Yeah, so the Barry-Roubaix: Killer Gravel Road Race. What a fun ride! What a great loop through forests, around lakes, on hard-packed and just-wet-enough-to-be-dust-free gravel roads!
I'd been planning to participate for months, but with Q&A's schedules my work schedule, I waited until the last minute to sign up. I'm also afraid I waited until the last minute to train. I've been running a bit, occasionally up six or seven miles, and sometimes fast, but I've gotten on a bike only rarely. I think I did three 45-min rides on the Ute mounted on the trainer in the basement.
Last weekend I rode with an MMBA friend of mine, who is a geologist at MSU. We did 30 miles of mostly gravel roads and it nearly killed me. I seriously bonked somewhere around 25 miles. I had planned to ride 35 miles at the Barry-Roubaix, and had planned to ride them on my Santa Cruz Nickel. The training ride on the dual suspension Nickel made me reconsider. As much as I like the dual squishy, there's really nothing to be gained and plenty to be lost by riding a dual suspension on smooth roads - even smooth gravel. But not riding the Ni meant riding my Soma, which would need an appropriate set of tires and a little reconfiguring from it's commuter setup. I didn't want to mess with the Soma, and I really didn't want to buy yet another site of tires. Just ask the family: I went round and round about this decision! Finally, I gave in and picked up some tires on Wednesday, three days before the race. When I went to install them Wednesday night, I found that the bearings in the Soma's rear hub were shot. Crap. That meant a trip to Denny's on Thursday to look for bearings and cone races. They had them, for a chunk of cash, of course, and Thursday night after work I rebuilt the hubs. They're the original LX hubs with about 5,500 miles on 'em. The rear feels great now; the front is still just a little bumpy as it spins; I'm afraid the cups may be too worn. I'll just see how long I can make it last.
Here's the Soma Double Cross configured for the Barry-Roubaix:
Saturday morning I drove to the Yankee Springs Recreation Area, about 70 miles southwest of here. Cindy had to work and I didn't want to leave the kids hanging about at park freezing while I rode, so I went alone. The temperature was about 15 F when I left home; it was going to be a cold ride. I left at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at the park little before 7. Plenty of time prepare for a start time of 10:00 a.m. I wore tights, my winter cycling boots and Smartwool socks, an Icebreaker wool top with a synthetic T over it, and a Gore jacket on the outside. A Headsweats skull cap and an ear band under my helmet. Full finger mountain biking gloves under my ancient Pearl Izumi lobster mitts. I expected to have moderately cold feet because the boots, while windproof, are not insulated. I expected to have very cold hands at first, then comfortable hands, and then hot sweaty hands inside wet gloves. That was just how it worked out.
For breakfast I had a bowl of cereal with milk. When I arrived at the park I ate a Clif Mojo bar. Before the ride, I ate another granola bar. On my bike I took one bottle filled with Gu electrolyte mix and a couple of Gu gels. It was only a 23 mile ride.
About a thousand riders lined up at the start line. The first wave was for the 65-mile riders -- there were some really top-notch riders in that wave. Then a wave of young 35-milers, another wave of old 35-milers, and lastly my bunch.
I started in the middle of the pack and pretty much took it easy for the first couple of miles while the crowd thinned out. I saw no reason to hurry at the beginning. Cindy let me wear her Garmin Forerunner, so you can see a map of the route below, and even get to the speed and elevation details from my ride if you follow the link. The route was counter-clockwise around the loop on the map.
The roads getting out of the park were paved. We hit gravel when we first turned east. The 'gravel' was reasonably smooth-packed sand, with the usual little marble sized chunks of crushed rock on top. Mountain and cyclocross tires were appropriate. I ran my new and overly aggressive 700x35 Kenda tires with just over 45 and 50 psi, front and rear, which seemed about right. They conformed to the rock and tracked well in the sand; they were stable on corners and provided shock absorption on bigger hits. I can't complain.
The most challenging section of road showed up for the 5th mile: West Sager Road. Notice the Garmin map calls it "W Sager Trail," which is appropriate. That mile is on a low-maintenance piece of two-track with some steep rocky climbs, plenty of ruts, deep sand, and some big ice-puddles. Some riders with taller gearing couldn't ride the climbs; others got stuck in the sand, or crashed in the ruts. My Soma was geared appropriately, and I made use of my little ring in this section (as well as several others later). I would have ridden this section much faster, but it the congestion was and narrow tire tracks limited passing. It was fun.
After that, the ride sort of blurs in my memory. I rode for a while with MMBA friend, rvd (his MMBA forum name) and his colleague. Shortly after West Sager I was feeling hungry and sucked down a Gu packet. Yum. It helped. It seemed to be endless miles of mostly smooth hilly, curvy roads; quite pleasant. I found I was climbing faster than most of the other riders in my wave, probably because I had better gearing options than many of them. I passed a lot of people who were really panting hard on those climbs. They should train more!
About seven miles from the end, the route came back onto pavement. The riders were really thinning out and I found myself riding alone much of time. The hills were steep, up and down, and I made full use of my available gears. At one intersection there were no cyclists visible in front of me and a police officer was monitoring the intersection, but I couldn't tell which way to turn. The officer signaled me to come across, and I thought he pointed to my left. So I went left. The rider behind me hollered and I realized that I should have gone straight. So much for my podium finish, I thought! I quickly turned into a parking lot and got back on course, riding with that guy for the rest of race.
He was on a single speed mountain bike with big fat tires. He was a very strong climber, and his 200 pounds gave him downhill coasting speed I could hardly match when pedaling. On the flats, he kept trying to draft behind me, and I kept trying to lose him! About a mile from the end, a really tall guy on a geared 29er passed us, so the singler-speeder and I grabbed his tail and let him pull us toward the finish. Right before the end, there was a sharp corner and we passed the tall rider and raced to the finish. Even with my gearing options, I could not pass that single-speeder!
I finished 6th in the 40 to 49 age class for the short 23-mile race. It was really fun!! After the race, I spent about 30 minutes cooling off, changed clothes, put the Soma on the van, and wandered around to look at bicycles - especially tandems.
The only disappointment was the post-race food: tacos and Founder's Ale. Now I love tacos as much as Abbey, but I stood in the line for the tacos for 15 minutes, but the line never moved. I was still 100 feet from the taco stand! Founder's Brewing makes some of the best ale on the planet, I must say, but there seemed to be some sort of problem with getting it out of the kegs - like an empty CO2 bottle. Since I couldn't stay long after the race anyway, I went home without having a taco or a glass of Founder's Ale.
There were several tandems in the race, of many different kinds, including a Fandango 29er just like the one on its way to our house, a couple of Cannondales, a KHS, and I got to check out two custom-built tandems from Dean. There were other tandems, too, but I didn't get a close look at all of them. Next year, I hope Quinn and I will do this race on our Fandango!
