Approached start 15-min before the race start - found out real quick this doesnt work anymore
Fought as hard as I could to get to the front before the 3-sisters, on my way there I avoided 2-complete crash’s and 2-near misses.
Made it to the back 1/3 of the race by first sister, by the 3rd sister there was a clear split of probably 100 riders in group 2 and maybe 30-40 riders in group 1
Our group 2 chased forever until about sager, at that point I was pretty fried from being sick all week and chasing so hard to get to where I was.
This year Sager was 100% ridable if no one crashed in front of you. I made it through without any issues.
Lost 2nd group by the end of sager, reformed with another group chasing that one.
Lost that group at the wall, but all that was dropped made a new group
Rode in with that group
Finish time… After absolutely not feeling it 1hr 51min.
My take away, the race was absolute sketch city and just scary at times until after sager when it was all broken up, also the self seeding is absolute BS. I think that if you cant go 1hr50min or faster you should not be allowed to race in wave 1. It literally kills the chances of anyone that gets stuck in the back. My friends went to the line 35mins early to be in the first few rows… 35 minutes!!!
I don’t know if I will be going back any time soon, its just getting too big and people seeding wrong, I have been doing the race since 2018.
No. New in 2023 and back in 2024 is deep sand just past 11 miles. It’s 100% unridable for everyone! It’s a forced hike-a-bike in at least 2 long sections and makes Sager seem like an easy day. This is where the front group splits unless you’re willing to sprint up beach sand hills.
#1 goal was to stay safe, enjoy myself with a good hard effort and stay with a good group. Wanted to do better than last year and top 100 would be overachieving. Mission accomplished.
Had to line up 35 minutes before the start to be about 6th row about 40th position. It started out sketchy AF and within the first minutes some dude was swerving around me and eventually crashed right behind me. I’m pretty sure I captured it on my camera. We hadn’t even made it to gravel yet! There were numerous other crashes around me, people crashing into ditches and off into the woods, but luckily I was able to avoid them all. Lots of grabbing breaks for no reason and rider’s that had no business at the front. That pretty much set the tone for the day and I was willing to let wheels go to stay safe.
Stayed with the front group until the first forced sandy hike-a-bike at 11.72 miles. That took 32:12 with a NP of 284w at 21.8 mph avg. Actually I felt surprisingly good still and so hustled a bit in the sandy section, but wasn’t willing to full on sprint up the sand with my bike. I was very concerned with my fatigue/fitness going in to this race, so I kept it conservative the whole day. Turns out I had much more than I thought and maybe should have pushed it. Out of the sand I ended up in a good group, but had no idea where I was, probably around 70th. Kept this group up to Sager Rd where I moved a bit to the front just before and the group split up.
Post Sager road the big group got split into smaller groups but we mostly regathered at or just past the Wall. For the rest of the race the group swelled as we picked up stragglers and others from behind chased back on. We were in a HUGE group off and on for most of the rest of the race. I’d say probably 40+ riders though we’d get split up at times, then eventually all come back together. Mostly this was pretty chill from mile 20-60 with a NP of 248w for the middle 2 hours.
Coming to the finish line the group was at least 40+ and it got sketchy AF again. Not willing to crash to sprint for 70th, so I just kept it safe and finished near the front of the group for 89th out of 1,089. Odd that there was no finishing banner as I didn’t event know where the finish line was until I crossed it.
Good day, improved my time by 20 minutes and 110 positions from 2023.
Race Recap 62 miles
Friday – test road 1st sand road and Sager both were easily ridable. In fact our easy ride was faster then the time on the roads from the race last years race for riders finishing top 20. All the sand road were super fast
Saturday – RACE DAY
I got to the start line 30 min early and there were 100 people already in front of me, it was snowing and people kept pushing forward.
Race started and with the block 18-20mph head wind the race went wide open the whole width of the road. I tried to move up but kept getting into the wrong line. I could have done some sketch stuff by riding up the side of the road but I watch a few people do that and take dirt naps.
I was with the front group after the 3 sisters, life was good, but had one major issue. I was at the back of the group and it was spread across the road.
1st sand road it got strung out and then deep sand and a group of people determined they wanted to inspect what type of sand was on the road.
Everyone was now running up the first sand hill. I mounted at the top and bombed the down hill, the race was now strung out single file. I went left and another rider in front of me took a dirt nap. I rode over his wheel and had to dismount. I remounted and got to the top of the hill.
Made the left onto the climb on the road and went full gas. 400w for 5 min appears to be what I put down. This allowed me to make it into a group.
The group didn’t seem very motivated to chase, some guys would take a flyer but they would get pulled right back
We hit sager and now were are riding with 18 and 36 mile riders. Were not talking people racing, these are over weight riders on fat bike, cruisers, mountain bikes. They were more likely to catch Diabeetus then to ride sager. We are now weaving in and out of these riders to just keep moving.
