08 May Biking in the gravel CO2UT race

Saturday May 4 

A week ago my friend Lindsey offered me her registration in a gravel bike race taking place in Fruita, CO not far from the border with Utah. The Desert Gravel Race event was a big one, with a 1000 people competing across 30-mile, 50-mile, 75-mile, 100-mile, and 125-mile categories. I haven’t ridden a bike in over 2.5 years, since my last journey to the western CO slope in fall of 2021. But with another mutual friend of ours, Tom, racing the 50-mile distance, I figured the 30-mile shouldn’t be too difficult for me, forever the city commuter and reminiscing on my multiple triathlon races from over a decade ago.

I managed to get 3 training rides in: 12 miles around the town of Glenwood Springs bike paths, 25 miles to Carbondale and back, and a 30-minute hill training round with a few miles tacked on afterwards. It wasn’t much but it was all I could squeeze into the 7 days I had between taking over Lindsey’s registration and race day.

I arrived in Fruita the night before, since camping was included with the registration. Fruita was also hosting the Fat Tire Festival which featured music, vendors, and food trucks along with our packet pickup. I got my race # and met up with Tom and his girlfriend for a quick beer before making it an early night to prepare for the big day ahead!

My racing group started last, about 100 of us or so in the 30-mile distance, kicking off at 9:15am. My only loose goals for the race were:

• to finish
• to hopefully stay on my bike
• to hopefully finish in under 3 hours.

I knew the course was half on the pavement, but the middle half was on a variety of dirt, gravel, sand and everything in between. Not being a mountain biker of any kind, I was a little nervous for the off-road sections. I had ordered 2 new gravel tires which arrived the day before, so I had no idea how much grip I’d have on my 35cm tires (40cm was recommended). But the road was largely hard-packed and firm so the first miles off the pavement went really smooth!

The dirt / gravel section was surprising and felt long. There were hills of varying length, steepness and terrain and huge piles of scree to barrel through. At one point, we returned to the pavement for a 3 mile downhill stretch that had me in my highest gear and full cruising speed and I thought I was possibly in the home stretch…. but NOPE! Another off-road mountain-bike type trail lay ahead and I was going so fast on the road when I turned off of it immediately into a dip followed by a steep incline, I knew I wasn’t downshifted nearly enough to make it up and over. I desperately tried to unclip while pedaling to stay upright but my clumsiness won and I tipped over into the scrub. Embarrassed more than injured, I picked myself up, got to the top of the hill and remounted. Nothing seemed too worse for wear so I carried on, having lost one of my goals but feeling more relaxed now that I’d had to dismount. I looked ahead to another steep incline and to my delight saw many other bikers dismount and walk uphill. No need to be a hero anymore!

The rest of the race was uneventful and fun! I finally rolled into the finish just after 2.5 hours on the bike, and I felt great about not only finishing but finishing in less than 3 hours! Pretty good for less than a week of training! I also discovered that my rear brake was knocked out of alignment from falling, and was rubbing on my back tire for at least 10-12 miles of the race. I would have been done even earlier without that extra friction!

I hung out at the race post-party for a few hours, getting my free beer & burger and watched Tom get his 3rd place medal for his bracket. Finally, it was approaching 4p and I was ready to head out, deeper into the desert, & onward to Moab, UT!