Gravel One Fifty

Gravel One Fifty is the Dutch round of the UCI Gravel World Series, a proper race in which the top quarter of each age category earns a place at the world and European championships. The organiser is just as clear that you do not need to care about qualifying to enjoy it: riders go off in age-group waves, everyone is timed, and the whole field is cheered home on the village green in Roden, from the elite winners around midday to the last finishers in the afternoon.

The racing stays in Drenthe, a province of plains, forest and farmland that became the world's first UCI Bike Region in 2016. The course is pan flat, so the difficulty comes from the surface and the weather: firm dirt tracks, grassy double track along the fields and old potholed gravel lanes, with wind across the open country and, after a dry spell, dust and patches of loose sand, as riders found in 2026. That year the organiser reworked the long course into laps to add more unpaved kilometres and keep it free of traffic.

It is run by Enforce Sport Events, the Drenthe team behind tough local rides such as the Drenthe 200 and Bartje 200, led by Johan Wekema. They have also used the race to grow elite women's gravel, cutting the entry fee for elite women and giving them their own start so they are not caught up in the age-group bunches.