I agree. I was expecting worse gravel, but then again I rode it with 47 Pathfinders so maybe it has a reputation since historically, people have been running 38s or 40s. Didn’t see that many flats, but maybe the 100 had some worse sections?
I really enjoyed the 50 (53) course. The climbs were fun (1x ftw), the descents, except for a couple, where not that bad and were usually bomb able. I also liked that there was some tarmac thrown in; really enjoyed hammering those last 5-6 miles and the 2 final climbs.
That’s the case in every long series. Even in the XCO World Cup series riders skip multiple races. To be on form, healthy, motivated and available to race EVERY race spanning 6-8 months is unrealistic for everyone.
True on the healthy thing over the course of a season and motivation def comes and goes even in the World Cup races, but show me a WC racer that has shown up for a race and just sort of ceremoniously ridden it rather than racing it if they were there. A bit of apples to oranges since we’re comparing 1.5 hrs to 6-10 hrs but still, you did make that comparison. It is also totally different because WC has hundreds of riders jockeying for points to start further up. This is 35 people in each gender who applied, so in theory they wanted to take part. And then each year, a percentage of them just stop participating.
It did the Big Sugar 50 mile course and saw a ton of riders in the side of the road with punctures. Thankfully my Maxxis ramblers held strong. A little more loose gravel than I remember from last year. I was very thankful for less headwind this year. Last year was brutal.
Based on the recommendation of this forum I ran the Pathfinder 47s with cush core insert. Ran both front/rear at 30-31 psi. I didn’t have any flats, and only dropped my chain once at mile 75 or so.
Gravel seemed chunky, but I wasn’t too surprised with it. The worse parts to me where the loose parts during fast descents. You would sink in while going down hill.
Finally listened to Payson’s episode on this race… He did make a comment during the piece about Keegan taking a rider “off the back” who was skipping turns in the lead pack and not pulling their weight.
It’s unclear to me how this is done? Obviously, he didn’t mean physically holding this rider back. Did he get in front of this rider and intentionally lose the wheel in front of him and force this rider to do efforts to bridge back over and over again? Wouldn’t this only work if you were super dominant/confident in vastly superior fitness? Or only works because Keegan already had the series seemed up and plausibly willing to throw away his race?
Anyhow, this is a common scenario I see happening and was curious how this is effectively done and within the “spirit of gravel.”
Yes. Open a gap with the rider behind him and then jump across to get rid of the dead weight. If they are hanging by a thread despite not working, that will drop them.
I think there’s still plenty of SoG going on. It’s kind of the beauty of gravel events that there is a big variety of riders and purposes out there. Some people are racing, some are just cruising and enjoying all the stops. That’s the cool thing is that all of these different ways of riding can be done at the same event. That doesn’t exist at a road race, or a crit, or an xc mtb race. I would argue that the SoG encompasses all the ways to ride a bike and so the racers are just as crucial to that ecosystem as the folks with flappy clothes and heavy bikes who are just looking forward to taking pictures and seeing what snacks are at the next aid station.
SoG is nothing but a catch phrase or punch line these days, but I totally agree with everything you are saying about the discipline. There are things I like about small local events and I also enjoy the big “bucket list” races. Just a bunch of different people riding bikes for different reasons. The mix of people is a big part of what makes for a really cool vibe.
