Kevin's story: Gravel and Wine

BaseCamp athlete Kevin Davey shared his experience at the 2026 Gravel & Wine bike race in California.

Gravel & Wine turned into exactly what I needed, less of a race day and more of a "how deep can we go?" training day heading toward the Traka 360 in Girona in May.

The plan was to use the event as a long endurance build and stack around 8 hours on the bike. The actual race is about 60 miles, but with serious elevation, so doubling up would get me where I needed to be.

I started not very smartly. Small field, strong riders, and I thought, Why not see what happens if I hang near the front? So I rolled into the first climb in the top 10 and immediately blew past my pacing plan. The result was that I accidentally set my 3rd best 5 min, 10 min, 20 min, 1 hr, and 1.5 hr power efforts in the last 90 days. Great confidence boost, terrible strategy for an 8-hour day.

By the top of the first climb, reality kicked in, and I backed it down to something closer to my Traka target, around 180–200 watts. You can see it clearly in my power file. Big early effort followed by a long, gradual fade as the day went on. Lesson to learn here!

Lap one came in around 4:32, finishing 13th overall and 5th in my age group. Solid result, but the real work was just starting.

Mentally, the hardest moment of the day was rolling back through the finish area, watching everyone celebrate being done, while I refilled and headed back out for round two. Starting a second lap at 2pm when it is heating up is character building.

The weather started cool and perfect, then turned properly hot by midday. Even the shaded sections were not much relief, just humid pockets with flies circling your face like you were a moving aid station.

Hydration became creative. I forgot bottles, so I was running just a hydration pack. After lap one, I was in the glamorous position of refilling water in a winery bathroom sink like a true professional athlete.

Heading back out, I knew the aid stations would be gone, so it was going to be a bit of a gamble. At one point I found an abandoned water bottle on a climb that had clearly been baking in the sun for hours. I picked it up as an emergency backup and eventually had to use it. It tasted like warm, slightly fermented electrolyte soup, but at that point it was either drink it or start negotiating with the flies for moisture.

Nutrition-wise, I learned again that timing matters. Bars early, gels later. Trying to chew solid food 5–6 hours in, in the heat, is a bad idea and led to a brief reassessment moment on the side of the road.

I also linked up with Morgan Hodges, who I'd met through the BaseCamp crew at Hincapie Merces 2025. She went on to win the women's race, which made a big difference. Always better to share some of the suffering.

For the second lap, I opted for a shortened version, effectively a Magnum plus a Piccolo, which brought the day to:

• 7:47 riding time

• 99.2 miles

• ~10,500 ft climbing

• 394 TSS

• 187 NP

The course itself is incredible. Seriously beautiful terrain, amazing gravel, and just a great place to ride a bike. Not too far from Solvang either, which makes it a perfect preview zone for future BaseCamp trips. Follow me on Strava for pics and videos!

Big takeaway is that pacing matters. If I ride Traka like I rode the first 90 minutes here, I will absolutely detonate. But as a training day, this was exactly the kind of stress test I needed.

Also, bring bottles.