The Gravel Grovel

Well I signed up for some insanity on my cyclocross bike. A metric century through Indiana... the hilly part near Brown County.  The Gravel Grovel. It is 62 miles of gravel, abandoned dirt roads (if you can call some of that roads). I went with my friend Garry, he did it last year, he is responsible for this craziness.

As the time grew closer I knew I was going to be racing on my cyclocross bike. I had swapped tires around (went to the larger Ritchey Speedmax 700x42's) and a saddle change. When I first got the bike it just seemed to fight me every step of the way. It seemed nearly every ride I took it on I ended up with a flat. A week before the Gravel Grovel I managed to be out two separate times and ran out of tubes and CO2 cartridges fixing flats. I was starting to freak out. I started double checking everything on the bike. I took it for a quick 6 mile spin 2 days before we had to leave and no flats, checked the tires the next morning they both were holding air fine. So as a safety measure I packed the biggest saddle bag I could find... put everything I could think of it in (tire boots, 2 tubes, patch kit, 3 air carts, chain links and a length of chain, tools for everything, zip ties, duct tape, etc) - it was ridiculous. Then in my jersey pocket with food, my camera, and my phone - I packed 3 more tubes and 4 more air cartridges (I forgot to mention I put a pump on the bike too). I felt like I was going across the world went I left in the morning.

 

 

Next I hadn't realized how far away this was from my house. The race starts at 10AM on Saturday... well I was riding over with Garry who is in Springboro. It is right at 3 hours from his house.... add in the hour from my house to his... and you got to get there early... I had to be on the road at 4:30AM. Insane. So much for getting a good nights sleep.

We made it there on time - actually our timing on arriving was perfect. We walked in to pick up our numbers and goodie bags - there was no line. Actually I lie, we were behind 2 people. Sweet! We got our number, goodie bag, and map. Walked over picked up our event shirts... boom we still have an hour to relax and hang out before we leave.  We went in the general store and grabbed a cherry coke (I know this breaks my no soda rule - but I needed caffeine). Then back out and people watched.

 

Yeah the line to register is now getting huge, as we sat there it doubled over the view above. We did good. Oh yeah, look carefully, the Sram rep was there... sporting Zipp 202 and 303 wheels (pardon my drool), but he totally did me in. He had the New Sram XX1 mountain bike groupo there. I was asking questions about it fitting my Niner and he was like oh yeah, no sweat at all.. easy, peasy.  Oh and it just about falls on your bike out of the box, makes it crazy light and you will ride faster than ever before..... I want it. I don't need it, but for goodness sakes it is lighter and faster. Who wouldn't want that?

 

Some shots from the parking lot - looking both ways.

 

 

After a bit it was time to start. 10AM we lined up with all the other 62 mile racers.  We got our instructions via the megaphone and we took off.  We road for about 20 feet, then we all got bottle necked at the first bridge. Did the one foot boot scooting boogie across it and now we are off.

 

 

The first miles were not bad at all. Smooth paved roads with little gravel. All the bikers jockeyed for position as everyone was warming up.  Garry and I were mid pack at this point and working up. Up ahead you could see the paved road disappear into a gravelly climb. I saw quite a few people there stopped... working on their bikes or already pushing them. I quickly shifted to the small ring in the front, better safe than sorry.  We both made it up the hill  (Garry of course in front of me) but we passed quite a few people. Moving along it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.... so far it was either paved or very hard pack with some loose gravel. Up and down all the hills. Normally on a bike you can carry your speed down a hill to make the next climb easier. Not on this ride... the gravel totally steals any momentum. You work for every mile here.

 

Here is where the disappointment sets in... you think you are in good shape on the bike.... and 30 minutes into a 62 mile race you see the leaders ahead on the course (on a out an back section) and you realize that you are 2 miles behind. Two miles in 30 minutes... They are CRUSHING this ride.  To add insult to injury they were in a pace line hammering. It looked so cool!  I just told myself "Head down and keep pedaling".  The leaders are on the left side of the picture below.

 

 

 

There was so many different types of terrain on the race...

