August 20, 6 am found Lane & I lined up for the Gravel Worlds race in Lincoln, NE, 153 miles of gravelly goodness put on by the Pirate Cycling League
116 riders towed the line at the start, 60 some ended up finishing, an impressive sight seeing riders strung out at the start & listening to the gravel crunching under many tires while watching the sun come up on the eastern horizon
an impressive barn & house at 98th & Branched Oak Rd, I think a barn dance in that big thing would be a good time!
eventually we hit some minimum maintenance roads & the previous nights rain showers wreaked some havoc, yes I screwed up by riding into it further than I should have, that is one DAMN HEAVY bike there with that extra gumbo on it!
checkpoint #2 was the general store in Malcolm, NE, a great old place to re-fuel
this horse earned his oats at mile 80 for me as I was DONE mentally, my longest ever gravel ride & I was cool with that, physically I'm sure I could have proceeded another 20 or more but since this ride is self-supported I was at a good stopping point at the 80 miles I did, NEXT YEAR!
Lane on the other hand appeared to want to finish the beast so I headed southeast of Lincoln to root him on as he passed by & he appeared sound enough to stick a fork in it, even though a little after this pic he hit some major mud & ended up carrying his bike a couple miles for the second time of the day
besides a few miles of mud the theme for the day was ROLLERS!
Lane kept his head on straight & bagged his first attempt at a Gravel Worlds finish, one wrong turn cost him extra miles so in the end he rode 156 miles in 14 hrs 30 min, not to mention the miles he carried his bike, yes, I'm DAMN PROUD of his accomplishment!
TO THE VICTOR ...goes a SWEET Gravel Worlds custom jersey as he was the only junior rider AND HE FINISHED, thank you PCL!!!
this was the result of the road conditions, not to mention the build up on the bikes! This was a GREAT event with some super roads, riding & folks, THANK YOU Pirate Cycling League for holding this challenging event, I know where I'll be riding this time next year, hopefully ALL OF IT if I can get some training tips & secrets from my son!
2 comments:
So stoked to have you guys there and very proud of both of you for lining up at 6 AM knowing it was gonna be a long and difficult day. Mad props to Lane for finishing that beast! I see great things in his future. BTW, Lane is the only Junior rider EVER to finish Gravel Worlds! We're already excited and getting ready for next year!
Way to go Lane !! I just wish it had two weeks in between the the GW's and the Dakota 50. I would like to do both if I had a bit more time to recoup. I have to slay the 50 first with no issues.
CQ
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