{"id":242387,"date":"2025-11-04T01:18:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T01:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/242387\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T01:18:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T01:18:18","slug":"the-70-year-old-who-beat-75-of-the-gravel-burn-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/242387\/","title":{"rendered":"The 70-year-old who beat 75% of the Gravel Burn field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/paul-furbanks.jpg\" alt=\"The 70-year-old who beat 75% of the Gravel Burn field\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <a class=\"article__category\" href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/culture\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Culture<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__sub-title\">Paul Furbank redefines what it means to age gracefully on two wheels.<\/p>\n<p>                                <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Wade Wallace\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"author__photo lazy \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Wade-Wallace-1-150x150.jpg\" width=\"99\" height=\"99\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Wade Wallace<\/p>\n<p>In the remote gravel roads in South Africa&#8217;s Great Karoo, between Gwanishi and Shamwari during the inaugural Nedbank Gravel Burn, most competitors were simply trying to survive the brutal 112 km Stage 7 finale. Pros battled for podium positions while amateur riders fought to simply make it to the finish. But weaving his way through the field was a 70-year-old man who would post times and placings that left many wondering if there had been a mistake in the results.<\/p>\n<p>There was no mistake. Paul Furbank, who turned 70 this past February, didn&#8217;t just finish the inaugural Gravel Burn, he dominated his age category and posted stage times that would have placed him respectably in the professional men&#8217;s field. On several stages, he rode times that would have put him mid-pack among the pros. Over the week, his total time of 24 hours, 57 minutes, and 52 seconds put him <a href=\"https:\/\/gravel-burn.link\/leaderboard?ref=escapecollective.com\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">71st overall out of 317 men&#8217;s competitors<\/a> in all fields, and ahead of numerous riders decades younger, including myself. His time would&#8217;ve been good for fourth and 10th place overall, respectively, in the amateur men 19-34 and 35-39 fields. <\/p>\n<p>A late bloomer who never stopped blooming<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was born in Kenilworth, Warwickshire [England],\u201d Furbank told me, \u201cbut we came out to South Africa in 1966. My dad was an engineer on a skills-exchange thing. You came for three years, and you either went back or stayed on. A lot stayed on.\u201d He\u2019s been here ever since. \u201cYeah,\u201d he laughed, \u201cI support the Springboks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>            This post is for subscribers only<br \/>\n            <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" href=\"#\/portal\/signup\" style=\"color:#FF6F42\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\" href=\"#\/portal\/signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n<p class=\"reactions\" data-post-id=\"69078b482c5f8b9decd83905\">\n                    \ud83d\udc4dYep<br \/>\n                    \ud83d\udc4eNope\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"tags\">\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/culture\/\" title=\"Culture\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f2910d culture\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Culture<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/nedbank-gravel-burn\/\" title=\"Nedbank Gravel Burn\" class=\"tag tag-68df3b4070ea190314997b24 nedbank-gravel-burn\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nedbank Gravel Burn<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/gravel-racing\/\" title=\"gravel racing\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f29204 gravel-racing\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gravel racing<\/a>\n                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Culture Paul Furbank redefines what it means to age gracefully on two wheels. Wade Wallace In the remote&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-242387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}