The Michigan Mountain Mayhem Gravel Grinder is held each year on the first Saturday of October in Boyne City, Michigan. Boyne City is a lovely touristy ski town at the foot of Boyne Mountain. The website for the Gravel Grinder is quite dramatic and advertises this as “a race like nothing you can imagine”. The race winds through the sandy, dirt, and gravel roads surrounding Boyne City. I had done this race twice before, so I knew that there were two really tough climbs along the route. Mount Diablo is a 500 foot paved climb that ascends in just one mile, and Mount Bodawei is a cruel sandy, seemingly never ending climb that riders have to climb both directions. The photo below is from my Garmin, which documented the Mount Diablo climb. It looks quite impressive!
Boyne City is a five hour drive from Valparaiso, and Michigan is on Eastern time, which adds an hour to the trip. Marc and I didn’t want to attempt the drive at 3:00 in the morning, so we decided to take off of work Friday and enjoy the drive. It was a cloudy, overcast day when we left Valparaiso at noon, but it was unseasonably warm at about 70 degrees. The weather forecast for the weekend was lovely for Indiana, but it was predicted to start raining in Boyne City at 10:00 am (the race start!) and continue for about 3 hours. I was grateful that it was predicted to be 70 degrees, as temperatures in Boyne City are typically 40’s to 50’s this time of year. I decided I could handle warm rain.
We pulled into Boyne City at about 7:30 pm and headed directly to Rotary Park, where we were to pick up our race packets. I was mildly annoyed that the girl behind the counter at the park shelter immediately asked Marc his name and began looking for his number, but she looked at me and dismissively said, “You two are together?” I answered that yes, we were together, but I needed to pick up my race packet too. She said “Oh, sorry!” and asked for my name. She then handed me a map and my number as she pointed to some twist ties on the counter. I asked her where our jerseys were as we both had ordered race jerseys and I had ordered a set of bibs. She said “We don’t have any women’s jerseys” and “No one ordered any bibs”. I told her that I had ordered and paid for both and she said “Well do you have a receipt?” I pulled out my phone and began looking for an email receipt, hoping that I had not somehow deleted it. When I finally located the email she said “Well, we don’t have any bibs or women’s jerseys”. I asked her why then had I been allowed to both order and pay for them? She apologized and offered me a men’s size medium jersey that was extremely large. I asked her if she had a men’s small, and she said no, another woman had taken the last small. I then felt bad for the man who had ordered a size small and now wasn’t going to get his jersey. They did have a jersey for Marc, which looked pretty cool. I didn’t get a jersey or bibs, but I did get a refund.
After we got our race packets, we checked into the Boyne City Motel, a quaint mom and pop type of motel a few minutes walk from town. The very friendly man behind the counter talked in a southern drawl and was dressed in a flannel shirt and baseball cap. He said that he was from Bay City, and that his city’s claim to fame was the 70’s rock band The Bay City Rollers. He said that they were from Ireland, but they had gotten their name by spinning the globe and planting their finger where the globe stopped, which was Bay City, Michigan. He then said that his grandmother used to babysit for the pop diva Madonna’s grandmother, and that Madonna had spent a lot of time in Bay City as a child and that he was “pretty sure” he had run into her when he was growing up. He asked why we were in town, and I explained that we were there for a bike race. He said good luck just as two other guys with bikes loaded on their SUV walked in the door.
After we checked into the motel, we drove the short distance to town to look for something to eat. The downtown reminded me of Estes Park, Colorado. The entire downtown area only extended a few blocks and had some trendy looking shops with crafts and souvenirs. There was also an ice cream parlor, and a few places to eat, all of which were closed. It was 8:00 in the evening and the downtown was virtually shut down. We had found a burger place on-line that served veggie burgers that was supposed to be open until 10:00. It was closed. I was beginning to think we were going to have to find a grocery store, when we turned the corner and saw a very fancy looking bar called the Seven Monks Taproom. There were people sitting outside around a fire pit, and it looked like it would be a popular place during ski season. I thought it was just a bar, but Marc walked in and asked someone behind the counter if they served food. The person said yes, and then handed Marc a menu. They had several different kinds of veggie pizzas and French fries. Marc had been talking about carb loading all day, so he was pretty excited about the fries! We ended up having a very strange sweet potato pizza with brussel sprout leaves, a tomato basil pizza, and a basket of fries with the skins on. Marc’s desire to carb load had been fulfilled!
