The Barry-Roubaix killer gravel road race in Hastings, Michigan is said to be the largest gravel road race in the world. It runs through Barry County, where most of the roads are rolling dirt and gravel. It was scheduled for March 28th and the weather forecast for weeks prior to the race was predicted to be 40 to 45 degrees and sunny. After riding in the snow all winter I was excited about the prospect of a race in temperatures above freezing! However, since I am primarily a road bike girl and had never raced a mountain bike before, I had no idea what kind of performance I could expect from a mountain bike up hills in dirt and gravel. I looked at the winning times from the previous years and couldn’t believe the speeds. I really had no idea if I was going to kill myself and be able to pull out a 12 mph average, or if I could expect something closer to a road bike average. I was about to venture into completely unknown territory.
The day before the race, temperatures in Indiana plummeted into the teens and 20’s. I went out to make final adjustments to my bike and ended up in a mini lake-effect blizzard! The temperature for race day was now predicted to be 20 degrees at the race start. Now I was wondering not only how I would perform on gravel hills, but I was also worried about how my legs would work in the cold. It’s also a problem for me doing sprints in the winter because I can’t breathe through a mask, and super cold air hitting my lungs when I am going all-out will send me into a coughing fit. The ante had just been upped!
On race day we got up at 4:00 am to get ready so we could be out the door by 4:45. The hour time difference, added to the 2 1/2 hour drive to Hastings, made the morning pretty stressful. We managed to pull out of the driveway before 5:00 am. It was 14 degrees when we set out, and we nervously watched the temperature to see how quickly it was rising. Unfortunately, the weather man was spot on. It was about 19 degrees when we pulled into the Hastings Ace Hardware where we were to pick up our packets. The line at Ace Hardware winded out the door and into the parking lot, where we jumped up and down in place to stay warm. Once we were inside we got our racing numbers for our bikes, and a bag of various goodies from sponsors. My racing number was 3384. I took this as a good omen. 33 for basketball superstar Larry Bird’s ISU jersey number, and 84 for the year I graduated from ISU! As we were leaving Ace Hardware I had to go to the bathroom and noticed a long line for the men’s bathroom and no waiting at all for the women’s. This would never, ever happen at any other event other than cycling, where men out-number women 10 to 1. I told Marc that this was the highlight of the day so far.
After we picked up our packets, we drove through the town to try and find parking. We ended up parking in a school parking lot, and changed in the car to our racing gear. It was so cold and I really had no idea how I should dress. I knew I would be freezing while waiting for my wave to start, but I didn’t want to be overdressed. By then it was only about 20 minutes until the race start. I knew I had to warm up, so I headed towards the race starting line, where riders were doing sprints up and down the street parallel to the course. Fire trucks had blocked off the street for a two block stretch of road for this very purpose. After making a couple of trips up and down the road and then sprinting for a few minutes, I knew immediately the face mask had to come off. I was also second guessing my decision to wear goggles instead of glasses, but I had left my glasses at the car. I also knew that the fleece I had put under my jacket was a mistake, but there was nothing I could do at this point. I then headed to the wave start, with only about four minutes to spare. I snapped one picture while waiting, then put my phone back in my pocket. At some point I also turned on my Garmin, realized my mistake, then turned it off.
All of the girls were assigned to the last wave, wave 17. Because I was trying to warm up, I ended up near the back of the wave. I made the conscious decision at that point to stay all the way to the left, because I figured it would be easier to pass people. Once the wave started, I took off as fast as I could. I quickly began passing lots of riders and rode quickly to the front of the wave. The decision to stay left was a really good one, because I had no trouble getting around riders. I had my sights on the girls at the front of the wave and tried to catch up with them. There were a handful of girls that sprinted ahead and quickly became unreachable. There were three of four girls who stayed with me for most of the race. After about a mile, I looked behind me and saw that most of the riders in my wave had fallen pretty far behind.
After about three miles into the race, I realized my Garmin wasn’t on, so I turned it back on. Since I had turned it on, then off, I knew my average speed was going to be calculated from the time it first got turned on, so I knew I couldn’t count on it to tell me my overall average speed. I then looked up and noticed that we had quickly caught up with the wave of men in front of us. There was a traffic jam on the first hill, and I stayed left to pass riders. It was exhilarating passing the men, many of them on faster CX bikes! On my first downhill, I also passed most of the riders on the hill with me. My Trek Top Fuel could go as fast at 30 on the downhills, and it ate up the gravel. There was no slipping and sliding, and I felt totally confident. I continued to be amazed at the number of riders I kept passing, as I continued to catch up with different waves. After about 5 miles, I noticed that I started passing riders on fat bikes, which had started in the wave 10 minutes before me.
After 10 miles and about 700 feet of climbing, I began to get really worried about my energy level. I couldn’t get my ShotBloks out of my back pocket with my big heavy gloves on, and there was no way I was going to stop. I was worried I was going to bonk, especially since I knew the climbing wasn’t even half over. As I was trying to decide what I should do, I noticed a woman standing at the side of the road handing out gels! I grabbed a gel as fast as I could. It was strawberry-kiwi and it burned as I gagged it down. I’m not a fan of gels, but I do admit they are miracle energy. By the time I got to the hill where someone was holding up a sign that said “Killer” I was zooming. Killer was a slow steady incline that turned to the left and kept going up. I had no problems spinning up this hill. I looked at my Garmin and saw the elevation and figured “Killer” must have been the last big hill.
By this time, my goggles had completely fogged up and I had them dangling around my neck. The cold air and dust was hard on my eyes, but I had no choice if I wanted to be able to see. It hadn’t rained and the gravel roads were very dusty. At times on the downhills there were dust clouds so bad that I was afraid it would send me into a coughing fit, so I kept covering my mouth with my buff. I was also worried because the cold air was quite painful on the lungs. All around me I noticed riders coughing and spitting out dust.
Since I had forgot to turn on my Garmin I was wondering how much farther I had to go, when I saw a sign that said “3 miles to go!”. Shortly after this sign, we turned onto smooth pavement for the final sprint to the finish line. The road was hilly and smooth, and I noticed immediately a pretty bad headwind. I was actually grateful for the headwind, because I was in my element! Where I live in Indiana, brutal winds coming across miles of farmland is what I ride in every day! I quickly began passing struggling riders as I looked for a fast rider to latch onto and draft behind. Unfortunately, there was no one riding near me that I was able to do that with. As I crested the last hill I noticed the 3 girls that had been riding close to me throughout the race. I came into town sprinting as fast as I could and caught up to them as we all four passed the finish line within less than a second of each other.
While I was riding, I thought that it felt 50 degrees outside. I had become so overheated that I had unzipped my jacket halfway so my underlayers could breathe. However, once I stopped I immediately started freezing because I was so wet, and it was only 25 degrees! I moved throughout the crowd, trying to stay warm, and trying to catch Marc as he came across the finish line. Unfortunately, there were so many people along the finish line route, I gave up trying to get a picture of the riders.
After the race, we were able to check results online, where I saw that I finished 12th out of 71 riders in my age division. My average speed was 15.3 mph, which is something I could have never anticipated. I was extremely pleased with my performance. After the race was over, we met up with friends in the beer garden where no one seemed to mind how cold it was!
Race results are posted at: http://www.newtontiming.com/results/15/brx/24.html
