"Today I Don't Feel My Legs" — Würtz Schmidt Cracks The Ten-Hour Barrier At The Traka 360 As Klöser Rides Away With A 90km Solo Women's Win
Friday afternoon Girona. Mads Würtz Schmidt has smashed the men's course record at The Traka 360 by more than ninety minutes, riding solo for the closing 100km of the 360km Catalan gravel ultra to break the ten-hour barrier in a winning time of 9:57:38 — almost two hours quicker than the previous course best of 11:37:30 set by Tobias Kongstad in 2025. In the women's race, Rosa Klöser delivered a 90km solo of her own to take a commanding victory in 11:27:57, twelve minutes and fifty-three seconds clear of Axelle Dubau-Prévot.
The Danish former WorldTour rider had spent the spring as the road domestique who quietly broke the record at Paris-Roubaix's longest cobbled sector. Friday's Traka 360 was Würtz Schmidt's first start as a full-time gravel rider after announcing his discipline switch in March. He attacked from a four-rider lead group with more than 100km still to ride, took the early gap on a Vía Verde climb out of the third feed station, and ground out a metronomic solo across the long, exposed central plateau of the course before the closing technical descent into Girona.
"Today I don't feel my legs," Würtz Schmidt told the post-race press scrum. "I went in feeling I had one effort. The plan was to attack on the third climb and either commit or come back. I committed. The hardest part was the central plateau — there was no shelter, the wind was a quartering crosswind for forty kilometres, and I knew the chase was probably ten minutes back. I just had to ride my pace and not look at the GPS." It was the largest single-day result of Würtz Schmidt's career and the first headline gravel win of his discipline switch.
The course record itself was the larger story. The previous Traka 360 best had been set in 2025 on a route that organisers shortened slightly for 2026 — but the ninety-minute improvement is far in excess of any course adjustment, and the gravel community spent Friday evening parsing the data on power, position and equipment that produced it. Würtz Schmidt averaged 36.2 km/h across a 360km parcours that included 5,200 metres of climbing. SILCA's race report on the Würtz Schmidt drivetrain confirmed a wax-treated chain at the start of the day with no mid-race re-wax — the kind of detail that will define gravel race preparation through the rest of the 2026 season.
In the women's race, Rosa Klöser forced an early selection on the opening climbs, eventually whittling the lead group down to herself and Axelle Dubau-Prévot of EF Education-Oatly Cannondale. The two riders rode together for almost three hours before Klöser attacked on a punchy gravel kicker with around 90km still to go. The German rider opened the gap immediately, found her own rhythm on the long central plateau, and crossed the line 12:53 ahead of Dubau-Prévot, with Petra Schreurs a further 5:36 back in third.
"This is the result I have been waiting for," Klöser said. "I have been close at the Traka before — I have always been the rider chasing in the closing fifty kilometres. To be the rider who attacks and commits and rides the last 90km on the front of the race is a different kind of confidence. I have not had that on a gravel course before." Klöser's win establishes her as the early outright favourite for the UCI Gravel World Championships in Italy in October, and shortens her price on the season-long Gravel Earth Series classification from 5/1 to 5/2.
The Traka 360 has become the discipline's premier ultra-distance test, a 360km, 24-hour-style endurance event run on a single Friday before the headline Traka 200 weekend. The 2026 edition's record-shattering pace tells a clear story about how quickly the equipment is improving: wider tyres, lower-rolling-resistance casings, deeper rims, more efficient drivetrain treatment, and a steady migration of road-trained athletes who can convert their three-week stage-race engines into ten-hour gravel efforts. Würtz Schmidt's 9:57:38 will not be the standard for long.
Saturday's Traka 200 follows the same Catalan gravel template at half the distance, and 250 starters will line up at first light to chase the year's biggest single-day prize purse on the Gravel Earth Series calendar. Pöstlberger, Lange, Stošek, Alleman and Schurter are all confirmed in the men's field; Gómez Villafañe defends her title in the women's race. The discipline that began as a niche American format has become the most rapidly professionalising race calendar in cycling — and Friday's Traka 360 was the latest evidence that the sport is producing performances that would not have been possible eighteen months ago.