I came back to my truck someone had pulled in behind me but hadn't managed to avoid the ditch that was hiding in the grass. His trucks front wheel had gone straight down the 6 foot hole and tipped over.
This was going to be a bad day for someone. I offered up the tow rope that I had in the back of the truck and the owner found someone with a big AWD truck to try and pull the truck back onto its wheels. Within a
minute or 2 he came back with the tow rope in 2 pieces. They then went to find a "proper" tow strap.
They eventually got the truck out of the ditch and back on its wheels. It's started right up and drove off to find a better parking spot.
I rolled down to the start ready for the 90 mile two lap race with two passes over the famous Paskenta gravel section.
We rolled really easy for the first 30 miles with only a couple of attacks that didn't go anywhere. The gravel section started at about mile 36 and at 6 miles out people became very nervous. Everyone was fighting for the first few rows. It was getting quite rough but I managed to stay up there ready for the pack to hit the dirt. As we came off the pavement onto the gravel we found that it was very, very soft. The recent week of rain had softened what would have been the clean line causing the wheels to sink in.
There wasn't much difference between riding on the lose gravel and riding on the dirt, they were both slow, but there was a 3" wide strip at the transition between the mud and the gravel that was much firmer but in a group it was very hard to hold onto this strip. I was with the lead group until about 3/4 of the way across the gravel section where the road really kicks up for about 150 yards. The pace picked up and a few of us fell off the back. I was doing my best to chase back on but I wasn't gaining any ground. As I came towards town a small group of about 8 guys came up behind me and I jumped on the back and worked with them to catch back onto the lead group.
We caught them about 5 miles later as they eased up in the headwind. There were a few more attacks in the cross/headwind that caused the group to split into 3 at one point. I was in the front echelon and having no trouble staying there but there were groups a long way back. Eventually we all came back together and it really stayed like this until about 3 miles out from the dirt. Things were rolling along very easy and then the fighting for the front rows started again. Just like the last lap I made my way forward and tried to stay in the first few rows. As we hit the gravel the pace this lap was very different. After 80 miles of racing everyone was very tired and the pace was slow for the first 3 miles. As the road kicked up about 3/4 of the way through I dropped off the back of the group again. I need that extra power that can keep me in the group when the big guys kick it up a notch.
This time there wasn't a group behind me to work with, but I did come up on 3 guys who also got dropped and we started working together to minimize the time loss to the front group.
We could see the group ahead of us and it looked like they stayed intact to the finish. We lost one guy from our group of 4 and I lost contact with the other two stronger guys with 500 meters to go, but the main group was still in sight and I'd only lost about a minute on the leaders. I was the 3rd rider off the group and fairly happy with the performance. I need a lot more horsepower but there isn't much I can do about that right now.
I drove back to the hotel and hit the Mexican restaurant next door for one of the biggest burritos I've ever had.
A great end to a good day.
Food:
Breakfast - 1 Egg McMuffin half a hash brown.
Race - 4 Crank Gels, 2 bottles of Cytomax
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Location:Paskenta, CA
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