The next morning we woke up at 6:00 am to begin getting ready for the race. The race didn’t start until 10:00, but I needed to have coffee and wake up for a while before I could eat. I typically can’t eat any food for an hour or two after I wake up, and eating before the race was going to be important. I brought some iced coffee and vanilla soy milk in our cooler, and I drank that while eating a banana. At about 8:00 I tried to choke down an English muffin with peanut butter. It took me almost an hour to finish it. We then packed everything up and headed to the race start. It was almost 70 degrees, windy, and cloudy. I was hoping the weatherman was wrong and the rain would stay away! I had put a long sleeved shirt on under my jersey, because I was afraid if it poured I would get wet and cold. As soon as we got to the park, both Marc and I got on the bikes to ride around for a while to warm up. I quickly realized I needed to ditch the shirt and just go with the short sleeved jersey. I couldn’t believe how warm it was! I went to the bathroom and took off the undershirt, and shortly after I got back to the car it was time for the 60 mile racers to line up. I snapped a picture as the first wave got ready to roll.
Shortly after the 60 mile racers started, the announcer called out for last year’s winners to come up to the front of the 40 mile wave. Since I had finished in the top five last year (the picture at the beginning of this blog entry is me last year at the race start), I was one of the riders able to take the preferred lead position. There were no other women riders who came up with me, but there were four or five men. I went all the way to the left. I knew that since I was riding a fat bike it was highly unlikely that I was going to be able to hang on to the lead pack, but I wanted to be in a position so that I wasn’t trapped around other riders. Before the other riders in the wave came up to join us I quickly snapped a picture over my shoulder.
Soon, it was time for the countdown to begin. The lady at the start tent had chosen Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” as the countdown song. I turned to my left and told her thank you because the song was perfect. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1…we were off. I immediately saw riders fly past me as we headed through the grass to a brief narrow path through the woods and onto the street. When we hit the pavement I stood up and pedaled as hard as I could in the highest gear, trying to catch anyone’s wheel. I was riding my Sarma Shaman fat bike with 4″ Jumbo Jim tires, and I was competing against a sea of cross bikes with 32 mm tires. There was no way I could get my speed above 20-21 mph to catch anyone around me. I almost immediately regretted riding the fat bike instead of my gravel bike. What was I thinking?
It had begun drizzling as soon as we started, and the drizzle quickly turned into a steady rain. The wind swirled around me as I struggled to catch a group and stay with them. All too soon, I found myself alone. The first 10 miles or so seemed flat and fast, but I was no match for the gravel bikes and cross bikes. After about 10 miles, I saw the sign for Mount Bodawei and I noticed a bunch of riders struggling up the hill. Mount Bodawei is a very strange hill. It doesn’t look like much of a hill, but the steady incline through the sand and mud is grueling. It was so much harder than it looked, and so much harder on the fat bike! I felt like I was treading sand uphill with monster tires that hugged every inch of the road. I looked down at my speed and saw that I was climbing at 8 mph. The only thing that kept me going was the tent at the top of the hill where volunteers would be giving out cups of water. I kept my eyes focused on the tent, as I noticed one rider dismounting and walking the last few feet to the top. This was the only rider I would see walking all day. The people who come out for this race are typically hardcore Michigan dirt riders, and they don’t walk! I wondered if he might have had some mechanical issue. I kept my head down and kept pedaling.
Soon I was happily flying down the other side of Mount Bodawei. I knew that there were only two really hard climbs left, Mount Diablo, then Mount Bodawei from the other side on the way back. After I came down the other side of the climb, I noticed a group of riders ahead of me that I had somehow managed to catch up with. The rain had kept coming, and the roads felt like they were turning into quicksand. The sand and mud were so deep in spots that riders were slipping and siding, and my fat bike definitely had an advantage over the skinny tires.
