I hadn't been on my cross bike sine the State Championship race in December, and it was looking kind of lonely. So once I realized I would be in town this past weekend I decided to put myself through 90 miles of Denton and Wise county’s finest gravel for The Spinistry's Texas Chainring Massacre. The event had already been sold out, but I was able to get a transfer from a teammate, so I was in.
There were some big names signed up already, Russ “Big Daddy” Walker, Tom Brandish, Ben Spies and his teammate Simon Essl were also signed up. Eventually Bryan Fawley, and Chris Powers got spots from people who backed out so we were gonna have a pretty good group of strong riders.
Mike Bohn and I previewed the course on Thursday evening, even though it was night, we got a good feel for what the course was going to be like. Lots of undulating hills, and plenty of gravel, some sections had gum ball to golf ball sized gravel, so I was certain the course could not be completed on a standard road bike. We made it out of the pre ride without incident, and were feeling pretty good about the upcoming Sunday.
Sunday morning came and after a slight comedy of errors we were out of the house and headed north. The temperature was in the high 30’s for the start, and didnt get too much warmer all day. Most folks were bundled up with all the clothing they had. I went with a vest, and knee & arm warmers, as I didn't want to overheat once we got going. I did however go with a liner in my gloves as cold hands will quickly make a ride quite miserable.
We rolled out at 9:00 sharp, and I led the way across Hwy 35, I knew there were a few corners relatively soon and didn't want to be caught up in the group going through them. It wasn’t long before “Big Daddy” was on my hip ready to go. I was messing with my computer for a bit, and he went up the road a few hundred yards. Bryan, Tom, myself and a few others were ok with letting him dangle there for a few minutes, but not too long. Once we hit the gravel, and the cross wind, and we were all back together, Russ moved to the left side of the road and put everyone in the gutter. Russ and Bryan and two others got a gap, including my teammate Mike Steeves, and I looked around and realized it was up to me get up there.
We rotated a few times, and then I looked behind me and it was just Russ and I. We rolled away and no one really wanted to give a major chase just yet, as we were only 6 miles into the race. We strolled through a few miles of smooth asphalt and hit the real start of the gravel and were still alone. At the feed zone, at mile 27, we would have 4 minutes on the group. We didn’t know this but kept plugging away, taking turns and keeping a good pace. We were having good luck so far, getting through the water crossings without incident (Russ had 80mm deep dish wheels), and no flats.
The wind was out of the north so the first “half” of the race was into a headwind. We would keep an eye on who was behind us, and as we entered Muenster Russ could see Bryan Fawley and Tom Brandish about two miles back. So once we made the right turn to head back south and worked our way out of town, we knew we had to hit it. Russ was on his road bike with 27mm Roubaix tires, and a 53x11, so I tucked into his draft and tried my hardest to keep up with him as I had cross tires which provided a much higher resistance than his smooth road tires, and cross gearing(46x11 was my biggest gear). This went on for about the next 20 miles, we would take turns at the front, but I was already tired from pushing just to keep his wheel.
Just one of the early hills.
The hills seemed to be worse on the way back in once we had passed the feed zone again after mile 71. It may have been the exhaustion setting in, but Russ would gap me on every hill, and it took me longer and longer to get back each time. The final big hill gps at mile 78 is what did it too me. I finally cracked and had no motivation to get back on Russ’s wheel. We would finish solo from here, I sat up for a minute, had a Honey Stinger Waffle, and some water and felt a little bit reenergized. At this point I didn’t know how far back Fawley and Brandish were. I thought maybe 5-10 minutes possibly. Little did I know that they had some tire pressure issues and would finish almost 30 minutes behind me.
Now the goal was to finish the last 10 miles without getting caught, as Russ was no longer in view, and I knew I wouldn't catch him. The good news was the remaining miles were a gradual downhill back into town, not without some rollers of course though. At point I was catching a few of the last stragglers that were doing the short course, which was slightly motivating, and kept giving me a carrot to chase.
I finished the 89 mile route second in 4 hours and 36 minutes, 6 minutes behind Russ. This was definitely a tough route, with some very well linked together roads that kept you on gravel probably for 80% of the route. This was good training for some of the races I have coming up in Late February and Early March. I may add some of the roads into my regular training route rotation when it gets a little bit warmer.
