Maple River Gravel

Historically, as I ride into the fall months, I like to have a fair bit of racing in my legs in preparation for Iceman Cometh. Due to family obligations my plan changed a little this year and the buildup included the Maple River Gravel Race, a relatively flat event, somewhat local and somewhere to have some fun.

I’ve never done this before didn’t quite know what to expect. I knew from last year‘s results that it was a smaller event, fast, but the front end of the race would still be competitive. I got to the venue early and pre-rode the last few miles.

I lined up close to the front, maybe third row and looked to keep out of the wind for the first part of the race. Sure enough, antics started early and within 6 miles a group of us rode off the front. This whittled down to 8 or 9 of us, a group that would stay until the end. We worked well together, there was no way anyone behind was gonna make it back to the front, the pace was high, but the flat course and high winds on the day made it a highly variable day, we barely hit 16 mph in one direction and 30 in the other.

My goal for the day was to challenge myself, and I looked for ways to break up the group and perhaps drop some stragglers, but to no avail. As the old guy in the group, I knew that I only had a few matches to play with and so waited my moment. With about 3 miles to go and a sketchy left-hand turn from gravel onto pavement the group slowed significantly. I had some decent side knobs on my tires and took the corner sharply without losing speed and got a gap on the group. I jumped with everything I had, maybe a little bit too much in hindsight but this had split the group up and I was fighting to hold the front on my own. Eventually a couple of others, working together caught me and I tried to hold onto their tail as we came into the final time turn.

It was a fun day, I ended up fifth in the group. Not quite what I wanted, but enjoyed myself anyway, and got some race effort. Top step as an old man and a nice woolly hat to go into my collection.

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