I got to Lincoln on Friday afternoon to go to check-in, pick up the t-shirt and poster I always like to get, and just say hi to the Pirate Cycling League (PCL) folks. These are some of the coolest, most laid back people I have ever encountered and I am more than ecstatic that I'll live less than an hour away from future events they put on after we move to Omaha. Those will be hard to miss! The posters deserve a bit more detailing since I find them to be so cool. Each year, someone at the PCL (Craig Schmidt, maybe?) designs a poster for that year's Gravel Worlds. They are printed in very limited quantities, and they run out quickly since they are so awesome looking. I've got one from all three years I've been in the event, and below is a photo of two of them hanging in my office. The third is in a different area, but it is equally as cool.
After getting checked in I went and found a Qdoba so I could get a big burrito to provide some nourishment for the huge effort I knew the race was going to take. I don't want to trash on a town that I don't truly know that much about, but I didn't enjoy driving around Lincoln, NE very much. It was quite congested and hard to get around. I suspect it has something to do with students being back in town for the fall semester at the University of Nebraska, but it was less than convenient to put it nicely. I'll add that I don't tolerate traffic well, so it probably wouldn't have seemed as bad to a normal person. Nonetheless, I got my food and went to my hotel for a night of relaxing while watching the Olympics. Unfortunately, I was flying solo on this trip since Michelle had to stay back in Iowa City for work. Something about how it is super important to be available when you are on call for potential eye emergencies. I suppose that is a legit reason!
I was in bed a bit before 9:00PM, and the 4:00AM alarm seemed to go off about 5 minutes later. I probably could have slept a little bit more, but I like to get up and eat with plenty of time before the start. It also allows me to be lazy and slow rather than having to rush out the door. I proceeded to get everything ready and drove to the start/finish area. It was a cool, dark morning, and lights were absolutely required since not having them would have been pretty risky. There was a parking area right by the start/finish area, and I was the second car they had to turn around to go park in a lot about half a mile away since the other lot had just filled up. Not ideal, but no big deal since riding to the start would give me a warm up. I got to the start line relatively early to try to be near the front, and my punctuality meant I was waiting for what seemed like forever until 6:00AM arrived. It was pretty chilly, so that probably made it worse. About 10 minutes before the start I hear an announcement that whoever had the number 37 should go to the announcers area. I honestly didn't know what number I had, but I looked and sure enough it was 37. So I snake out of the starting area at the risk of losing my spot and go to see what was up. Evidently, I was actually supposed to be number 40, and they gave me the number of someone with the last name of Boyd. I assume we were right next to each other in the files at check in and the wrong one was grabbed. But I took my old number off, affixed the number 40 to my bike, and was able to get back to my starting spot. Crisis averted!
The start finally came at 6:00AM, and it was planned to be a neutral rollout for the first few miles. Technically speaking, I guess it was a neutral rollout, but it was a fast one! I hit the lap function when the rollout ended and we hit gravel, and it turned out to be a bit over 10 minutes at an average of 21.7 mph and a max speed of 33.3. I wasn't with the front group since that 3.5 miles of fast pavement meant I was spinning out on my SS while those people slowly pulled away, so I'm sure their average was a decent bit higher. It was near the end of this rollout that I encountered a SS dude that I knew I wanted to keep an eye on. So I jumped in with his group and the race was on! Rumor had it he was going to have teammates with him to try to help him win, and sure enough that was true. Two guys were there with what seemed like the sole purpose of working for him. I've only seen this with one other person/team in gravel racing thus far, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it certainly isn't against the rules, so I should get that out of the way. On the other hand, I think it goes a bit against the spirit of gravel racing from my perspective. I love how these are grueling, ultra-endurance events that require one to really push themselves and find boundaries, and the whole team thing takes away from that. I think maybe that should be reserved for road racing, but perhaps I'm too much of a gravel purist. But when I think about a race like Dirty Kanza, the front group typically consists of a bunch of dudes (without teammates) that just want to go out there and see what they can do. I'll just leave it with the thought that despite the clear benefits of bring a team to a gravel race, I don't plan on doing it anytime soon.
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| One instance where I was caught in front of the team directly behind me. |
The first 30 miles or so were quite fast, and the group I had joined actually caught up to the lead group at one point. I did my best to stay fast, yet contained, and I also did what I could to use the aforementioned team to my advantage. There were a few instances where I ended up in front of them as I followed other people just to see if they would stick, but my goal was to treat them as my own team to try to negate the benefit. We hit the first checkpoint, refueled, and continued on in that group. At that point it was myself, the team, the lead female, the lead fat bike guy, and a couple other guys on geared bikes. I should mention that the checkpoint crews at all checkpoints throughout the day were immensely helpful! They insisted on physically taking my bottles to fill them up and doing anything else to make my stops more convenient. In the heat of the moment I suspect people don't give them enough thanks or credit, but they sure deserve it. They spend their day volunteering to support a bunch of people they don't know, so hopefully they know how much they are appreciated!
