Lost and Found Gravel Grinder

First Installment

This 100 mile gravel race takes place in Sierra county, at Lake Davis. It’s the same day as Pescadero Road Race, which was one of my goal races for raod season. So all season I have been planning to go to Pescadero. Then I had two really good rides on my cross bike and Scott set up the tent in our front yard. These things are enough to make anyone do crazy stuff. I haven’t been living up to my expectations in road races lately (read: getting dropped), so I figured why the hell not?

I reg’d for the 100 miles and started prepping. First step was setting some goals. Last big race on the cx bike I flatted, a teammate helped me out, but I still lost a bunch of time. So first goal was no mechanicals. Next I looked at the times from last year. Johanna Dahl won my category with a time of 7:10, but most women were high 7 hours or into 8 hours. So I set my finishing time goal at 8 hours. I also secretly hoped to get on the podium.

It took me two weeks to get all my bike prep dialed. Washed, lubed, tightened, injected. With tubeless tires, you have to replace the Stan’s sealant every once in while. It’s kinda funny, you take a big syringe and inject it into the tire through the valve stem. Make sure to deflate the tire first or the removeable valve core will shoot up at you violently. Seriously, that thing could have taken out my eye. Learned my lesson there. I also switched my seat to a more 8 hour appropriate one, because the cross racing one was a little…ummm….uncomfortable. Anyway, bike dialed.

Saturday morning mass start. I was pretty nervous, and feeling anxious to get underway. Saw Olivia Dill on the line and chatted a bit, she would end up getting second in the Pro Women field. The field was huge at the start, and there was a bunch of position jockeying. This was sketchy on the dirt, dust was everywhere, it was hard to see and pinball sized rocks kept bouncing off of frames and bodies. Very different sound than a road peloton. I stayed toward the front as much as possible, but not quite enough, because at about 10 miles in, these was major slowing and, of course, a crash around a rocky mud puddle. The guy right in front of me went down, but I got around him, and saw that the guy in front of him had completely tacoed his wheel. He was going to have a long walk. We finally got to the first climb and the group thinned out.

I had trouble on the climbs all day. The gearing on my bike is tough, and the climbs were steep. I had gravel tires on and they slip when you stand to climb in loose dirt. Ended up grinding up the climbs and losing lots of time to ladies that had easier gears and would just go spinning by.

That’s all for now, stay tuned for the next installment!