Uncle John’s Dirty Ride is a race across the flat and fast dirt roads of Gratiot County, Michigan. The race begins and ends at Uncle John’s Cider Mill in St. John’s, Michigan and traverses through the wooded Saginaw/Gratiot Game area.
The mill has a bit of a history. John Beck and his wife Carolyn bought the family farm from John’s parents in the early 1970’s. It was originally run as a wholesale fruit and vegetable farm, but John and his wife soon found that this was not very profitable. They had to find an innovative way to keep the farm going, so they began selling apple cider and donuts in addition to the fruits and vegetables. Soon, the barns were transformed into a gift shop, snack barn, and cider/winery. Weekend entertainers were brought in for festival type events, and the cider mill became a sensation.
The mill is a big deal for a small town with a population of about 7,500. This small town is located in the center, southern half of the state of Michigan. It is about 3 hours and 15 minutes from our house in Indiana. With the hour time zone difference, this meant that we would have to leave our house at about 5:00 am to make the race start at 10:00 am.
The ride to St. John’s was thankfully uneventful. Fall was in the air, and as we headed north the temperature was steadily dropping. It looked like we would be in for cloudy skies and 50 degree weather for most of the day. I noticed that this area of Michigan wasn’t as pretty and hilly as northern Michigan. It didn’t look much different from the flatlands of northern Indiana.
When we arrived at the mill, we noticed the small parking area was jammed packed with not only riders, but also with families taking their kids to the apple orchard to pick apples, to eat, or to play on the playground. We parked and went to a pole barn where registration appeared to be. I was handed a number, and I heard the woman talking to a man a few steps away who had asked about registering. The event had indicated that there was registration the day of the race, however, the woman told the man she had run out of race numbers. She apologized and told him he could just ride the course for free. I was thankful we had registered a few weeks before, as I can’t imagine how upset I would be about not being able to race after traveling over 3 hours and getting up at 4:00 am.
Once we picked up the race numbers, we didn’t have much time to warm up. There was really no place to warm up except for the grassy area around the parking lot anyway, unless we wanted to ride down the hilly entrance to the mill to the highway. We lined up in the grass under a banner that said “Uncle John’s Dirty Ride”.
This was to be a neutral roll-out, up a slight grassy hill, and over to a gravel road where a pace car would lead riders to another road. Soon the announcer said “Go!” I always hate starts on the grass because getting clipped in and moving around other riders is so difficult. Before we even hit the gravel I knew I was already at a disadvantage. The pace car was NOT going a neutral pace, but was traveling well over 20 mph. We got separated from the lead group that was behind the car almost immediately. Marc was there to pull for me as he didn’t really want to race, and he kept telling me to try and stay on his wheel.
The gravel roads were hard-packed, fast, and very flat. I thought I should’ve easily been able to maintain an average speed of 20 mph with Marc pulling for me, but it wasn’t to be. It was one of those days where my brain was definitely not communicating with my legs, and I just had no energy. Our friend Austin had gotten married the night before, and we had been up late. That, in addition to getting up at 4:00 am may have had something to do with my total lack of energy. The race was very short, only 22 miles, and we managed to end with an average speed of 18 mph. Because it was such a short distance, I remember very little about the race (it was flat and there was nothing to look at except cornfields!) and it all passed by in a blur. I do remember one racer unclipping his shoe from his bike pedal and putting his foot down as he turned a corner, and I remember thinking that if he was too scared to be clipped in around corners he shouldn’t be here! Luckily, we passed him quickly. It’s never good to be behind inexperienced gravel riders. Sometimes fast road bike guys do gravel races and they are a bit out of their element. If they hesitate, do something stupid, or go down, they can cause you to crash.
The last mile of the race had us turning off the road and following a grassy path back up the hill to the cider mill. I ended up in 6th place overall woman, which was frustrating, as the top 5 shared the podium and prize money of several hundred dollars. There were no age groups, so I took some comfort in knowing that the women in the top 5 were between 6 and 28 years younger than me!
After the race, we went to a tent where they were giving the racers a free lunch (vegetarian dirty rice) and free hard cider. I took one drink and decided it tasted like the sourest apple Jolly Rancher that I had ever had, and it also tasted like it must have had a cup of sugar in it! I quickly gave it to Marc. We didn’t have any friends doing this race, so we ate and quickly left. It wasn’t the most fun I’ve had, and it definitely wasn’t my best day on the bike, but I did earn 485 points out of 500 for the race series, which was my highest score to date. And even though I think I could’ve done better, 18 mph was my fastest gravel race average ever!
