The Traka 360 and Mattia de Marchi seem to be a perfect match. The Italian gravel racer won the endurance event in each of the event's first three years, from 2021 to 2023, stealing a little of the limelight from the signature Traka 200 race.
And he didn't just eke out a victory, but won by margins of seven or more minutes each time, with 37:03 the largest gap in 2022 ahead of Lachlan Morton in second place.
In his fifth appearance in the Girona race, the 34-year-old Italian gravel racer will compete as the leader of his new off-road team, The Grip, alongside 24-year-old French rider Eddy Le Huitouze, who won two stages at Sahara Gravel. The third rider on The Grip, 29-year-old Belgian Jordy Bouts, will return to in Traka 200, where he was seventh last year.
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"I want to do my best tomorrow. I spend a lot of time in my training, and with rest, to do my best. Maybe the result is one of the things, but you need to put it all together. You need time for the training, the rest, and for everything. It's not easy to have a team," De Marchi told Cyclingnews about his new project to create and direct The Grip for 2026.
"I have some good sponsors for my team, and I try to find something different for communications with the media team. This is maybe my secret for fun."
He said when he first began gravel racing in 2021, the dawn-to-dusk ride in The Traka 360 took him nearly 14 hours to complete. While the distance remains the same, he said the level of competition has skyrocketed and made for times that are two hours quicker. The route still rolls in a clockwise direction to the north of Girona, but does not circle to the Costa Brava. Instead, it includes a long flat section to the south and has more climbing in the early kilometres.
"The first year, also the second year, it was really, really tough to race, because you spent more time in the north part. Now, in the last few years, the race is faster, more smooth sometimes, the start is a little bit harder," he told Cyclingnews.
"The start list is crazy. Now you are really close to 10 hours. I remember the first year, maybe I spend more than 13 hours and 45 minutes, wow."
This year's route comes in at 325 kilometres, but De Marchi did not see that making a dent into the outcome, only eliminating one hour from the ride.
"Normally, a 10-hour race is my favourite distance. You never know how the body delivers after eight hours, so maybe I need to push more in the first hour, since the race is slightly shorter."
He dropped to The Traka 200 in 2024, finishing 42nd overall, but rebounded a month later to finish career-best fifth at Unbound Gravel 200 in Kansas. While The Grip riders are not part of the Life Time Grand Prix, they plan to ride many of the long-distance US races again.
The trio competed two weeks ago at Sea Otter Classic Gravel in California, with Bouts the best of the bunch with eighth place and De Marchi 18th. Traka 360 marks just the second race of the season with all three riders lining up together.
Last year, De Marchi did not have a stellar season - his best finishes were fifth at Ranxo Gravel and Gravel Locos, and sixth at The Traka 360. In The Traka, he tried something different, riding the double - the 360 on Friday and then the 200 on Saturday. After a top 10 in the longer race, and he was 67th the next day. Norway's Torbjørn Røed was another notable rider who did the double, going ninth in the 360 and 103rd in the 200.
"The 2025 season wasn't what I had hoped for, but I still managed to find some small satisfactions. I tried to contribute to the gravel movement by organizing a race (The Hills). It was hard work, but it also brought me a lot of satisfaction," he told Polvu magazine earlier this year.
De Marchi launched The Hills gravel last season in Treviso, Italy, and it is now a staple in the Gravel Earth Series before The Traka. Launching a new team has added another way he can engage with the growing gravel community, and find an excuse to share his fetish for French Fries.
"The Grip, it's a performance team for sure. We stay really close to the community, like French fries on Saturday [at The Traka]. It's my favourite food after the race, especially after 10 hours full gas on the bike," he confirmed.
"It's not just putting photos on Instagram, or the results. I try to teach the young gravel riders, it's not just about performance. The key for gravel, the success of gravel in the next few years, is to remember the community. Don't just do a race or a Gran Fondo, and after put your bike in the car and go back home. You need to spend time after the race all together."
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