We stuck together until around mile 50 I would guess, and then the team started toying with someone with little attacks. I was told they were toying with the female since one of the team member's wife was in the back and they didn't want to pull the female around, but I suspected they were seeing if I would stick. I did stick, and we actually dropped the female briefly. But then we got stuck at a road crossing, and waiting for the traffic to pass allowed her to bridge back on. We stayed together until the second checkpoint at around mile 75. I don't like to waste time at checkpoints, so I quickly refilled my bottles, chugged part of a soda they had available, and decided to press on. The rest of the group was taking a bit longer, but we had been going at what seemed like a slow pace for a while and I wanted to move! I also knew the team could bridge back up to me, and I suspected that would result in the lead female dropping off. I welcomed this since I wasn't exactly confident in her handling skills based on some of her maneuvers throughout the first half of the race.
The next 25 miles or so were into a pretty stiff NW headwind of about 20-30 mph. Normally I would think this would be terrible, but with the cool temperatures it was surprisingly tolerable. I was looking forward to turning back to the east and getting out of it, but I've experienced much worse. To my surprise the team wasn't bridging back on. I was trying to keep it steady, but I was definitely riding smart and trying to use my energy wisely. So they must have been doing the same. The end of the headwind was finally in sight as I rolled down a hill, so I took the opportunity to take a rolling "natural break". I hadn't been looking behind me for a while, and it was during this break that I encounter the SS guy from the team riding solo and going by me. I was happy to finally see him isolated after 100 miles, but he was clearly pretty fresh and ready to attack. As we turned east he dropped the hammer, and I made a tactical decision to try to go fast, but not burn too many matches to stick with him since we still had about 50 miles to go. I kept him in sight, but I wasn't willing to risk all my energy stores to keep it as close as maybe I should have, so he slowly built up a lead of what I would guess was 3-5 minutes. This persisted as we hit checkpoint 3 at about mile 123. At that point I wasn't too confident that I would bridge the gap, but I stuffed my face with some food and a Coke and pressed on.
There was a very muddy section at mile 125 for about a mile or so that I decided to ride since I was on a SS and trying to make up time. My bike got pretty dirty, but I made it through with only having to walk about 10 yards of it and I saw two riders just a few minutes ahead as I got out of it. I was quite confident one of them was the guy I was chasing, so I was happy to know I was pulling him in. This continued for the next 10-15 miles, and I slowly crept up on them to where I was just under a minute behind based on me counting how long it took me to get to certain checkpoints I saw them at. It was going to be a grueling finish to try to catch them, but I kept pushing it. I got to a point where I thought I might actually catch them at about mile 145, and then my left hamstring decided to lock up. I had been experiencing hints of cramps prior to that, but nothing bad. But the hamstring that felt like someone was jabbing a rock into it required me to stop and bend over to literally release it. I had to do this a couple of times before I was up and riding again. I'm torn on whether or not I would have caught the guys and raced for the win if the hamstring hadn't happened, and I honestly think I probably would have run out of time. I also think the lead SS guy put in a brief attack around the time my hamstring told me to stop, so that alone would have probably bought him enough time.
I rolled in exactly 4 minutes behind the SS winner at a little bit over 8 hours, 53 minutes. As far as I'm concerned, this is a really good time on a SS and it crushed the times I accomplished at any previous version of the race. So that was one area that made me quite happy. But, of course, losing the jersey after 3 years was disappointing. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't. But all credit goes to the winner. He put in a monster last 50 miles and made it happen. I do wonder how things would have panned out if the whole team aspect wasn't in play, but it was won fair and square and I don't want to take away from that. It's probably just something I'm going to have to accept as part of the game in the future whether I like it or not.
I chatted with some folks at the finish line, congratulated the winner on a well-executed ride, and then got the heck out of there. I would have loved to stay for the party, podium celebration, etc, but it was my birthday and I wanted to get home to hang out with Michelle. It was a long 4.5 hour drive, but I was home a little after 8:00 and ready to chill. A day of waking up at 4:00AM, riding a bike for 9 hours (including warmup) with over 7,000 feet of climbing, and then driving for 4.5 hours is a long one! But I would say it was worth it and I'm glad I got involved. I should take this chance to mention that the PCL guys who put on Gravel Worlds (and other events throughout the year) are top notch! This event has transitioned from a very grassroots feel 4 years ago (which I must say was still totally awesome) to a very well-organized and professionally executed event. The fact that I will live less than an hour away starting next year is quite exciting. I made sure to attend this race when I lived 3-5 hours away, so it will be hard to miss from now on!
In summary, at the very least my lack of wins this year takes off the pressure next year of making the right decision on which category to race. I didn't race SS and defend my win at Dirty Kanza this year, and I have kicked myself a few times as a result. I raced SS at Gravel Worlds partially because I didn't want to regret just giving up the jersey without a fight. I did lose the jersey, but I feel confident there was a fight and the winner was never able to get comfortable when we were both isolated in the last 50 miles. So next year I can race Dirty Kanza, Gravel Worlds, or whatever and choose gears or SS simply based on what I want to do. It's actually a pretty good feeling. Also, rereading what I have written in this post makes me put things in perspective. I may be disappointed about my result just because I am uber competitive, but other people have a totally different perspective that I think is awesome. The person that finishes in 16 hours with a smile who is just happy to participate puts things into a unique perspective, so it is important to remember that we are just riding bikes and having fun. But before I get too far ahead of myself, it is now time to recover and dive into cyclocross!
