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One hour and twenty from my house, $55 entry fee, forty two miles and five thousand feet of climbing?

Sure, why not. We parked in an unmowed field next to the brewery, grass up to my hood. Sixty people attended.. all parked in the field.

Casual start, a mix of mtn bikes, CX bikes and gravel bikes. I'm good with my new Schwable X-One 33's and my super comfy and padded new Team Bikeman bibs.

FIrst 3 miles, everyone riding together but sloooow. Then some dude and his brother on Mtn bikes and I pacelined at the front then off the front and sayonara peloton. We were so far gone it was not realistic. Talking to the 'dudes' he told me he did a group ride with the organizer who told him a Mtn bike was the preferred weapon due to some gnarly mtn bike sections. Into the first gnarly section, they got ahead and I spent the next gravel road segment catching back on. This was short lived as we then hit another more technical section.

I was on my own from about mile 15 - 42. Staying aero and training at hilly Stratton gave me the advantage. The last section had softball sized loose stones and motocross bikes passing me. Noone ever caught me and I averaged 12.5 over 42 miles and climbed 4908'

At the finish I saw the brothers and they said they were ten minutes ahead of me.

Overall, an inexpensive fun ride but next time bring the HeiHei.