About five miles after Mount Bodawei the Mount Diablo climb began. Mount Diablo is a paved climb on the way up, and you turn onto a gravel road for the way down. It ascends about 500 feet in one mile. I found myself almost smiling while I was riding up this hill because the pavement made it seem so easy! I settled into one gear, kept my head down, and kept spinning. At the top of the hill, the pavement turned to the right onto gravel.
I’ve ridden this course twice before, and I don’t remember the descent down Mount Diablo being so terrifying. My bike kept picking up speed as mud flung into my face, glasses, and hair. My glasses became completely covered and I couldn’t see. I had to push them down on my nose as my bike kept picking up speed and sliding in the thick mud and sand. It was difficult even for a fat bike to stay upright in this mess. The nonstop rain and mud felt like it was soaking into my soul. I had been going back and forth with a younger girl on a cross bike for the last 10 miles or so, and I lost her on this descent. I passed her and never saw her again.
Once the course leveled out, I was torn on what to do with my glasses. I finally took them off and tucked them in my jersey. Immediately I thought it was a mistake because mud was now flinging into my eyes and contact lenses. I squinted to protect my eyes. I looked at the mud puddles around me and briefly thought of rinsing my glasses in a puddle. Luckily, just as I was thinking about what I should do, I came across another SAG stop where volunteers were holding out water. I grabbed a cup and briefly stopped and poured them on my glasses. The girls saw what I was doing and offered another cup of water to wash the inside of my glasses. Once they were cleaned off I wiped them with a rag I had in my jersey pocket and took off. It was at this stop that I noticed a group of guys who all had on “Turtles” jerseys. The pockets said “Leave no turtle behind”. It wasn’t lost on me that I was riding a fat bike with a bunch of turtles!
For the rest of the race, I decided to focus on the rider in front of me and pass him, then pick out another rider and pass him. I passed the Turtles guys off and on for the rest of the race, and I passed several guys on mountain bikes who never caught back up.
My Garmin was completely covered in mud and I didn’t wipe it off, because I didn’t want to know how much farther I had to go. Finally, I relented and wiped if off. When I saw that I had only gone 25 miles, I decided to not wipe it off again! I also noticed as I looked around at other riders that I was far more soaked in mud than they were. My bike’s 4 inch tires were kicking up clods of mud and sand that literally covered every inch of me. I thought about how challenging it was going to be to clean up before heading home, as there were no showers at the park.
I estimated that I had gone about 5 miles since I cleaned off my Garmin, when I had the terrible urge to pee. Soon, this was all I could think of. The washboard roads weren’t making it any easier to stop obsessing about how much I had to go! It was just a few miles later that I spotted a gray Porta-Potty sitting at the side of the road. There it was, just sitting there! It wasn’t in a farmer’s field, it wasn’t in anyone’s yard, and there wasn’t a construction zone anywhere close. I wondered if it had been put there for the racers? For a brief moment I actually thought of stopping and using it, when I snapped out of it and told myself I just needed to ride as fast as I could to finish the race. I then started to look around at the scenery to take my mind off my potty troubles, and I was just taken aback by how beautiful this part of Michigan is. The course wound through some really beautiful forests, and one forest was so green and mossy it almost looked like a painting, complete with a quaint little cabin. I told myself I would love to come back sometime and enjoy the scenery, rather than racing through it.
The steady rain had settled into just a slight drizzle by the time we passed the intersection where volunteers were holding up “3” signs, meaning there were just 3 miles to go. My urge to pee had been replaced by my excitement at getting close to the finish line. Meanwhile, my disc brakes had been making terrible grating noises because of the sand and grit trapped in them, and I found myself wishing it would start pouring to clean everything off before I headed in the park. Instead, the rain came to a halt as I turned into the park towards the finish line.
The announcer called out each racer’s name as they crossed the finish line. I had finished 11th woman overall, and I was the 1st (and only!) female fat bike. I had slight regrets about not racing my gravel bike, but I was also pretty happy about my finish against all those skinny tires. Marc finished 2nd in the male fat bike division. Luckily there were hoses in the park where we were able to hose our bikes (and us!) off before heading home.
No, it ain’t pretty!
Dirty shoes…
Yes, This is my Camelbak!
Marc’s podium shot.
