At 10,000 Feet, Even The Cows Can Hear You Wheeze

A couple of weeks back we hitched up the wagon and headed west to Fraser for the Kowtown Gravel in Kremmling Colorado. We knew it was going to be a challenge since us flat landers aren't used to the rarified air that they have in the mountains. The elevation at the start was around 7300 ft and would climb up to around 9300 feet, most of that coming in a 6.5 mile climb that gained a pretty substantial 1930 feet of elevation. That's not even something you can train for here is Nebraska so we headed out a little early to get the lungs and the legs as ready as we could for Kowtown.




Since going to the condo in Fraser now for the last couple of years, I've noticed that elevation is a weird thing. Riding at elevation doesn't seem to be all that challenging, the climbing yes but the elevation itself not as much, but stairs are to be avoided at all costs. Especially if you have to do multiple flights, by the time you get to the top the wheezing and racing heart make you feel like you're 90 years old.




If you can get up and over the mountain, the views on this race are worth the price of admission alone. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more beautiful something popped up on the horizon to prove me wrong.







Pretty good group of us from Nebraska headed out and we were joined by Jackie's sister who lives in the Denver metro area. Not having the legs or lungs to be of any serious contention in the overall standings we all decided to ride it as a group and just enjoy the views and the day together and I think that was the right choice.


The event is only in it's second year and I'd recommend it for sure if you haven't done it yet but there were some growing pains. Probably the biggest of which was that they ran out of things that they shouldn't have run out of. Breakfast burritos were available in the morning but you were supposed to RSVP for them so they could get a count, those were gone before the long course even took off so the math on that was way. They still had two more distances following that group that got nada on the burrito front which didn't sit well with several people. They also ran out of the free beer at the end which I also thought was a poor showing since they had to know how many people there were in the event and that started. Some of the group was also underwhelmed by what they had to offer at the SAG stops, I'm not much of a SAG stop connoisseur so I didn't really notice but the main complaint was lack of variety and lack of much that was on the salty side rather than the sweet side. The finish was a bit of a let down also. Maybe that's because we are used to mid-west gravel where the finish line is like a party and dozens of people line the chute cheering you on... and the cowbell... not a single one could be heard. Also unlike mid-west gravel there were no patches, stickers, medals or anything of the sort for finishing. Those items are more what we are used to here in the mid-west than an actual requirement but it didn't go unnoticed by several in our group. Like I said, second year so always room to improve even with events that have been around a lot longer than that. The views can't be beat, I really enjoyed it, put it on your list and get those climbing legs in shape. You'll need them.

*Note* 

I published the blog last night and thought about the critique of the event... are we becoming our own worst enemy? Number one complaint I hear lately about gravel events is the cost but isn't that because we've come to expect SAG stops and well stocked SAG stops, finisher patches, inflatable arches and all the fanfare? Sure gravel was free "back in the day" but in that day you were actually and factually self supported so there wasn't a cost to race directors. Have we, the 98% of the gravel field, let the roadie in us all get too whiny about the amenities we have come to expect at a gravel event? Maybe when asking why gravel is so expensive, the best person to ask is ourself. 

 

The More You Sweat In Peace, The Less You Bleed In War

The title of the blog is a quote from a speech that Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf gave to the graduating class of the Naval Academy in 1991. Being a young Marine at the time the speech was given, I heard that quote spoken and misspoken more times than I want to remember. Even though it was given by an Army General and contains War and bleeding in it, it's not just about violence... actually it's not about violence at all. It's about training and dedication to do what needs to be done when nobody is watching, the drive to do the difficult things when you don't want or need to do them. To understand that to achieve long term goals there is often some suffering in the present that needs to be done. The more you prepare for something, the easier it is to perform well when it's go time.


Being on or near the Summer Solstice it's almost a given that the Solstice Gravel Grinder is going to be on a hot day, this year that day seemed especially hot but I am sure I've said that just about every year. Sweat was a necessity rather than an option. Team 3 Cog Night signed up for the 100 mile co-ed single speed relay but at the last minute the other team had to drop out leaving us the only remaining single speed team. As long as we finished, we would be the single speed champions and we could have just coasted in on that and taken the victory given not really a victory earned.


As a team we all decided that instead of just cruising onto the podium. we would go out and give it our all and race as if we weren't the only single speed relay team. Like last year we were going to race against the geared teams and see how the cards played out. Jackie led us out and set the tone for the team with an impressive ride, covering the first 30 mile leg in just over 2 hours with a 14 mph pace.


I took the handoff in Burchard for the second leg of the relay and held up my end of the deal turning in a 14.3 average over the 40 mile leg for a time of 2 hours and 50 minutes.



Justin did the anchor leg and continued the fast pace with a time just over 2 hours for his 30 mile leg, also with a 14 mph pace.




Well, if you've been paying attention at all you know how the race ends... we won. However that's not the end of the story, 3 Cog Night turned in a great performance and we actually would have finished second out of all the relay teams if there were not a single speed relay team category and only by about 18 minutes. Looking at the overall standings for the Hundy, we placed 18th as a team out of 101 Hundy racers. I think we achieved our goal of giving it our best effort even if it wasn't necessary to take home the hardware and everyone on the team killed it in tough conditions. There were 31 DNFs in the Hundy, it was that hot out there. I hope that the single speed relay sticks, this is the first year for it and I feel like there will be other teams that will race it, seems more and more people are picking up a single speed lately.

Video from the Solstice.

 

Snow Where To Go

Took a trip out to Fraser, CO during the week of Christmas when the temps were cold in Nebraska but we has yet to get any real snow accumulation. They had plenty up in the mountains of Colorado however so we took the Fat Bikes up and got in a little riding, not as much as we would have liked but with most of Jackie's immediate family up there with us there wasn't much time for too much riding.


