If you like gravel put this one on your short list. This is a wildly growing event with very good leadership. This was the biggest group of heavy hitters I have ever ridden with. Truly a legit world championship. Sure DK is a bit more competitive and deeper, but I do not believe Eric Marcotte rode DK
Resumes short list:
Multime USA road and crit champs
USA pro TT champ
World TT masters champ
Brazil road National Champ
USA collegiate road champ (race winner and local)
2 time DK champ
What a day. I spent the first 3 hours off the front with the kid from Brazil. 22+ average on gravel and we got caught. The attacks started. 1000 watts in a 7 hour race sucked. I thought we got bluff attacked off but I chased for another 3 hours to the finish and caught nobody. Modesty aside for me to tt 3 hours (on probably the fastest setup in the group) and catch nobody is crazy. What a group. What a mind bending experience. My teammate Thomas and I are professionals in Construction and Financial advising. We were star struck. I probably won’t try to ride away from them next time… :).
Try this one out guys and gals. Relentless big rollers. All day long. Absolutely suits me…or so I thought
I was there too, a bit further back lol. It was my first gravel event ever and it kicked my butt! 425tss nearly 5600kj. I wanted to have an overall IF of 0.75 for the event, and I did that for the first 4hrs and was on pace for what I thought would be my 8.5hr goal, but after that my legs just weren’t producing power so I had 0.65 IF for the event. It may have been a combo of things, nutrition included (I was regularly drinking SIS beta fuel from my 3L camelback with an occasional gel), but my lower back was screaming at me for a while and making it uncomfortable to keep my usual power. But I got the patch and it was the longest ride of my life, and I’ve only done 3 centuries previously. Would love to do again and get a more consistent output. My in-laws live right at the edge of town but I’ve never had my bike here to ride the gravel roads, I’ve had fun riding them these past few days, hopefully if I can stand to look at my bike I can get in a few more rides before we leave later this week. If my motivation comes back I hope to do the 75mile version
Awesome work. We have a lot of experience with nutrition and setups so fortunately all went well there. I was .80 after 3 hours…ouch but never really cracked. 3500 calories consumed. 15 ounces of pure maple syrup
I was 0.8 for the first couple of hours and felt pretty good, never felt like I was digging too deep, as I was very consciously trying not to get with with any of the leading groups for that reason. I think carrying a 3L camelback might have been overkill, I didn’t see many others with that size, I should have done some more trial runs with it full to get used to that weight. It’s tough to try and reconcile a feeling of accomplishment with not meeting one’s own potential! Would have loved to have spent nearly 2 fewer hours baking in the Nebraska sun!
We have ridden with the Chase Camelbak and won’t use it in warm events as it definitely elevates core temps. We get a bit creative. The Chase is only used for MTB when options get real limited for bottle placement
