My Ride, My Life: Gabriel Marcelli
Ten years ago, a 15-year-old Gabriel Marcelli faced one of the most challenging moments of his trial career when an unfortunate accident left him seriously injured. For a brief moment, he even questioned his path forward.
“I had a super, super big crash. I landed on my face and I broke pretty much every single bone on my face. I broke my teeth, nose, jaw, skull and vertebra. It was super, super hard to jump back on the bike and at that time I remember thinking, ‘I'm done, because this is too much for me.’ But after about one to two months, I then started to feel I was missing the bike. So I wanted to start riding again on my trial bike.”
Not able to get the world of two wheels out of his life for very long, the young Spaniard bounced back in spectacular fashion.
“I was only 15 years old and I wasn't earning any money. So for my father it was obviously a difficult moment. It's not like, for example, right now where I'm a professional, I know that's my future, I know this is what I want. After three or four months off the bike, I did a quick warm up on it and I didn’t feel too bad at all, to be honest. I went to race and I won. So that was a very, very, very sweet moment.”
Driven by sheer tenacity, Marcelli bounced back to claim the Trial2 World Championship and European Championship titles in 2019 and the handwork paid off in 2022 when he signed with Repsol Honda HRC, stepping into the rider role previously held by current team manager Takahisa Fujinami and where he also joined the legendary 36-time World Champion, Toni Bou.
“To have Toni Bou as a teammate is to have the best. Racing against Toni sometimes feels like racing against a wall. He's the best one and it's super, super hard to to beat him. Right now I really know how hard what he does is, the movements and everything. Now I know how impossible it is for another rider to do it. But it makes me push myself every time and everyday. So for me and probably for other riders, it's helpful because it makes you a better rider.”
Two wheels were instilled into the Galician from the age of four, so it was no surprise that one day he would be competing at World Champion level.
“My first memory of getting on two wheels, I think was around 2004 when I was riding around my house and in my garden in Galicia. I remember riding my first trial bike in 2009, five years after I started riding on motorbikes. I started riding motocross, then I moved to enduro and then I moved to trial. I remember my father putting some logs and also some rocks in the garden, very small ones though and I started riding there with my father as a minder.”
With third place championship finishes in 2023 in both X-Trial and Trial GP, then the runner up spot in the latter last year, the seasons can be quite intense for the riders as they travel around the globe competing with also many training hours on the bike. With races lasting as long as up to five hours, they not only need to be fit, but mentally prepared too.
“Mentally right now, I'm not doing any work, I just keep focusing on every race. It's not easy because I race three different championships throughout the year, the Spanish championship and the World Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Something which s a little bit distracting is travelling around between one race to another, sometimes we even have two races in the same week in different places. For example, a few weeks ago we had to race in France and then the next day we were racing in the UK, so that's quite stressful. Sometimes you don't race as much as you would like to, but really it’s the same for everyone.”
Away from the trials arena, Marcelli has a huge love of four wheels and nothing brings him as much passion when he’s talking about modifying cars and sim racing.
“To switch off from trial, what I like the most is working on cars. I love working on engines, on cars, preparing them and racing. I love playing games as well as I have a simulator although nowadays, I'm not using it as much. I learned driving cars hard on the simulator and then I moved it to real life.”
Naturally, his aim is to be the World Champion at the highest level of the sport and now signed up to Repsol Honda HRC until 2027, he has to beat the unconquerable Toni Bou. The effort he put in to turn his life around after his accident, shows a determined, focused sportsman that will one day, no doubt, stand on that top step.
“Trial for me, it's life. Everything around my life right now is around trial, so my friends and everything around me is focused on trial. So, I think to sum it up, it's life.”
