CIRREM Recap.

Wow. Gravel rides/races are fun! We, my family and I, showed up in Cumming, IA around 9:30 am on Saturday. It's the kind of town that has one church and one bar. Race headquarters was at the bar...go figure. I was surprised at the number of riders mingling about. I was not sure what to expect since the web site gave very few details. I believe there was a little over 70 riders.

I brought both bikes, Cross Check and the LHT. I opted for the geared LHT at the last minute. I was glad I did. This part of Iowa had a lot of hills. After checking in and the few race announcements were given we were off. About a block of pavement and we were on gravel. We rode gravel about 99% of the time.

I was wishing I had used my studded tire, up front, at the start. Temps were still cold and most of the roads were snow or ice. We had some pretty fast descents. No crashes by me or others that I know of.

It was a slow start. Again I didn't know what the norm was so I just went with the pace. We made a few wrong turns that were quickly fixed. My que card was in my back pocket. I didn't have time to figure out a spot for it on my bike. I thought I would rely on others. This obviously wasn't working so well.

A few times I took my turn on the front, only to pull myself and a few others away from the pack. We ended up waiting for the others as we didn't know where we were going. About 20 miles in one of the stronger riders went off the front on a hill. I didn't cover the move assuming he would wait for the group or someone else would bridge the gap. He didn't stop and no one else made the jump. So me being me I made the move pulling another rider across. Three of us took our que cards out and continued on. It wasn't a brutal pace but fast enough. We attacked some hills and those hurt a bit. I kept looking back for the group to organize but eventually we pulled out of view and that was the last we saw of the pack.

The three of us took turns pulling and worked well as a "mini" group. As the day warmed the roads became like peanut butter. This made the hills all that much harder. We started to lose the use of all our gears!
This kind of gives you an idea of what the roads looked like! I hadn't been riding this bike over the winter because I didn't want to get it dirty. Looks like I took care of that.

We decided to finish as a group and not race it in. I was more than happy with that. I don't think I would have been able to make a move on the other riders. They appeared to be strong. We finished about 3 hours 54 minutes, I think. We had about 55oo feet of climbing in 63 miles. It was a great little event. I hope to do it next year too. Jen and the girls were waiting for me at the end. I got some cool prizes too!

Muddy Ben.

This event has gotten me jacked for the other gravel events I have signed up for this spring/summer. I hope they are not as muddy.

I brought my bike to the car wash this afternoon. Wow, that really does a good job. Jen is out running and I hope to get a spin on the bike in when she gets home.

Hope this makes some sense, I wrote it fast.

Time to fold laundry in preparation for Florida! We leave on Friday.

Later.