April 18th

This April I essentially kicked off my season like I have done now for the past 2 years with Barry Roubaix, a gravel race near Kalamazoo Michigan. Its name is a combination of Barry county (where the race is held) and the infamous Paris Roubaix bike race that takes place around the same time of year in France. The Michigan version draws about 6,000 people into the small town of Hastings and is a 2-3 day party rain, snow, sleet, or the occasional sunshine. The race provides distances from 18-100 miles and routes suited to challenge all abilities. The 62 mile distance is really the main event.

The past two years we’ve had pretty good conditions, this year we did not. It was about 45 degrees, raining on and off, and muddy the entire day. With Michigan’s sandy dirt roads, our bikes got wrecked and so did our bodies. With how cold it was, only my face was exposed but even as I’m writing this I don’t think I’ve gotten out all of the dirt from my ears and eyes.

The race played out like it always does, hard for the first hour or so and then a game of survival over the rolling hills to the finish. In the first hour of racing there’s two MMRs (minimum maintenance roads). They’re sandy, riddled with bomb-holes, and cluttered with riders from the shorter distances. This spells out chaos. If you enter these sections anywhere outside the top 10, you’re stuck chasing hard to catch back on. I made it through both relatively unscathed but was riding at my limit after the second section and dropped off the lead group, so close and yet so far. The rest of the race was a matter of surviving surges in the group and not wasting too much energy. I probably could’ve fueled better on paper but who wants to drink and eat sand for 3 hours.

I finished 19th overall proud of the improvements both in tactics and in fitness but hungry for more. We chase on to the next one.