I thought last year was a good year, and this year got even better.
I won several races, more races than I won last year. I could also be disappointed, last year I won the UCI Gravel World Cup Series overall and this year I was runner-up. I also didn’t rank highly in any of my ‘target races’ (Traka, Unbound, Worlds offered some hope).
But it was a combination of nice results, learnings, the things I did and the people I did it with, that made 2026 even better than the last.
Let’s look at my racing. After all we cannot ignore it as the most significant part of my year.
I started the season off super well, and this gave me a lot of confidence everything was working in the right direction. I took the Oceania title at my home race, RDL GRVL shortly after racing my Australian Road National titles. After that I went on to take 3 UCI gravel World Cup races in a row and continue progressing towards my big goals of the season; Traka and Unbound.
Unfortunately, neither race went how I had hoped and in the moment I was extremely disheartened. But I also learnt from them and that’s the most important. Traka I learnt my limit and tolerance around pre race ‘noise.’ Being mindful where I place my energy, focus and what is important to perform. I didn’t cope with all the noise well, and that hurt me on the day. I didn’t cope.
Unbound, I learnt for the second year I have what it takes to race at the front, unfortunately also for the second year I experienced a crash. That hurt me more physically, and I know I will be back fighting next year. I had taken my learnings from Traka and I came into this race with a strong mindset. I will tackle this race yet again.
The rest of the season went by, and I was happy to take some additional wins, some performances I was less content with, but again learnt from, and headed into World Championships.
World Championships - my home country, Australia, and my biggest goal of the season. It would just so happen that following my birthday in late August, I would come down with Influenza and be bed ridden for a week, no bike, miss Europeans and watch my top end fall off a cliff.
It wasn’t what I hoped for, and I felt like I was chasing form in my final weeks prep when I shouldn't have been. But those were the cards I had been dealt, I could only control the controllables and I tried not to loose focus on the bigger picture.
Unfortunately influenza is somewhat unforgiving, and I was shaking off many small bugs over the following weeks which would continue to interrupt my training.
I wasn’t not focused, but I felt like my last big goal of the season was slipping through my fingers.
It wasn’t that to me the only way I was having satisfaction from World Championships was to come away with rainbows. No, that’s the ultimate dream, but everything has to come together for that to happen, for anyone competing for them.
No for me, I just wanted to feel like I could finish the race, knowing that I had executed my plan, to the best of my ability, left everything out there, and from that the result would be what it would be, that I crossed the finish and thought ‘yes, I gave it everything’.
Sometimes you don’t want to sound like you complain on your season, it’s not that have also been unsatisfied with my season, that I cannot say. Many riders would love to have so many wins on the board. It was simply for me, I was looking for a ‘bigger’ result, which I felt like I am capable of, I just needed a few more ducks to line up.
So I called my Factor Racing Team sponsor, David Miller, to talk about how I was feeling leading up to the race. As an ex-racer, and as my head sponsor, he would know how I was feeling, he knew how my racing had been, and what I was looking for. He reassured me that I had done everything that I could, I had been thrown some rotten timed luck at points of the season for my big goals, and I had also learnt from the parts where I made my own bad luck. For this weekends championships, I would either be ‘flying or dying’ as he put it, and I wouldn’t know until I started.
Luckily for me, I choose flying.
It wasn’t that I got a podium, but I was fighting for it for 100kms. And I fought for it. You know when sometimes you can finish a race and think ‘maybe if I just pushed a bit harder I wasn’t dropped there, could have got to the wheel…’ etc. I didn’t finish the race thinking that. I finished that knowing I gave it everything I had on the day, and then some.
It was one of the nicest feelings to finish a race like that, even if it wasn’t the ‘best’ number I had out on the board all year.
And that’s the cool thing about sport. You can’t always be good, sometimes you have bad luck, and sometimes you can make your own good, your year doesn’t need to be determined by one result, but a collection of takeaways that you can carry to the next race, period or year to make it even better. Whatever you determine better to be.
My first privateer year
This has been my first full year as a privateer. And I loved it. I feel like it needs a dedicated write up on privateering as it is, how to manage it and what is involved, so let me know if you made it this far and it interests you.
But on my year.
I have my major partners; Factor, Campagnolo, FFWD, Rapha, Continental, 226ERS (you can view all my partners here) and each and every one of my partners, big or small, plays a part in helping me get to the start line of all my races.
I feel like privateer life is a bit made for me. I love to have a bit of a management over my moving parts. I like to plan out a bit of my schedule, consider my travel and what works well, budgeting, social media but I also love to have a personal relationship with my partners.
I like to feel like we are working to a shared goal, equal passion and excitement and make positive steps forward.
Having come from a ‘road team’ setup, were we have no contact with the brands. Whether that’s to communicate how things are going physically, or what we need more from each other to enhance value. This is a major relationship change when it comes to privateering where I have many of my partners on WhatsApp.
So it is safe to say I feel happy with the change into this stucture, and I will be keeping most of my partners for 2027.
After World Championships
I am not going to lie, I need a rest. After a season that started in the first week of January it’s time for a well earnt rest, rest and recharge before we start to training again for a bigger and better 2027.
With World Championships in Australia, it is the perfect time to visit Australia, see some areas I haven’t seen before on the West Coast, and show Daan my home as well.
We plan bike packing, travel round Western Australia, Melbourne and finally Tasmania (my home) and I will share where we end up, especially riding routes.