Hope off Sager and lay down another brutal bridge, were talking 33mph for 3 min to bridge back on.
At this point there is no one behind me and no one in front of this group.
I settle in and just cruise with this group till the end. All attackers were brought back and the pace settled in.
Having bigger items on my agenda I sat at the back and just treated it like an endurance ride, I wanted to stay safe and keep the rubber side down.
5 miles out 4 people jumped off the front. I didn’t care, I was just going to chill
One of the guys I talked to was kinda doing the same thing I was and he attacked on a down hill and the group was strung out.
I bridged to the guy who attacked, he had 3 people on his wheel. I went over the top at 33mph and he jumped on. We rotated pulls the final 8 min at 380w average over that time to end up 100m short of catching the 4 guys that got away from our group.
When I finished my team mate told me to come to the car, my other team mate broke his collarbone.
We loaded the car and got lunch with my other team mate who finished in the top 30 and found out I got 5th in my bracket and our other friends won there group.
Overall, not sure im going back. Im not a crappy rider and wasted a lot of good fitness for no reason. I felt really good NP was 340 for the first hour and I still had boat loads on tap.
I’m not even sure why this race is so popular other than that it’s well organized and brings in fierce competition. But the risk of injury is high and the course is not great. Were it not so close to my house and part of our gravel race series I would skip it.
I think its a big race and people like to do bigger races. I either have to be willing to line up an hour before the race or push really hard and do some sketch stuff to get into the top 20 prior to the sand roads.
They need to fix a few things
Break the race down to categories, so that overall people and age bracket people are separate.
Not have races mix where people going out for a fun ride and people full gas racing are mixing. I saw numerous impacts between 18/36 mile riders running into racers. They dont mix the citizens race in a crit with the pro field.
I think its popularity is due to a few things … but overall I think most people became fans of it (like I did) when there were MANY more waves. I think the first year I did it there were 27 waves split between the 62/36 distances. The last couple years there have been only 9 waves between the two races …
I believe they did this to make it much more of a “race” — under the old format you just raced in your wave, and looked at the time in the end to see where you placed. The downside to this was that the front group of one wave would ride into the slow riders in previous waves … and it wasn’t uncommon for the 3 sisters to be 25% - 40% blocked if you were on the front of a wave as you ran into earlier starters. And Sager was just a pile of matchsticks. The upside was, the waves were much, much smaller and overall felt way safer.
In 2021 the format forced you to choose if you were racing for an AG or the overall — this was my very favorite format. Felt super safe at the front and thin enough to get around earlier waves. I got to the front and was able to stay there.
Obviously I didn’t do it this year, but it was the same format as ‘22/‘23 — the ‘22 version was a shocking difference in pack size and intensity from ‘21 and I got to the line too late and never could get near the front … plus there were a noticeable amount of crashes in front that slowed me down. However the conditions were absurdly bad, and I just chalked up much of the chaos to that.
Last year in the ‘23 version I got to the line very early and started near the front … and was just swarmed in the first couple miles, got stuck in the middle and was crashed on a downhill about 7 miles in.
This year it sounds like it was more of the same and it’s headed in the wrong direction. My plan was to empty the tank to get to the 3 sisters in front-ish and see if I could recover and hang on. But … I’m going to be 50 this year, and I think I’m pretty fast for my age but I’m not super fast for all age groups. I’m fast enough to dream of an AG podium, but that would still likely put me somewhere in the 30-60th place range OA.
My whole point is, I think this event is popular because of past formats that put a premium on “fast if you want” and “fun as you want” … but now it’s polarized into “race” or “ride” … and I’m not sure that’s going to be for me for much longer. Gravel roads are not meant to be packed to the gills … and self-selected waves are creating a ton of bad judgment.
Another thing that just occurred to me … Matt Acker took this race over from the original organizers about ~5 years ago. The race was started by some locals who wanted to showcase their roads … Acker is a pro-ish racer and sponsored privateer. All the changes have been since he took over, I’m guess he skews towards that P1/2 perspective.
Last year when I did it - I lined up ~15 minutes early for wave 1 and was at the VERY back. My bad.
But trying to move up, I passed fat bikers, an elderly couple on a MTB tandem, dudes with adventure bikes wearing baggies and flannels and 20 lbs of bags on their bike. It was sooo bad. I have no idea why people like this race either. Other than the after party.
I have a lot of friends who ride/podium this class. I like what they did at melting man, they started them together (I actually did the fat bike class) with wave 5 (or the last wave) and it was some seriously good old fashion fat bike battle.
That being said the winning fatbike time was 1hr 42min which is IMO absolutely a wave 1 time. I would venture to say that top 10 fat riders were all wave 1 time qualified… but would be cool to see them battle it out on their own.
My fav gravel race in the state by far; love the race and all the courses. Rode the 100 this year, had a blast. I have no comment on the pointy end, because that isn’t me.
Same issue with Iceman. There are some fast riders who can’t handle a bike making it dangerous.
