Bottas is organizing a cycling race in Australia in January

Valtteri Bottas has extensive experience running triathlons in his native Finland, and last year he organized the FNLD GRVL cycling race there. But now the Finnish Alfa Romeo driver plans to expand the geography of such competitions and announced that he will hold the next race in the GRVL series in Australia.

It takes place from January 18 to 20 near Adelaide, mainly along the dirt roads of the McLaren Valley, one of Australia’s premier wine-growing regions.

Bottas and his girlfriend, Australian professional cyclist Tiffany Cromwell, are co-owners of the international GRVL series, and the upcoming competition is called RADL GRVL.

“Over the past few years, cycling around Adelaide in the McLaren Valley has been a great pleasure and a memory,” Bottas said on his social media pages. “And as soon as the opportunity arose to hold a cycling race in those parts, I immediately grabbed it.

Last June I held my first FNLD GRVL gravel bike race in Finland, around my hometown of Lahti, and now I’m excited that the same race will be held in South Australia, in Tiffany’s home country.

Are you ready for the next phase of the GRVL series? It’s being held in Adelaide from January 18 to 20! Three action-packed days and a 130 kilometer race through the McLaren Valley wine region await us, with prize money of 10,000 Australian dollars. Personally, I plan to buy a few bottles of local shiraz!”

The number of participants in the race is limited, there will be only 250 people and registration starts on October 25.

By the way, it was no coincidence that Valtteri mentioned the famous Australian shiraz: in September we told you that he presented his brand of such wine, called the Finnish word Ihana, which means “great, delicious.”

And he promoted the upcoming cycling race in a rather original way, releasing an entertaining video that starts with Valtteri calling Tiffany and complaining about a serious problem: supplies of Australian shiraz are running low. And when a friend promises to stop at a wine shop on the way from training, Bottas explains that this is not the case, because he wants real, ‘native’ shiraz from the south of Australia.

And then there’s the proposal to hold a cycling race in the McLaren Valley. By the way, the end of the video is also funny, we recommend you take a look – you won’t regret it.