Welcome to our new segment - Race Reports, A Year in Review - written by our tallest apprentice, Linus Owens! Over the next few weeks, we will regularly post a new story, a look back to Linus’s races from the 2021 season. We will include photos where we have them.
We welcome community contribution! If you have a race report, ride story, or photos you would like to share with us, we would love to post here on our blog and share it with our mailing list.
A look back on a year returning to racing and the privilege
that comes with sharing in the passion of bikes
SBT GRVL
aka
SteamBoaT GRaVeL
My next race would take me out west to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Joining me for this trip was my wonderful partner, and fellow team member, Sarah. We drove out to Colorado and she was amazing in supporting me, and even better, supporting the race. She volunteered to work at the aid stations. Handing out snacks and water at aid stations at mile 70 and 93/117 (the course looped back), she got a chance to see some funny stuff as riders got dirtier and more haggard throughout the day. An amazing perspective on the race.
This would be the next stop on my Revenge Tour after Dirty Kitten. I came out to the picturesque mountain town of Steamboat Springs, CO, in 2019. Back then, SBT GRVL took one hundred and forty miles of beautiful Colorado roads, gorgeous mountain views and whooped me until I felt like roadkill in the high mountain sun. That day started great. I felt strong for the first half, but changed as the heat of the sun began to bake my brains. And I wasn’t the only one. I’ll never forget, as I sat for almost two hours at the aid station at mile ninety-three, another rider cooked from the dust and sun, eyes bugged out, cried, “This isn’t what I signed up for.” The day could be summarized by my dad’s favorite quote from Bridge On The River Kwai, “Madness… madness.”
Though, it didn’t completely defeat me. I finished the one hundred and forty mile race in just under twelve hours, about twenty-fifth to last out of over four hundred. Just after the finish line, I curled into a ball of cramping misery. Every, and I mean every, muscle in my body seized up. My chin cramped. My chin! When I talk about hard lessons, that was a day that taught me things the hard way. Returning in 2021, I would see just how much actually stuck with me. That first year, I thought I could do it in ten hours. With far more training under my belt for 2021, I set the goal of under nine hours.
Eight hundred riders lined up for the 6:30am roll out from downtown Steamboat Springs. They had a pace car lead us out of town to the first dirt, but the sheer mass of riders made it a bit anxious. I certainly had my nerves making me a little jumpy, but as always, it was a long day ahead of us all. At the first big hill, I found myself in a bit of a traffic jam. I had to squirrel my way through a couple small gaps, but got into my first good climbing pace of the day and moved up the field. As the fast sections came, I had a chance to play like a real bike racer. Groups of riders had been spread out on the road, and I was leapfrogging from one to another. A couple times the group felt too slow, so I’d take a dig to catch the next one. I was running a bit hot, but these fast miles in the beginning of the day would pay off later.
The organizers say that the roads out there have "Champagne Gravel." I don’t quite know what that means. I found little “champ” but lots of “pagne.” The dirt surfaces were on the good side, especially compared to some of the pothole nightmare stuff in the Appalachians. The East Coast is the Beast Coast, if you didn’t know. Also, the roads out west were not made from old donkey paths from the 1600's, so they are graded well and rarely pitch up too steep. Though, there were a fair bit of washboard sections throughout the day. For those unfamiliar, it’s a feature caused by erosion that makes small ridges in the road surface. It’s like rumble strips on the highway. As annoying and exhausting as it is to get rattled by washboard going fast downhill, I found them most bothersome when trying to crawl uphill and get slowly bounced out of my saddle.
They added a new two mile section on a mostly grass road that I found rather crummy, but manageable. I get to say I passed one pro racer on the day, though not the way I would have hoped. I saw this guy ahead of me in an Alpecin-Fenix jersey riding with one hand while his other hand was over his face. I learned later he was Eddie Anderson. I figured he was eating. However as I caught him, I saw he was holding a rag to his quite bloody face. Unfortunately in a crash, he hit the barbed wire fence along the path and had to pull out of the race to get his face stitched up. Good news, I saw him at the start of Belgian Waffle Ride a week later. Kid is made of the tough stuff.
Around thirty miles in, the course rises up to 8,000 feet around Steamboat Lake for some rolling roads and gorgeous views. The best part of the day came once we dropped down from there. We got back on the pavement for a two and a half mile long, straight, smooth descent. With barely a curve in the road, we all just tucked in and fell out of the sky, pushing forty-five miles per hour without even pedaling. At six foot four and 190 pounds, my heavy butt went sailing past rider after rider, until I glanced back to see an armada of at least a dozen riders tucked in behind my wheel. Leading that pack down the mountain, being the tip of the spear, is easily one of the most awesome moments I have ever experienced on a bike.
