbs."
She considers herself a contender and said, "I see a Classics rider perform well, which will make for an exciting day for sure".
The rosters for all nations will be announced on October 8.