 

Paved Roads

 

 

Gravel Roads

 

 

Muddy Double Track

 

 

Single Track

 

After the last turn around we climbed on last major hill. It was mainly a dirt road that just climbed and climbed.  It was about 3/4 mile long and was steep. I remembered it from the ride down (I was thankful to have disc brakes).  Garry and I joked about the climb coming up to it - then we had the brilliant idea of clicking through our Garmin screens to see the % of climb. It was neat to watch the climb go from 2% to 4%, then jump straight to 8% and then 12%... but it kept going.... 16%.... 18% and finally stopping at 20%. I was like this must be a hump in the road. I looked back up and there was a ton more to climb and it looked all the same. I had never been on a hill that sustained that steep of a climb and just kept going.  Crazy... I was now thankful that Garry told me not to change the gearing on my bike. I loved having a 32 tooth big cog on the back (even though I secretly wished for a 36). Some of the climbs were just crazy. Here is a video of the climb.

 

 

So far the bike was doing good... no flats. I have seen tons of them. Lots of people on the side of the road fixing flats. I was trying not to look too much as I didn't want the God of Flats to smile upon my bike - it had already had it's fair share.  Other than about 10 miles of riding early with a stick that broke off and got wedged in my cassette preventing me from the bottom 3 gears the bike worked very well (and that stick did end up bouncing out, imagine that with all the gravel roads we were on).

 

As the end neared, the last 8 miles or so, the road were graced with a ton of fresh gravel. Yeah... nothing like trying to go fast, stay upright and climb a hill in 4 inches of fresh gravel. Let me tell you.. you do not go fast. You do not even think about standing to climb the hill on your bike. You look for any dirt showing on the down hills so you have a chance to slow down. I will say I did master the gravel surf feeling on the down hills by the end... feels like you are riding a squishy flat tire at 25 mph...lol... yeah at that point you want the race over one way or another..lol.

 

So I am less than a mile from the end on a old abandoned road (now looks like just single track from people walking on it) and I see a guy on a cross bike slowly catching me.  I came across a abandoned bridge (the kind with a barrier totally blocking it's path). I lifted my bike over casually and coasted the bike over the bridge. I hear the guy behind me panting like a freight train... he is really trying to catch me. I get to the other side and as I am setting my bike on the other side of that barrier he is right there... I made a joke about the bridges condition... he just did the quick yeah, yeah, yeah laugh and was all business. Crap. I didn't come this far to get skunked for one spot here at the end. I jumped on my bike and pushed. No matter how much I pushed I couldn't build any speed. The overgrowth on the road was so bad I couldn't look down to see my tire to see if if had started going flat... so I just kept pushing. I saw the road closure sign ahead and open road... just need to get there and see. I pass the sign and look down. Tires are fine.. what the? Gears shift check. Legs are just toast. No gas. Dang. Here comes that guy again. Maybe I can sit on his wheel and survive, to fight again. He would have none of that. I heard him shift behind me and he pounded past me. I looked up past him and I could see the finish. Double crap. I now pushed with all I had... my only chance was the big creek crossing at the end... it was big and wide maybe 40 feet across with only inches of water in it but you had to ride through maybe a 10 foot stretch of water to cross it, the rest was mud and rocks.  I figure if I can get close enough I will just blast the crossing and hope for the best. I watched him carefully. He approached the crossing looking all around, was there a problem I didn't see? He must have gotten confused (or didn't want to do the creek crossing) as he tried to go the wrong way (the correct way was clearly taped on both sides for easy navigation) and he slowed and then entered the creek crossing. I lost sight of him for a second, maybe the crossing was too rough for a cross bike and I would just have to hike-a-bike it as fast as I can. I get there and it smoothly rolls into the creek.... I am still moving fast. I see the guy ahead trying to ride up the creek instead of the other side... again he is going off course. This is my shot. I pedal with all my might and I look like I will get him. Then he cuts back in on me on the climb up the other side. I change my line to the most right (which is definitely not the preferred route) and he unclips to walk to block the smoother left path. Luckily before I entered the crossing I went to the small ring in the front so I had enough power to climb the other side.. it was just going to be a balancing act with wet, muddy cross tires on my bike and the wet creek side. I made it. Passed the dude and road to the finish.

 

That felt good but now my body, knowing it was done, was letting me know that it did not appreciate the 5 hours of pounding it just took. Aches and stiffness were attacking my body like no one's business. Garry and I rolled over to the car, dropped the bikes off and a lady asked if we were staying for awards and door prizes. I asked when are they doing it. She said 3:30 - it was just after 3PM now - so we decided yeah no brainer. By the time we changed, ate dinner the awards would be moving along nicely. She handed us some beaded necklaces and told us to keep them for the raffle. So we quickly got all the muddy stuff off - changed and got cleaned up. Reloaded the car, and headed back in to get our Yat's catered meal. Cajun food.... and it was good. They even had pie for dessert.  Funny thing was there were no drinks. When I looked around it seemed that everyone knew it and they all had their own micro brews. Beer bottles everywhere.  Garry went back in to the general store and grabbed me another cherry coke. We brought no beer, and my water bottles were disgusting now. 

