The wind looks like it could be between 20-30mph. Good temps but windy possibly.
I just saw the wind forecast for tomorrow too - looks like 20-30 mph from the south right around the time we’ll be turning in to it to head home. Just what you want at the end of a hard day - a slap in the face from mother nature!
Yeah, saw that too….looks like a long day is gonna get longer.
Definitely wanna save some gas in your tank for the slog home……and make sure you are with a group.
Any tips on the best section(s) to preride? Would like to ride whatever sections are considered the most technical. Thanks!
Did the Pirelli Shakeout ride….very happy I decided to put 45’s on. That schitt is CHUNKY!
Also rolled by the Silca tent and discovered my pump that I use for travel was not even close to accurate…thought I had 20psi in the tires and I had 30. 
Good luck and/or congrats to everyone who raced this today
Would love to hear a report on how it went … course vs. tire choice, organization, navigation (sorry … that’s my BWR PTSD), etc. Was it a pure gravel race, or was there singletrack?
Hope you all had a good ride🤘
Also … big day for the Michigan peloton 
— Alexey took 4th in the race and 2nd in the LTGP series, and Paige Onweiller won the women’s 
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That was a brutally hard day….wind was howling straight from the south at 20+mph and the last 40 miles were pretty much straight into it…which also happens to coincide when I was basically solo for the rest of the day.
I was kinda hoping for a 6:30 finish (~16mph) and I was over 7 hours….I popped my chestnuts somewhere in the last 20 miles and had to limp home. Need to check my official finishing time / place. But compared to SBT, my AP was higher and my average speed was lower….and had 40 less miles and 3k feet less climbing.
Course was really tough…they call it “gloriously chunky”, and while they descriptor is correct, I don’t know if I can agree with the adjective. 
Really well run…aid stations were fully stocked with anything you could have needed…from the Untapped products to Uncrustables to candy bars and chips.
The riding in NW Arkansas is insanely good….and I still can’t believe what a cool little town Bentonville has become in the last 20 years. If I was younger and just starting in Sales & Marketing, I would absolutely consider living here now, while 20 years ago there wasn’t a chance in hell.
I am going to try and get my buddies to come down here next May for a “training camp” in preparation for FNLD GRVL.
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Congrats! Did you make a good tire choice?
DEFINITELY!!! Maxxis Rambler 45’s w/ Vittoria inserts…ran them ~20psi.
So glad I switched to 45’s!
ETA - SO many flats out there…riders flatting everywhere throughout the day. Carnage.
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Had a pretty good race until the race turned back south. I don’t know the wind speed but I was heading on a stretch of road headed south and was putting out 200 watts and and going between 8-10mph. I was pretty demoralizing. Ran 38c specialized pathfinders and had a flat early on that sealed with orange seal. No more issues after that. Agree with the chunky aspect. I still cannot feel my fingers.
Had the exact same experience…you’d see dust swirls heading down the road n the gusts. It was crazy.
The only thing more demoralizing was on the final climb, when you were riding next to the MTB’ers in the other lane….I looked across and there was a young woman, riding casually on her full suspension MTB in sneakers and dropping me, even though I was close to flat-out.
Crushing…but then I realized she was on an e-bike. 
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It was a brutal day for sure. It’s amazing how many turns we made and still had a 20mph headwind the whole way back lol. I ran 42 Pathfinders and had no issues, but was rock dodging and bunny hopping all day.
Ran the Pathfinder Pro 42s, Tubolight Inserts, Enve G23s - 30 psi front and rear. No flats and had solid traction on all the steep sections.
I did Big Sugar last year and this year. The course was far looser and dustier this year. You had to be comfortable with feeling like you were riding on marbles for a lot of it. Watched one guy turn his front wheel sideways on a steep descent and then promptly do about 3 or 4 somersaults down the hill. Somehow he was ok. There were a lot of flats, but I think last year there were even more, at least subjectively based on how many riders on the side of the road that I saw.
The wind was a big factor in the last stretch once you got out into the open. Made for a tough last 20 miles. Came in at 7hr 3min, about 11 min faster than last year when I ran the Rene Herse Hurricane Ridge’s.
The event was run really well. Aid Stations were fully stocked and there were several other pop-up stations with Chamois Butr and Garmin both having ones. I believe it was BMC who had a little pop-up station pretty close to the finish, but they had no water, just gummies.
Anyone know why Payson Mcelveen didn’t line up? He had been intending too. Also looks like Ashton Lambie didn’t go either. He was on the Bonk Bros podcast a few days before the event and was planning on riding. Alex Wild skipped the last two Lifetime events too.
I was curious about Payson as well. I actually saw him on Friday and chatted with him for a short time. He told me what equipment he was running and then I wished him luck. He was super nice and talked to my daughter who is a big fan of his. You know you are officially a cyclist when the only athletes your six year old daughter knows are named Supp, Peyson, and Howard. We did use to live in Durango so there is that…
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One of his IG posts said he got sick - from the description it sounded like what I had when I got covid, but he also said he tested negative (so far).
This is an awesome event. The gravel was chunky and the downhills scary. I ran PathFinder Pro 38’s That is the max I can run on my bike and I would have like a little more tire on the descents. The hills were tough. My front chainring of 40t and biggest cassette gear of 32t doesn’t cut it. I’ll increase my derailliur cage to get a bigger cassette. No flats on my tires but it looked like one sealed up on the front after the first major climb. The wind on the way back was brutal. I never could find a group to work with. I hung back waiting on one of my teammates who abandon the race and after that I was in pursuit mode.
I’ll be back again next year to PR the 50 miler and maybe the 100 in 2024.
I want to see more of this🤘
50 miles on chunky gravel is a big day on the bike.
I’ll give a modified opinion of something Chad said on the podcast relatively recently … he said he doesn’t want to do anything on the bike any longer for more than 3 hours.
Well, I love a long ride. ~5-6 hours and ~100miles are great by me.
But, I’m never “racing” more than 4 hours again. I think 3 hours of racing is the upper limit of what I would prefer to do, and I’ll probably do a race if it’s likely that I’ll finish in 3-4 hours. But having just done 75 miles of the BWR (Michigan) “short” ride over every terrain imaginable at about 4 hours and 45 minutes … I’m done with that nonsense.
I know there are a lot of people on this board where the distance is the thing for them. And I’m not arguing with any of them.
But go shorter. Go harder. Race it. Don’t just survive it.
(Unless you’re younger than 35 … then you should definitely do the longer distance!)
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Man, that sounds like a challenging setup for Big Sugar. I ran 45’s for my tires and had a 1:1 bailout gear. The climb out of the brewery rest stop in my 1:1 was brutal…couldn’t even imagine it in a 40x32.
But you don’t need a bigger cage RD…just get a Wolf Tooth adapter. I use one of those with my Ultegra 11spd RD and can easily accommodate a 40t rear cog.
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The climb out of the rest stop was brutal. Short but steep and I rested for too long and my legs certainly cooled off. I know better. Max 3 minute stop next year.
I like this idea of race pace for 3 hours. Any longer than that and it’s a recipe for disaster.
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