I successfully completed my first century (and first race) on Saturday! It was a pretty epic day out and encapsulated everything about gravel cycling.
105 miles of sand, dirt, gravel, clay, and some actually really great pavement out of Waynesboro, Georgia. It's about a 40 minute drive south of Augusta, where The Masters Tournament is held, for frame of reference. I loved the format: 40 or so miles of racing split into three segments. It gave a nice challenge (as if 100+ mostly off-road miles isn't a challenge), while still allowing fun and social aspects. The course had a diabolical touch between sand early and then a few 7-9% gradient hills at 90+ miles.
It was foggy and about 60F when we headed out and raced over some sketchy loose sand and dirt roads. Afterwards the fog turned to mist, which then changed into a light rain that turned everything into a tire-grabbing beach sand/mud/clay combo for a while. The sun finally came out and brought the temps to the upper 70's for the last third of the ride which had some picture-perfect racing on hilly, hard-packed red clay roads.
My training over the last 12 weeks paid off. I held up great until the last couple miles on the cruise back into town when I finally started feeling rough, which was fine since the hard work was done!
Didn't grab many pics between the weather and the racing, but the big highlight was cruising through a cotton farm. The clouds were still around, but it was still a stunning sight. One of those things pictures don't come close to capturing.
Pics also never capture just how dirty a bike can get, but here's my bike at mile 72. You can see the coating of dried clay on the rear wheel and maybe with some zoom you can see the coating on the seat tube down to the bottom bracket. It was everywhere! I was slowly dying inside listening to the gears and brakes rubbing.
We don't need no stinking kickstands...
I'm a data nerd, so here are the numbers. I love all the info you can get from an electronic drivetrain. I shifted 988 times!
