Bosque Bone Shaker 70, Albuqurque, NM

 

Cold open.

It's been awhile.......   Yeah I know.  Life rips, but also sometimes rips us apart.  Some things take time to resolve and sometimes it takes us awhile to get our passion back.   The upside is when we rebuild we get to choose what we are now made of and can pick and choose what makes sense to keep.

Anyway, enough philosophy.  I did something new.  I entered a gravel grinder event in another state.  So I guess I lied since I did 2 new things,  as I haven't done any out of state bicycle events either.   Those of you who know me from my randonneuring days remember my dirty permanents so the fact I tried a gravel grinder should be no surprise.  I guess the fact it took this long should though.

But WHERE do they make balloons?

I often was envious of the folks that would show up to brevets with camper vans who didn't need to struggle against continued exhaustion to drive home to their bed to sleep off the effort.  I liked the idea of the freedom of packing up the bike and riding events anywhere within a day or two's drive.  Now, I am not retired yet, but I have constructed a micro camper out of my old harbor freight utility trailer for just this purpose.  It turns out KOA's may cost a bit more than many campsites but most have pools and I am a huge fan of post ride swims.  A huge fan.  I am writing this inside it(the campler) the evening after the ride.  Anyway, I digress.

The start line.  It was mid forties which is colder than I am used to, so I sat in my car until the sun came up.  I suppose this is the appropriate time to introduce "Feral".  You all know the "Coy Mistress" AKA 2008 Cannondale Carbon Synapse.  "Feral" is my gravel bike.  A State Bicycle All Road (chro moly of course).  I've put several thousand miles on Feral,  but today was the first "Official" miles.  As Feral went to the start line, and I found a nice spot of deliciously warm sun, hot air balloons float overhead.  They told the 70 milers to line up at front but I should have stayed at the back.  

It turns out the eager young riders at the front tended to ride past turns, and it was after they dropped me after a few of those that I discovered my bike computer was telling me I was off course,  as it would for most of the day.  It turns out courses like this that cross over themselves frequently confuse some computers and mine was one.  The route was on ride with gps but I discovered I couldn't use that for navigation without a monthly paying membership.  Not wanting to have multiple subscriptions between Strava and "MY GPS" I decide to just tough it out and consult the phone when in doubt.  This would cost me a lot of time and energy as course markers were missing (or I missed them) later on in the ride.  Some critical.

Starting out the ride follows dirt roads through very nice tree groves and canals.  Many had changing leaves,  which is something that doesn't happen much in Mesa, AZ.  I had a course marshall on a shorter distance give me some bad intel, which I recognized from my study of the route the night before so I just kept on.  The end of the nice flat jumping from forest to forest ends with a monster of a hill.  It basically climbs 2000+ feet with a short downhill near the top,  with the last climbing on singletrack with periodic technical sections (technical for a gravel bike that is) that made me glad I did the big 650b size wheels/tires instead of the narrower 700c wheels.

I have lost a lot of weight recently but I am still a clydesdale barely.  So I kept it a little slower than I might have been able to as I hadn't done one of these before and I was not a native to the route.  Energy = skill in technical sections and exhaustion means walking as I saw a few folks do (I think they were 50 milers as I never saw them again).  Once we topped out there was a nice flowy trail which traversed south across the mountain face.  The only annoying thing was it was not a closed trail and there were a LOT of users on it today.  One more annoying thing,  there was a missing arrow at the critical turn and I shot into some pretty technical trail and was fairly far down it before a nice couple called after me when I was a mile down the trail after I passed them to tell me my mistake.  Thank you strangers!

So, I got some extra climbing and Bosque Bone Grinding in before I found my way into a lonely rest area.  I restocked and got moving,  time was running short and I was only 32 miles into the ride!  Darn ride with 98% of the climbing in the first third.   I hear your mental gears working,  Ah!  but there must be a downhill now right?  Well, unlike road, dirt descending isn't as fast,  and of course when you are constantly in doubt of missing turns because the course markers got a lot more scarce,  it slows things down a lot.   And then of course,  you get off the dirt for awhile, but it's now later in the day so every road you cross requires waiting for breaks in traffic.

So, descending was better than climbing but still no picnic due to constantly having to get back up to speed.   This is something the fast guys don't have to deal with as they beat the busy time of morning.  Sometimes I think there is a lot more thought giving to doing things for the fast riders and just leaving the slow riders to the wolves.  The rest stops were well stocked and there were lots of them though, so this was about halfway between DIY Brevet and tour de Tucson level of support.  The signage did get better though down the hill further, although I did overshoot another time and had to walk through a side alley sea of broken glass carrying my bike while two guys under a stairway watched me pass.

Back in the river bottom things kind of got sloggy for awhile.  I had a bad attitude and just kept plugging along.  It was also where I decided that due to the extra miles I got,  whereever I was at 59 miles after I passed the turn back to the start line I would turn around and head back figuring I would have my 70 miles anyway and people seemed to be pretty casual about the course.  Mile 59 was right after I passed some graffiti on the side of the urban flood-way about someones favorite piece of female anatomy.  Combine this with 2 other riders ahead coming back that said the loop ahead was full of goatheads, and I was gave in.  I did ride the single track alongside the Rio Grande on the way back though which I don't think the other two did.  It was beautiful trail,  I was just tired, and there were a ton of people hiking amidst the narrow passages in the vegetation.  One lady thanked me for ringing my bell. Bell? What bell?  Oh, She meant my squeaky brakes.

I was afraid they would have everything put away when I got back as technically the course was closed before 3 I think.   Fortunately,  the finish line was still up and they still were handing out medals and bananas and water and stuff.  Chatted for a bit with the support people.  I didn't see anyone else come in but as I got back to the car the finish like blow up structure blew over and they just put it away instead of righting it.  So I guess I was lantern rouge.  I think this Gravel Grinding stuff more follows the Triathlon racer culture as opposed to the brevet just finish it culture,  despite what they say for the lawyers at the start line.  Anyway, found myself wearing the tights all day since it was coolish but all in all a rather nice day in the saddle.  Another training ride for Tour de Tucson in the bag,  even if this probably was on par with the effort and time it takes to finish El Tour.

I have now done an out of state event, AND a Gravel Grinder.  I'll try not to wait as long for my next ride report next time.