Starting a new business from scratch is hard work. Make no mistake about that.
“What looks like success is often just patience and perseverance.”
A new concept, a new team, new systems, new terrain, new riders – it is a significant challenge. And I confess that perhaps I’ve been a little impatient when building Nedbank Gravel Burn.
In our very first year of the Nedbank Gravel Burn, we welcomed 500 riders from 24 countries. We sold out months in advance. We attracted some of the biggest names in cycling – top current professionals and legends of our sport. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. That, by any rational measure, is a success. However there’s always room for improvement.
So yes – we should pause and mark that as success. But perhaps our standards are unusually high. Many of us on the team come from a very mature, highly refined event at the Cape Epic. We know what excellence looks like when it has been shaped, stress-tested and refined over many years. And maybe — unfairly — we expect the Burn to feel like that already.
The truth is that it took years for us to refine the Epic to what it is today. Years of learning. Years of making mistakes. Years of iterating systems and routes and rider experiences. Nedbank Gravel Burn is different — a very different concept — and it simply takes real riders, in the real Karoo, riding real stages, for us to understand what works perfectly and what needs refinement. We’re not trying to copy anything.
Now, as entries for Edition #2 have opened, we already have riders from 21 countries signed up within the first few days – and once again, leading names in gravel and cycling in general are committing to ride.
A Unique and Auspicious Experience
One of the most encouraging moments after the event was reading our Rider Survey. It’s a detailed questionnaire that we take great care in compiling and we send to all riders after the event. We take an equal amount of energy in reviewing the feedback, with the aim to improve wherever we can. One thing stood out, confirming something important: we are on track to creating something very, very unique.
Yes, the racing at the sharp end was fierce – we do offer the world’s biggest single-event prize purse in gravel, after all. But that is only one layer of the experience.
Life in our Burn Camps adds another dimension entirely.
Standing around a campfire in the remote semi-desert after a hard, beautiful day on the bike; sharing stories under vast African skies; surrounded by 500 riders, of like mind and spirit, from across the planet. For many of our international riders — and in fact for most riders (only 7% had ever been to Graaff-Reinet before) — this was utterly new.
That is what we are building. An elevated, auspicious, almost pilgrimage-like gravel adventure. A “holy grail” experience for those who have a hunger for adventure and who love this sport. It’s creating an experience that is hard to replicate. Something that stands alone.
We aim for there to be nothing to compare it to – we are just “Nedbank Gravel Burn”.
From the Karoo to Living Rooms
One of the quiet successes of last year was the media reach.For a first-year event staged in the middle of the Karoo, being featured on mainstream national sports news across Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria amongst others, was special.
It was quite surreal returning to Switzerland and having non-cycling friends tell me they had seen the race on national television. For many of them, it was probably the first gravel race they had ever seen.
This matters to us. We aspire for the event to transcend the bike industry and the gravel community. Sure, it’s a bike race, yet we also want it to be culturally visible – a showcase that captures the imagination of everyone.
Refining the Route for 2026
We’ve made meaningful changes for next year. Most notably, we have moved the start from Knysna to Graaff Reinet. This allows us to spend two nights in the Burn Camps – less packing, less moving, more time to absorb the experience.
Riders in 2025 were blown away by the wildlife encounters on route. So we’ve added a loop stage through Shamwari Private Game Reserve, as the finale, increasing the opportunity to spot wild African animals from the saddle. There are not many places on earth where you can race your gravel bike and see this kind of wildlife in its natural habitat.
Last year the route was “back-loaded.” The toughest days came at the end, which kept everyone on edge right until the final stage.
In 2026 the route is more balanced. Stage 4 is now a shorter 61km day – a purposeful “reset” stage – giving riders time to enjoy Burn Camp life, to recover, to connect. We’ve also removed the highly technical section that was neutralised in Stage 6 last year.
A Personal Note
In the second week of May, we head back to the Karoo to test ride the new stages for 2026. We simply can’t wait to enjoy our own ‘Mini-Burn’. If we, as organisers (who have an inside view of every detail and every challenge) are so excited to ride in the Karoo again, then we are definitely onto a winning formula. We all know very well, it takes time, patience and a lot of hard work.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Karoo and sharing this auspicious experience — this year, and in the years to come.