 

 

 

We ate and it passed 3:30 with no awards. We looked around and it always seemed there was the promise that they would start in just a few minutes. 4PM passed. 4:30PM passed, we couldn't leave now, we were to invested in the time. Yeah I had a 4 hour ride home, but last year one of the door prizes was a set of Zipp 303's. Around 5PM the show finally got going. First the beaded necklaces - they gave out 3 colors red, orange and black. If you had red, enjoy your necklace (Sorry Garry). If you had Orange (which I did) you won a free helmet. 4 of us were up there and the first guy was trying them all on blocking anyone from taking one until he finished picking. Really - we all had the same orange necklace he just beat everyone up there. I announced from the back I would take the black and white one. The guy behind him grabbed it and handed it back to me. I thanked him and looked back up to see the front guy panicked and just picking the one he had.... really. The helmets were all the same size and he was buying time as his friend was looking at them from his seat trying to tell him which one to get because it was the most expensive.  Dude - it is a free helmet. Pick one and move on. They weren't made of gold.  The one guy who got black beads got a set of Avid XO Hydro Disc brakes. Pretty cool! Next were the awards. Some of these guys were FAST! My official time was 4:57 (yes 4 hours and 57 minutes). The overall winner was 3:35 (with second place only 2 seconds behind him). That is crazy fast! 

 

With 182 racers registered for the 62 mile race - I came in 84th over all (Garry was 80th - would have totally been way better if he hadn't waited on me so much). Of the 182 racers only 155 finished the race, the rest were DNF's. In my Masters class - there was 85 racers I was 41st (Garry was 39th).  Not too bad for my first adventure into a race like this....

 

 

 

Three days later my legs are back to normal. I sit here with a scrape on my right knee, and my right ankle is still very sore (I popped out of my pedal in a muddy section doing my best cross dismount and the bike bounced funny and the pedal whacked me above my heel in the Achilles. It is sore in the morning (I look like Frankenstein walking) but after I am up moving around a bit it loosens up. Every day it is getting better so I'm sure it is just a bruise getting better.

 

I think I have said enough and rambled a bit to much here and there but that is all I got about this....

 

Fred out.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Stealing some November Sunshine

So last Friday Jenna (my daughter) decided to try lunch bunch after preschool. So now dropping her off I would have 4-1/2 hours (vs. 2-1/2) to get things done. The weather, which has been getting warm for November, was cooperating and the high of 50 was at noon. I decided to head out on the bike and rack up some miles.

I drove to Beatty Town bike path and started there. In my first 5 miles I had spotted 7 deer, maybe I should say they spotted me and scurried away. The sun was shining, it was going to be a great day. I really wanted to get in 80 miles but I started about 20 minutes later than I wanted and it was going to be close. So I start scooting down the path, paying attention not to go below 20mph... with all the crossings and slowing starting for the intersections I had to cross, at 30 minutes in I'm over 10 miles in... keeping the pace at one hour I was at over 21 miles (which means I was over 21 miles an hour), so I was back on track to hit the 80 miles I wanted.

As I was riding through Xenia and winding through the intersections I started to realize this could be one of the last outdoor rides of the year. Did I want to spending it head down, pounding away... or sit up and start counting the deer again. I chose the later. Sometimes speed isn't what you need.... you just need the sun on your face and the smile of each mile clicking by.... 

So now settling in I ventured farther than I had been before on the bike path. I saw the Beaver at the Beavercreek bike path station, the back side of areas I had only seen by car whizzing by at 35-40mph. I road next to Route 35, the north up the back side of Harshman... getting a little freaked out I ended up turning around. I was in the same neighborhood that my Mustang had it been gutted when they stole the stereo many years ago. If something happened now there was so many miles to get back home... it would be a LONG walk.

So on the way home I started seeing more and more bikers, runners and walkers. Each had that it's great to be outside smile on.... I wasn't the only one enjoying the weather. It's days like this you have to take advantage because you don't know when the next one would be... I ended up with 53 miles that day, but the sun therapy was worth that ten fold.

As it turns out Sunday worked out the same way... nice and warm - mid 50's by 1PM. Time for a ride. A small group met at the bike path on Villa road and we headed out for a ride. We went from Urbana to Catawba and back to Springfield... hitting tons of hills along the way. 1300 feet of climbing in 40 miles. Very nice. I have a great team, each person is a blast to ride with... one of the newest members this year is my wife Carisa. I cannot believe how well she is doing. I think her running shoes hate me. Ever since I reintroduced her to the bike, she has not had the same love for running she once did... sorry shoes! 

