The road is gone, the road is another. The road is now more tortuous, dirt, dirt for 40 wheels, for gravel bikes, gravel bikes. Daniel Oss after fourteen seasons as a professional, after five call-ups to the Italian national team, after a lifetime of riding in top teams such as BMC, Bora, Total Energies, after two world titles in the team time trial in Ponferrada in 2014 and in Richmond in 2015 and after a lifetime alongside Peter Sagan launches into a new challenge. With Vincenzo Nibali, Alessandro Ballan, Marco Aurelio Fontana and other athletes from the Garmin team, a few weeks ago he was at the start of the eighth edition of Nova Eroica Buonconvento, on those Strade Bianche that Eroica has rediscovered and which have then become a sixth monument. “There is competition but there is also a more relaxed atmosphere – says the 37-year-old champion from Pergine Valsugana – For me it is a new life in a new world, in great expansion, both in terms of the actual races but also in terms of adventure and participation in these events. I do not experience it as the end of my career but as a new opportunity … “. The spark is not from these days. Oss in 2022 has already won silver in the gravel world championship and this year he is aiming to be called up by the ct Daniel Pontoni for a blue jersey to wear in the world championship that will be held in Flanders in October. Alongside him are top-level sponsors such as Specialized, Garmin and Sportful but above all the desire to compete in a discipline that is also capturing the attention of many of the big names on the road Vout Van Aert to Matej Morijcfrom Alexander Valverde to Niki Terpstra, to ours Simone Velasco And Alexander De Marchi. “Compared to the road, there are many differences– explains Oss – Not so much in terms of training or fatigue, which are more or less similar. What changes is the management of the race. In gravel competitions, you could say that everyone does it for themselves, there is no team behind you, the strategies change, there is less tactics, and the management of mechanical problems and punctures is also different. Then other factors come into play that concern the technique of riding the bike, reading the maps in endurance races, nutrition that must be managed independently because there are no team cars following you. A few months ago Oss took part in the Trakaa 360-kilometer challenge among the most epic of this new gravel discipline and next week the Italian championships in Oltrepò are in sight. Today, however, it’s Buonconvento’s turn: “What’s striking here is that there’s a nice climate of conviviality – he says – You can see that people are happy and want to pedal for fun. It’s equally hard work but in the end it’s also nice to meet up all together to enjoy a beer…”. The road, the stages, the retreats are behind him and he won’t miss them. In front of us now is a new cycling that has great prospects from a competitive point of view but also from an amateur and commercial one and that is very eager to see at the start also the champions who have left a mark on the road. A world that is growing quickly and that here in Buonconvento from one year to the next has tripled the number of participants at the start, from all over the world, including 32 Americans: “What growth potential can gravel races have in the next few years from one to ten? So, without thinking too much, I’d say eleven…”