Glad you had a great time, it seems like a great place to ride.
They need to figure out a way to have a race and not have people on a ride muck it up. Will that ever happen, not sure. 2021 seemed a lot better to me
For those who missed BRX, you can enjoy it here! 
Amazing how that sand road just makes everyone walk
Sand was wet, but pretty rideable on my 45 Maxxis Reavers, but watt sucking. May as well walk or run. Plus, most of the rest of the course is pretty pristine gravel, so a lot of people are running ~40 semi slicks.
i ran 45 terra speeds and i had no issues on the sand sections
Not directed at you… Why is this race so popular if it is known to be carnage of pack fighting but you can’t get a reasonable field of C3/4 for a road race? Seems like Barry is raced a lot like a road race, even the distance jives, why is there so few also racing on the road?
Why run a road race when you can let a bunch of people sign up for a run gravel ride.
4000 people x $100 is a lot of cash
Still 50/50 if the event brakes even after insurance, permits, timing, and all the “stuff” that goes into executing a race.
We made money on our gravel event but we only had 200 people
It “wasn’t” quite like that before. They changed the format from age group and open starts and it turned it into kind of a shit show. Barry is 100% raced like a road race IMO and offers mild enough roads (in the 36-mile) to be like a road race (excluding sager road). Barry also has an amazingly awesome huge after party.
When it was the old format the race was a ton of fun and felt “right” or like you could get into the correct spot. That being said, there was some 5300 people there and I bet anyone who didn’t start in wave 1 or 2 for this race had some of the best times ever.
Sounds like 5300 people that would have fun at a cross race as well.
- You don’t need a USAC license to race the Barry. So the CAT 3/4 question is kind of self defeating — your average rider in the he U.S. views the license/cat system as a barrier to entry … and the numbers bear this out.
- It’s much harder to get permitted for a road race in the U.S. than a gravel race because, by definition, gravel roads are less trafficked than paved roads, so less residents/locals object.
My observations from mid pack of Wave2 riding on 35mm Terra Speeds.
There were definitely riders that didn’t belong in Wave1. We caught up to about 30 people on 3 sisters that shouldn’t be there.
Sand on Shaw Rd (the first sand bit) was about half smaller than last year which made half of Shaw rideable. Right before uphill section people were getting bogged down so everyone was walking that.
Sager was a pleasure and I didn’t have to put a foot down although, again we caught up to people that shouldn’t be there.
Rest of it was fun and fast.
The improvement that i’d make is to definitely put 36 miler start after the 62 mile race. As far as waves go, we could continue self seeding but there should be a MPH average suggestion for people so that they can see what pace is expected from which wave.
I think if you are outside of 30min of the fastest person in the wave you start in you shouldn’t be able to pick that wave again. Your banished
MI Coast to Coast is coming up in June. There’s a 100 mile version that’s a loop and the 212 mile version that actually goes coast to coast (Lake Huron to Lake Michigan).
Very true. This was my first BRX but that was the most obvious thing to fix. They need smaller waves and some selective criteria to be in the first few waves.
What race you doing?
Neither. My goal for next year is to do the 212.
Enjoy, ride a fat tire
Here’s my race report as a first timer at BRX. It’s long, so I bolded a few key points.
For context, my goal for 2024 is to just be consistent and methodical in my training and really maintain that at 10 hours per week. I’m typically a 3 to 3.5 W/kg rider so I’m not going to podium even my age group; I just am doing my best.
I was doing the 36 mile. I chose wave 4 (of 6) thinking that I was going to be about 50th percentile of racers and not wanting to be tempted to go way too hard at the beginning and blow up, which I tend to do.
Jan and Feb my training was going great, I reached my highest FTP in years (235). Then I had a week family vacation, followed by two woods of sickness, then as I was feeling better a week of work travel. My March and April were shot. So heading into BRX I had low expectations.
I did one relatively hard ride the weekend prior, 2h with a NP of 182W. The intervals.icu CP model was estimating 190 W FTP. I checked TR AI FTP and it gave me 236 W, a 1 W increase despite having the below fitness trend. I thought that was bonkers, so I set my Wahoo to an FTP of 190W.
I started in second row of 4th wave. The start was easier than I anticipated, so I stayed at the front and ended up being ~5th wheel heading out of town then catching a lot of people from wave 3 before 3 sisters. A few people from my wave passed me there since I was pacing myself on the hills.
I then proceeded to spend almost the whole race passing people. I was never more than 300’ behind someone and most of the time I was within 40’ of someone. I was amazed at how many people were just riding right smack in the middle of the road despite it being an open course and there being signs on every decent hill telling people to keep far right. Thankfully things were strung out enough that I had little trouble passing, I just often had to pass on the right. 
I got pretty lucky that the traffic was fairly light at Sager and most people were successfully riding it. One guy near the middle did fall into the guy in front of me, but I squeaked by. I made it through Sager without putting a foot down, which was a goal of mine.
After Sager there started to be several people that I would pass on the flats that would pass me again on the hills only for me to drop them on the downhill. Suddenly I cramped bad in my left hamstring and despite trying to stretch on the bike it was getting worse. I had to stop and stretch for 40 seconds, during which several of those people passed me again. I made a mental note of those riders and made it my mission to beat them.
The rest of the race was just trying to keep my pace up to the finish without fading. I succeeded but didn’t have any ability to sprint at the end (no surprise at all given my lack of recent training). I was able to beat everyone I identified on the course as a benchmark. I finished in 2:10, which was slower than my original plan in January to finish sub 2 hours, but I am very happy with considering my poor training.
Now here’s the weird part. All race long I kept racing by feel but glancing at my computer to see if I was pushing too hard. I figured I had better check the power and consider slowing down a bit if my IF was too high (I was shooting for 0.85). But every time it was well above 100% FTP. Yet I felt good, too good for my FTP to be set right. So I figured I will just keep going by feel.
At the finish my Wahoo was showing an IF of 1.25 for 2:10. So yeah, slightly underestimated my FTP. Based on the race data, Intervals.icu CP model now estimates a 231W FTP, very close to the 236W that TR AI FTP came to with using very little recent training data and right what I had tested at weeks before 
.
I just can’t believe how great my legs were that day. Part of it was the cold weather which I dressed perfectly for, keeping me cool despite riding so intense. Part of it was having so many rabbits (other riders) to chase, which always motivates me. And certainly being fresh helped, but I thought my legs would be garbage due to de-training.