Carisa had ridden mountain bikes with me back in the day... then 11 years ago Freddy came along. Carisa got more focused on work (to take care of the family) and riding just seemed to stop. Life moved on. I kept riding but Carisa ended up moving to the treadmill to get some cardio. I think that is where is all started for her. Slowly, each year becoming more and more. Then just last year Freddy and I had been riding the tandem and pulling Jenna in the trailer, Carisa was on her hybrid path bike. She decided that maybe she would like to get back into it. Luckily for me one of my good friends from back in the mountain biking world had a road bike he was no longer going to use as it just wasn't for him and next thing you know Carisa had become a road biker in March of this year.

Riding with her has been a blast. She kills me with her drive and her desire to get better. Let me describe a situation that has happened more than once this year.  We are out on a planned ride, and 3/4 of the way through she looks at me and says lets go farther.... I look at the water bottles and snack supply and try to figure out how to make it happen. She's crazy like that. I think the most memorable one was in June when we headed out on a Young's Charity Training ride. It was supposed to be 60 miles.... that day she added enough to make it a Century (100 miles). When she decided to make it longer we hit the last rest stop in Xenia (42 mile mark) and loaded up on water and snacks. I had miscalculated the mileage we needed so when we got back to the car we had 92 miles..... I told Carisa head back out on the bike and I would pick her up with the car when she hit 100.  I gave her all the water I had left and she took off. I drove ahead of her to pick her up and she road past me like a Champ. She needed another 3/4 mile. She looped around and came back with 100 miles. I was amazed. She did this only months after starting to ride. She is stronger than she will ever know... she has the drive. I was so proud of her.  Thanks for being a great motivator and my riding buddy, I can't wait until next year!

That is all I have for now.... Thanks for reading my rambling..

Colavita, Crankenstein and a Indoor Time Trial

It has been a month since my last post... I had totally intended to do this sooner... but it never happened.

Let's see since my last post was the last Colavita Time Trial, the Crankenstein race and my first indoor time trial.

I have to say the Colavita Time Trial series was great this year. I did more races than last year but still would have liked to do more. They do take a time commitment to get there and with kids and working around the Church and Sunday School thing it is tough. That being said, I think they are by far one of the best race series around. The bang for the buck is great, the friendliness of everyone (participants and workers- great family environment), great courses, etc. If you have never done one of these before, consider it. They are low pressure and if it is your first that is a great thing! I would like to Thank and Congratulate Roger, Christina and their whole team, you do a great job and your hard work does show in the races! Next year I promise to do more races!

Next up was the Crankenstein Time Trial by Speedyfeet. I had heard about this in years past but never got a team together to do it. This year was different. Champion City Cycling had a total of 3 teams going, and I was on one. If you don't know what the Crankenstein race is..... it is a 3 person timetrial for 99 miles.  Each team member goes out and does 22 miles individually then all 3 people go out together to complete the last 33 miles together. So rider 1 goes off then when done rider 2 goes off... then when done rider 3 goes off. Then when the 3rd person is done they all go out together to do the last 33 mile leg. So the 3rd person essentially does 55 miles all together with no break. They also have individual classes too.... either a 22 miler solo or the 99 mile solo (insane)!  It was a great time! The weather turned out absolutely perfect for it.  I would recommend this again! Thanks Jeff for the race!

 

 

 

 

 

I did my first Indoor time trial of the year this weekend. Yes you know just the other day when it was still very nice outside....ha! Anyways... I got down to Club51 and brought my bike and trainer and warmed up for about 20 minutes and then it was my turn to race. I did the 6.2 mile bike course in 16:52 - a new PR (beat my previous best time by about 40 seconds, increased my average wattage by almost 30watts too).  And originally Carisa had planned on going and trying this too but she got sick and wasn't able to make it so I raced in her place in the next race. Doing it again I finished just 10 seconds slower than before.... not too bad. But did that mean I had more left I should have been using in the first race? I need to drop more time... I hope to break out of the 16 minute range this season... that is my goal.  Thanks to Paul R, and to Team Dayton for putting this on! It is also very family friendly and talking with people there, they do not care what team you are on... just that you are coming out and having fun! Thanks for the great atmosphere and event!

That's all I have for now - I will try not to make my blogs so far apart next time (didn't I say that before)...lol

Fred out