My First Foray Into Gravel Riding

For several months I've been hearing about the Farmhouse Classic, which is a gravel race held north of KC by Joe at Cycle City.  I've always heard of huge gravel events like the Dirty Kanza (a 200 mile race), but I never gave much thought to actually trying riding in the loose stuff.  I decided the Farmhouse Classic would be an excellent opportunity to give it a shot in a very relaxed setting.  I rode the course last week with a couple Cycle City guys just to make sure I didn't hate it, and I was blissfully surprised.  I wanted to give myself a challenge, so I decided to ride the singlespeed for the ride that would end up being between 95-100 miles.  It was more fun than I could have ever imagined, but I was pretty cooked at the end.  The biggest hills of the ride were between miles 80 and 95, so that was pretty tough.  But otherwise it was fantastic and I'm now looking forward to the gravel race this weekend.  I'll also be giving some serious consideration to participating in the Dirty Kanza next year.  A lesson learned was that bringing excessive amounts of water/Gatorade/etc would be a good idea because I cut it pretty close at the end and had to nurse my last bottle.  Below is a picture I borrowed from Joe's Facebook page.  I'm on the left and apparently in the middle of taking a couple of drinks from the way I'm holding my bottle by the handlebar, and John (I think his last name is Mathias) is on the left.  He is a former master's gravel world champion.  More to come after this weekend's race...