Been a while since I did one of these, so imma be a little rusty
The first gravel thing on the calendar was Saturday, The Uwharrie Gravel Grinder. The area is pretty awesome, I've had a huge triple B for it since we moved here. They have some offroad trails here and it used to go up this gnarly jeep climb, but they took it out... which is kinda lame. It was super steep and rugged AF, if you
wanna see a video of it check it.
Anyway, this used to be in April, but they moved it a month earlier because Uwharrie is an oven in the summer, it just gets hot and cooks you. Not sure why, some geological people can tell me I guess. Thankfully its 50 at the start and I'm really to go after a quick warm up. It rained Thursday so I was hoping it would cut down on the dust, but it was still cloudy in the mix.
The race is 55 miles, 5500 feet of climbing. Sadly it isn't all unique and you need to do 2 laps of this course. Which has 3 out and backs, which is kind of lame, but from a racing standpoint is kind of cool, you can always see where you are, for better or worse. We got word that the first out and back is the most bombed out, which was kind of concerning. Hungry people wanting to drill it in a gravel race is already sketchy, but now the terrain is even more sketch? Oh boy.
The race rolls out and it's fast, always fast. 20mph always seems like a threshold speed of "fast" and we are doing that before we get out of the road we parked on. 5 minutes in, I already see bottles ejecting, tires exploding and parts falling off bikes. Just a reminder that no matter how short the ride is, I'm wearing a hydration pack. One of the stronger dudes lost a bottle, someone gave him another, and then 2 minutes later he pops another out of his cages. Oof.
About 10-15 minutes in and I'm happy my bike is still together, but not ready to take the risks some of these dudes are in the group on the descents. Chalk it up to bad handling or not riding my gravel bike enough on descents, but I'm not in it. I notice I'm not going to be able to hold this pace for around 3 hours and decide to fall back and focus on my own pace. I hate doing this but seeing my HR up so high and knowing how punchy the terrain is, and how unhelpful the draft is uphill, and the gaps you have to leave downhill to not crash into the person in front of you, It seems to be the right call. I've done a longer version of this and know that eventually, those people start dying.
The second and third out and backs are a lot smoother and with a small group of 3-4, we can see better. We keep the pace high "for me" and just do our own thing. One guy drops a chain and something else falls off his bike, so one down. I eventually make friends with a 40+ guy and we just agree to be smooth and keep our bikes together. This is pretty uneventful as we roll around for almost 2 hours at 253 NP and I'm hoping its enough to bring me home.
Around mile 43, ~2.5hr in, I crack, I cant hold the wheel of my friend and drift off of it and watch him fade into the dust. I haven't been keeping track of the people coming the other way, and people are chasing me down, I think it was 2-3 humans. I want to do more but I'm pretty tapped out and endurance pace will have to do. Arms are pretty smoked (I need to do more push ups) and I'm in total "jesus take the wheel" on the descents. Interestingly enough 2.5 hours in was when I ran out of my drink mix in my pack, maybe it was a mental thing?
I get passed by the dude who dropped his chain and something else off his bike and he apparently broke something else, as he has to stand up over some of these climbs and cant shift. Bummer.
We dump out onto a road climb and I'm hoping I don't see anyone else, but sadly, there is someone coming up on my tail. Not quickly, but quicker than I am moving. I take a 30 second break from pedaling and hoping he can at least tow me home. I jump on his wheel and he just continues to do his own thing, maybe this is going to work? After about a minute I realize it is not and I let him go. Womp womp.
I roll in solo in 3:01, good enough to win my age group (not extremely competitive) and something like 12-13 overall. The winners were 2:41.
I'm pretty okay with this one, First event and first real intensity over this distance. I also need to realize I'm not an open event contender, I'm an age grouper lifer. Sure I would have loved to not give up those 3 spots at the end, but it's something that I hope I can get tuned up in the next coming months. Sorry no photos, I know I will have some later this week.
Since you read this far, I will leave leave you with this:
EDIT: Oh and I was debating on if a 46t, 10-51 was going to be too much front ring for this. Thanks to AXS, I can say, it was not. One of the guys I was with was 2x and seeing that FD get a damn workout made me rethink that keeping 1x is the way to go.