They do know how to do up the Christmas festivities up there though, the fireworks display on Christmas Eve is something to take in if you get a chance.


Not to be out done, we did have a blizzard here in Nebraska the day before we drove back. That made travel a bit more interesting than it should have been. All that mostly melted by the time we got around to the Saturday ride last week but the temps were still chilly. Side note, as I write this we are currently in another blowing snow warning with single digit temps and probably 10 or so inches of snow on the ground.

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Had a pretty good group on the ride on Saturday when you figure in the temps and the winds. Still haven't gotten around to replacing the Canon camera, definitely a step down on photo quality with the iPhone and screen grabs from the GoPro.




Made it out for a decent 37 mile ride to Bennet and back, I think that was more than enough cold gravel for everyone involved. So far winter in early 2024 is shaping up to be a cold and snowy one, been since about 2009 when we had single snow events in the double digits for accumulation... or at least that I can remember.

Video version of the ride.

 

The Rides Are Back In Town

As much fun as summer is with all the things, the things to do, the things to see and the things to travel to; it is also nice at the end of the summer when things slow down a bit and not every weekend if filled with a gravel event of one kind or another. We are now in that time period which means that more regular occurrences of the Saturday ride from Cycle Works will commence once again. I've kind of missed the rides.



The plan last Saturday was to head out to Denton and the Denton Wall but because of an error on my part we turned up too soon and never made the well. We still made it to Denton because while I'm not Ferdinand Magellan I can still find towns, so I got that going for me. It was an honest mistake, pulled up an old route labeled as the wall and didn't double check it... stuff happens.



While we missed the wall we still found plenty of hills to go up and down, mostly up it seemed. And that headwind, don't even get me started on that... seems like if it's not blazing hot or Siberian cold around here the wind it do like to blow. Not a fan... ha, get it... not a fan, of the wind but whatcha gonna do except put your head down and pedal. It did make it feel like we were climbing most of the way to Denton even though we weren't actually. Mid-West Hills.


Thanks to Doug we even managed a ditch beer stop, I'm a bit rusty on these rides and am slacking in the planning and the beerin.


We did make a stop at Saro and Canyon Joe's on the way back into town, both were tasty. Not much in the way of pictures, camera is in for repair/replacement if they can't fix it so it's just the eye-phone right now. It takes decent enough pictures but it's a lot more difficult to get those quick snaps while riding so hopefully the Canon will be back in action soon. Sure would like it if someone out there would make a rugged camera that would shoot RAW and have the ability to customize camera settings like the advanced point and shoot cameras do. While they are good for pictures, they sometimes have troubles with the gravel dust and general jostling of the bike after a few years of abuse... someone help me here, please.


Enjoy the video version of the ride, going to try to keep those going through winter also but how many times can you record the same ride starting from the same spot and still make it interesting. I guess we will see on that one.

 

Shifting Is For Quitters

Last Sunday was the singlespeed ride out of Backroads Bicycle in Marysville, aptly named Singlespeed Sunday. Which is pretty fitting since many folks consider those who find joy in not shifting as being in a semi religious cult.




I felt like there was a pretty good turn out considering the singlespeed criteria for the ride, although we did have one rider that brought a geared bike but pulled his derailleur battery in a show of solidarity. Meant to be a ride more than a race, we all started at the same time and we mostly waited for everyone to catch up at the SAG stops. In all my years riding and leading group rides, I've never met one that didn't turn into a "race" of some sort. I mean you get two people on bicycles and they might ride together, you add one or two more and, well, you got yourself a good ole fashion test of speed and stamina. Not sure why it is that way but people are competitive, on a bicycle, merging when a lane ends on the road, getting to the check out first at the store, all of those scenarios and more often stoke the competitive fires within people. If you're not first, you're last!





There was a bit of rain the night before which made everyone a little leary about some of the roads that were on the 50 mile course but there was also a pretty stout headwind for the first 12ish miles of the route heading south and despite the extra effort needed to get down the road the wind did a great job of drying out the dirt and gravel.



With the exception of this hill here that measured in at a leg burning 22% grade, most of the course was just how I like it with plenty of hills to keep you from spinning out all day.





Once we turned and started our way with the wind the roads really became spectacular, one section of 5 miles was almost entirely MMR and some even less maintained then minimum... subminimum maintenance roads if you will... but those were the best roads all day.



The last 7ish miles back into Marysville was on the Blue River Rail Trail, also known as the Chief Standing Bear trail, Homestead trail, Jamaica North trail depending where along it's span you are riding it. While a bit spinny for a singlespeed, most of us who ride actually don't like flat for very long as it takes a lot of pedaling, it's a great resource for runners, walkers and cyclist. If you wanted to you could ride it from Marysville, Kansas all the way to Lincoln, Nebraska for 75 miles without ever getting off the trail. If you took the Rock Island at the new connector bridge you could take that all the way out to Wabash, Nebraska for 105 miles with only a few block of residential streets needed to connect the Rock Island to the MoPac trail. If you really wanted to get nutty you could connect the end of the MoPac at Wabash to where it picks back up again at the Lied Pedestrian Bridge via a 10 mile gravel section and take it all the way into Papillion, Nebraska for about 130 miles with roughly 11 ish miles not being trail. That's kind of mind boggling when you stop and think about it in our motor vehicle centric society.


I really enjoyed the event and while still not everyone's cup of tea I do feel like the Salsa Stormchaser has really helped to "legitimize" singlespeed as a gravel option. Sure there are other singlespeed bikes out there and always have been, I've not see this many of one particular kind at one event ever. Out of 12 riders on the 50 mile course, 8 of us were riding a Salsa Stormchaser of one flavor or another. That's really saying something considering it's a bike that has only been out less than a handful of years and I have to say both Jackie and I are loving ours.