I say the roads were mostly good, but just past the midpoint, we hit the part I remembered (correctly) as the worst piece of road on the day. The road rolls up the driest road in North America. Getting to the ninety-three mile aid station, the dirt gets dry, sandy, and deep. It felt sketchy on the corners for sure, but the worst, any time that my tires hit the sandy stuff I could feel my momentum being drained. This was a section where all you can do is pedal and dream of the better, more fun bits of road up ahead.
In 2019, I hit the mile ninety-three stop nearing death and spent far too much time just trying to recover. This year, I was hurting, but things were far more under my control. Also, getting to see Sarah was definitely a big mood boost. She said when the front of the race came through, things went absolutely bananas. Riders shoving past each other for the water. Most were fine, but some testy riders were showing some sour attitude about the line to wait for water and snacks. Most of the folks around me there just stared with disgust at our bikes. We all had some version of the same thought in our heads, “I just rode ninety-three miles and I’m still going to ride how far from here?!”
Our longest climb waited just up the road. The road loops out to the highest point on the day, about 8,450 feet, over an eight mile climb. Firmly into the second half of the race and well on my way to madness, I set myself to find my own pace and just get to the finish. Things got a little less entertaining as the pains began. Soreness, the faintest tingling of cramps, foot pain. However, the worst part about the longest climb of the day was that it was not the last climb of the day. I looped back to the aid station and got to see Sarah once more. Then the deja vu hit me, “I just rode one-hundred-seventeen miles and I’m still going to ride how far from here?!” And back on the bike it was.
I could feel the end was near, in one way or another. It can be tricky to remember eating at this point when it feels like it’s going to be over soon, but I stayed in snack mode. At this point I had been doing the finish time math in my head all day, but the numbers were starting to become clearer. My goal was to finish in under nine hours and, much like my cramping chin from 2019, it would be tight. The final big climb was a comical train of misery. Dozens of riders spread out across this super steep, yet thankfully paved, road. I was passing a few, but took little victory in it. My greatest sense of accomplishment on the day might just have been that I stayed on my bike the whole time. In 2019, I ended up walking this climb and many other miserable parts, but this time, I kept my feet on the pedals.
At the top, they had a photo op set up where you could get your picture taken in a ski lift chair. A bunch of gravel races do weird end race photo stuff like this. It’s cute and all, but not one for me that day. As much as I needed a good sit down, I had to stave off that desire for some miles more.
At this point, I couldn’t tell if every part of my body was in agonizing pain, or if it was actually more than my whole body. I think my brain was inventing new ways to feel pain, just screaming at me and my dumb hobby, “STOP AND EAT A PIZZA.” The last dirt section though, this one was *chef’s kiss*. Feeling as ragged and ripped to pieces as I ever have, the final taste of dirt on the day was refreshing. A long false flat downhill. It didn’t look downhill, but I could feel something pulling my onward, maybe gravity, maybe glory, maybe madness. It was a bumpy, rocky, rutted, rattling road, and I flew over it like an eagle on the wind.
We got spat back onto pavement with five miles to go, and looked at the time until nine hours. The window was closing, but not so fast I had lost hope. Then the weather changed. Not too much for me as it did for other parts of the course. I felt about three rain drops while nearby they got a torrential downpour. Though, we did get the wind. Waiting for us at the end of this one-hundred-forty mile day of dirt and dust, was an ungodly headwind that seemed determined to tell us never to do this stupid stuff again. Then, the cramps found their way through as well. I tried some truly pathetic drafting with other riders, but could barely find the energy to hold a wheel. That last part dragged on forever, and my eye could not leave the clock. I snagged on with three others in the last couple miles and even gave a pull back for them. We rounded the final few bends, and with the finish line in sight, I sat up and thought I’d let the others take it from here. Then, I heard the crowd.
Downton Steamboat was packed. Folks were hootin’ and hollerin’, cheering us tired souls onward, but above it all, I heard a girl shout. Her voice, full of fire and might, called to me, commanded me. “SPRINT IT OUT!” she shouted. My body, withered and wasted, listened. I think I was just having too much fun. I stood up on the pedals and absolutely cranked it, smashed it, just juiced that final few hundred feet. I sprinted past a few of my beleaguered racemates and tore over the finish line. Then, as in the past, I collapsed into a puddle of cramping misery. Yet this time, I collapsed back where it all began after eight hours and fifty-seven minutes.
I cannot overstate my appreciation to Sarah and all the volunteers at this race and every other. The folks at the aid stations make this ridiculous hobby possible, and getting to see her smiling face a few times throughout the day definitely helped me keep my legs moving.
Best regards,
Linus
