Cameron Waugh of Ineos Grenadiers, who completed this weekend's Unbound Gravel event, argued that the creeping professionalization of cycling's youngest discipline means that an aggressive combination of road and gravel is not easy and will be tougher in the future.

The 38-year-old Australian rider finished 80th in the unbound gravel 200-mile race in the Flint Hills of Emporia, Kansas, nearly two hours behind winner Ivar Slik on a rain- and mud-soaked course.

Many former road pros have turned to gravel with great success, including Ian Boswell, Peter Stetina, and Lawrence ten Dam, but Wolff said that based on his experience, it would become increasingly difficult for top road racers to "just drop in" to gravel racing He argued that.

As gravel racing's popularity soars, the question of where the sport is headed and whether it will or should change its format and character has become a topic of regular debate. The more professionalized gravel racing becomes, the more it will resemble Ironman and triathlon.

Wolff has successfully merged road and Ironman, setting records in races such as Copenhagen, but says mixed events are not for everyone.

"You've seen (road) cyclists compete in Ironman and struggle. They don't last long because Ironman is so competitive. Ironman is very similar to this, it's a mass participation sport with an elite category and the athletes make a very good living. When money is involved, professionalism is high.

"So I've always said that the World Tour athletes will never be able to come here and dominate, because they're not going to be able to compete in the same way.

Ulf acknowledges that there are "strange geniuses," as he puts it, and gives examples of potential road racing successes, including Wout Van Aert (Jumbo Visma), Thomas Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), Mathieu Van Der Poel ( Alpecin Phoenix), among others, and stated that a crossover to gravel might be possible. However, they are able to do so because of their natural versatility, and not everyone in the peloton has such talent.

"Athletes who have incredible skills and know how to fix a flat tire, basically, those seem to be the two prerequisites. But if you're not there, you can come here and probably have the same experience that I did."

He also argued that if some elements of gravel racing are familiar to road racers, the prestige of riders competing from the World Tour will also spur them on to the potential challenge.

"World Tour racers would not want to be dive-bombed in gravel corners.

"If [gravel racing] was like a gran fondo, like the fun factor they're trying to promote, it might be a little different, but it's not.

"These [gravel] guys are very competitive, and if the European [road race] guys come, they have a big target on their backs.

As for the present, Wurf said he has also found it unfamiliar and difficult to adapt for European road racing pros because of the very different racing strategies employed in gravel. Again, the longer the two disciplines run side by side, and the longer the performance level in gravel continues to rise, the bigger the divide becomes.

Wurf said that he was "only about 80km ahead," but claimed that after unbound gravel, "I think I'm getting deeper. Probably a couple of years ago, if you accelerated early on, you would have broken off right away. Right now there are still 40-50 people out there."

He cited the early miles on Saturday, saying, "Hard sections, hard climbs, crosswinds, and after me and Keegan [Swenson] did a lot at the top, it really started to fall apart."

"But the race was so hard and it was a totally different dynamic than the World Tour. In cycling [road racing] it's like someone goes and someone else goes, but there are a lot of stop-starts"

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Even in gravel, as he points out, there is no team element, "it's not like you're waiting for a teammate who can go over you. However, that solo racing element is an integral part of gravel racing, which in turn leads to the "attack-stop-attack-stop" element.

"I remember thinking that for 20 or 30 kilometers it would be much easier on a road bike. Honestly, I would have said the same thing even if I had finished at the front," he concluded.

Where this divergence will take gravel and road, and their interaction, remains to be seen. In the short term, however, Wolff believes that "not everyone [at Lord's] is coming." But in his eyes, as gravels develop, the number of gravels, at least as an experimental combination, may diminish.