Gravel national champs

Gravel racing is f***ing addictive, I can see what all the hype is about now and why everyone seems to be going on about it all the time.

Currently I am sat in my pop up tent writing this blog in a field, listening to the sound of rain gently trickling down the outer shell whilst the sound of heavy metal bouncing through the trees from tonight’s live music and every muscle in my body seems to ache from the physical exertions of todays race.

Photo by Riding bikes drinking beer

The gravel national champs is a pretty big deal, there is a white jersey with red and blue bands up for grabs but honestly the event and whole race atmosphere couldn’t have felt more laid back, the local Yorkshire league feels more serious than this. That was a good thing for me, unfortunately my preparations in the week leading up to the race hadn’t been brilliant, looking back at it now I was probably slightly under the weather and explains why my 200 watt average ‘easy ride’ felt like such a slog but hey ho nothing a goodnights sleep on a semi inflated air bed in a small pop up tent couldn’t fix and so I was thrilled to wake up and be treated to a thick cloud of mist lingering in the air across the event village. Mind you this was at 6:30 AM so I wasn’t too stressed about things with my race not starting till a solid 6 hours later.

A leisurely morning followed, a morning coffee from the new Rawvelo x Mission coffee collaboration hit the spot and got the morning off to a flyer and after a catch up with the guys at Spatz it was on my way to cook up a treat. Fine dining doesn’t get much better than banana bread oats fried in a frying pan over a little camp stove, cozying up as close as possible in my dry robe to catch as much as the heat from the flames as possible. That porridge hit the spot and with some cocoa powder mixed through it was just what I needed before I went off to watch the women’s race.

With no real opportunity to recce the course and with pretty much everyone telling me “Don’t worry its not that technical” I wasn’t too stressed and from what I had seen I was just expecting lots of open, fast rolling gravel fire tracks. Oh I was pretty wrong, from sandpits to small little craters scattered out on the course it was reassuring to hear the commissaire worn us off horses and sheep out on the course. Thinking he was pulling our leg I didn’t think too much of it but when a horse ran through the middle of my group on one of the laps straight out of the bushes I knew he wasn’t joking, also no one warned me off all the sticks strayed out around the course and I felt sorry for the guy whose wheel one of those branches decided to sabotage and resulting him coming to a pretty abrupt stop.

Photo by Riding bikes drinking beer

I think the start is the best place to begin, from 100 plus wide to around 5 riders wide 150 meters later is not something you usually experience in a cross race and so for the course to enter an even narrower section that required you to single out only a few hundred meters later I was glad I had the skill of a fairly good cross start in my locker. The call of 1 minute to go followed by the whistle being blown approximately 7 seconds later tested everyone’s reactions skills and clipping in first time I got myself off to a corker of a start and ended up entering the single track section 4th or 5th wheel. All I had to do was hold my own, that’s fine I thought as we came up onto the first fire track of the day and riders bombarded me from pretty much every direction possible.

Game on, not knowing the course I wanted to be there in the first few wheels to see what was coming ahead and stay out of trouble of the washing machine of different riders behind and I did a pretty good job of doing that. Since it was apparently not a technical course according to pretty much everyone who had ridden around the day before I think it became slightly more tricky when you zooming around at between 35 and 50 kilometers per hour but after surfing the wheels and keeping my head up I soon had the lines dialed in.

The possibility of bonking I think is one of the scariest thought to a cyclist, that emptiness and bucket load of emotions you experience during an episode of a bonk is an experience that could easily put you riding your bike ever again and so preparing to avoid this scary thought is pretty vital. When riding on or close to your limit eating and nutrition becomes tricky, normally who wouldn’t say no to a jam sandwich on a club run but I wasn’t sure this was really the time or place to be bringing out the picnic snacks so instead I opted for some carbohydrate mixes in my bottles, a number of gels (some with caffeine for that extra kick) and some jelly cubes bringing my carbohydrate intake up to around 100 grams an hour. Little and often as you so often hear but so true and little sips from my bottle meant I was going through a bottle a lap roughly so thanks to Dad for being there in the pits!

The first lap flew by, from the 150 plus riders on that start line only around 30 or so were still in the front group, a nice reasonably sized group for me to surf the wheels of and keep out of the wind, however slightly too big for there to be any good sort of cohesion and instead of a fluid rotation system of riders coming through and off there just ended up being endless lulls and surges, the kind that really take their toll on your legs. I was feeling pretty good still, even after a few days of feeling slightly under the weather the intensity was okay and I was hanging in there even as the proper attacks started to come.

Photo by Riding bikes drinking beer

One thing I didn’t really think about was the lack of control a cyclocross or road course gives you, in a way such that you are restricted to the boundaries of the tape on either side of you in a cross race or the tarmac in a road race. In gravel racing there is none of that, except for some signs to show you the way at every turning. In some places this enabled the bunch to spread a solid 30 meters wide with about 10 or 12 different ruts to choose from through the sand pits and even as you approached some of the corners it was pretty easy to start taking the corner 50 meters before the apex. On lap two this width caused chaos in our group, people attacking into every corner and along every rut meant picking the right wheel or line was crucial and I guess you just had to hope you were lucky.

When the elastic was right on the limit and the bunch now was down to less than 20 riders the attacks started to intensify and it was the attack of Ryan Christensen that really blew the field to pieces on the end of the third lap. At this point I was overreaching and right on my limit so was battling the best I could to keep that position at the front and keep up with the front of the race but it was just one surge too much and I just couldn’t hold on. The gap was never more than about 20 seconds for a good three quarters of a lap, they were dangling out there in front of me almost teasing me as I battled to try and catch back up but numbers vs a solo rider meant I was always going to be at a disadvantage as we hit the headwind drag and the gap pulled away.

To my relief a few riders caught me up, allowing me to take a moments rest in the wheels and a deep breath of fresh air. At this point there was a little rain in the air so the dust had started to settle and stick to everything which was a rather unpleasant as you tried to take a sip of water to instead get a mouthful of sand and grit. There was still hope of making it back to the front so we kept the chain tight and pushed on.

I can only describe it as being torturous that final lap. The constant stamping and tension on the pedals had meant that by this time my legs had started to stiffen up quite considerably and that dooming feeling of cramp started to enter the legs. My right hamstring was the first muscle to go and for two to three minutes it just got tighter and tighter until I couldn’t turn the pedals anymore and had to start to freewheel to try and stretch it out which helped a little but I could still sense the feeling with every pedal stroke that went by. It wasn’t long before my quads decided to join the party and start to seize up on me as well leaving my legs feeling like blocks of wood.

With only a few kilometers to go I had to lay up on the pace, dropping back from the three riders I was with as I battled into the finish line and crossing the line in 15th spot. I had gone there with the intention and ambition of a top 5 so 15th was a little disappointing but I still walked away with some new found admiration for the grit of gravel racers. With some slightly better preparation and practice and hopefully next year means some more gravel adventures.

Just fingers crossed next time I don’t get a flat battery and have to be pushed around a field by 8 adults trying to get my car to kick start, but that’s what so great about the cycling community so a thank you to everyone who helped to get my car started again.