WIP looking for some pictures, especially one taken by a certain Meg Mcmahon of me and a cute girl waiting for me at the finish
I miss bike racing. So much, that this is a tribute blog post to two races the past week that are both not-exactly races and yet everything I love about pedaling hard and handling the bike. Between that and the dearth of races, it makes writing about these two worthwhile. It’s wordy, and probably the only time I’ll blog about these two kinds of races, so the long post is worth it (some of this is worth remembering, other parts moreso as a good lesson for Future Benjamin)
For those reading this in a distant future that might wonder, “why is there less racing,” the brief answer is between coming out of pandemic/social distancing and the difficulties in promoting and encouraging racing has made the activity much harder to participate in. Other people far smarter and succinct that me have done excellent analysis and bemoan the “death of the sport,” but ultimately there will always be groups of people and bikes and it is inevitable that enough competitive people will start a pedaling contest
The definition of a ‘contest’ is more fluid than you’d think. Most of the professional level bike racing advertised involves rules and complexity to deal with the inherent rules and complexity of wheeled racing. The bureaucratic athlete can really enjoy exploring and exploiting the nature of bike racing. Yet often times the rules, even made with good intent, can be suffocating. Usually suffocating enough that most friends and family don’t really find enjoyment in watching bike racing. Which I’m fine with and don’t really care for, but it makes you wonder what a bike race with (almost) no rules would be like. Maybe it’d be something someone would want to watch, maybe even participate in, so it’d more than a niche sport
Once a year I set an alarm and make sure I sign up for the Vermont Overland on New Year’s Day. The Overland is the first big ‘no rules’ bike race. There are others that whine they started first, and now there are bigger races, but this one holds sway over them all. Lawyer_Pete has been a bike evangelist forever in many forms, and he started the Overland as a way to advertise the unpaved roads of Vermont as a challenge to cyclists. Lawyer_Pete has been a professional racer, a top tier coach, and being a race director was his next step in inspiring more to ride. The ‘no rules’ aspect of the race was to both enable as many people to try riding without learning all the rules of racing and to save costs on event infrastructure. A lot of that infrastructure is for important items like rider safety and guaranteed ride quality and results integrity. The Overland course takes place on Class VI roads in Vermont, which is illegal for road racing but does more than enough to check riders
What’s a Class VI road? The official definition is “[that] which have not been maintained and repaired by the town in suitable condition for travel thereon for 5 successive years or more except as restricted,” but in actuality they’re forest clearings that even colonists three hundred years ago abandoned for being too difficult to travel over. An experienced mountain biker with a full suspension bike can ride over a Class VI road safely, but that same bike ends up being very slow on the pavement and dirt roads. It’s absolute madness to ride those roads without a mountain bike, let alone race, nevermind sending hundreds of people through a mass start down one of those trails. And yet in late summer it’s one of the best Type II fun events in Vermont that’s since become world renowned
Google Screenshots are sometimes a convenient way to explain the stuff most of us take for granted
After twelve years the Overland has grown from maybe a dozen casual riders to a thousand racers that all sign up immediately on New Year’s Day. Initially Lawyer_Pete put all of the proceeds towards the post-race food and the local food bank, but the Overland now gets enough sponsorship money to do all that and buy a specialty batch of race-brand beer and get donated Land Rovers to patrol and lead the race. It’s still not really safe to race: there are enough paths that the Land Rovers can’t come to aid, the narrow roads are still open to traffic, the course is poorly marked and requires riders to bring self-navigating GPS devices, and there’s nothing really apart from the “spirit of gravel” to keep people from cheating. But there’s been no issue with the event. The race course is just that tough that it’s own best enforcer to make rider self regulate
Lawyer_Pete has since ‘retired’ from all things bikes, just when the ‘no rules’ aspect of other wannabe big ‘no rules’ events started reaching a crescendo from all of the complications of the lack of, well, rules. Race Directorship has been passed to His_Dickey, Lawyer_Pete’s former high school athlete. We met when he was sixteen and I was twenty-one at the Working Man’s stage race; I got dropped, His_Dickey went to win a lot of prize money. His_Dickey continued to race and win at the pro continental level for six years before quitting racing. He told me that he loves racing, but doesn’t have the love for training anymore, and he’d rather go running with his girlfriend. But between race director and filming pro bike racers, he’s still involved in bike racing in a way that satisfies him
Which is ultimately, the main appeal and why this race report about a ‘no rules’ bike race gets so much lead-in explaining. The Overland is the best ‘be involved in bike racing’ event there is. All of the tactics, all of the fitness, all of the lack of written rules and the inevitable flood of unwritten rules, it brings the best in everyone to come out and pedal. Sometimes I’ve lingered for an hour, others for the rest of the day, because being around riders that embrace that and love to experience outdoor Vermont doing silly bike shenanigans
Also helps to explain why this moment was so meaningful yes that’s me being obnoxious yelling “HI GERTRUDE,” yes I was lowkey wondering then if His_Dickey would actually do this. Congratulations, His_Dickey!
Thankfully the heartfelt moment was warm enough for the sudden cold rain downpour right as we started. Which is additionally useful; the start was a 1.5 neutral mile on pavement before the riders were allowed to race. Neutral starts are especially good for large groups of inexperienced riders with lots of nerves: there are a thousand ways you can lose the race, and the race director helps a lot by removing the, “those that are on the front and aggressively start don’t get too much of an advantage” way. Nobody died and I’m still impressed every year at how not-douchey everyone acts during the race, especially this part
The first dirt hill section was a medium inclined and ‘nice’ gravel experience. The kind of nice that looks too good to have graduated from Yale and raises red flags when he proposes to you. A lot of riders surge ahead in excitement- rest of us settle into a good pace, as this is just the first four minutes out of three-four hours of pedaling. Not to mention that the downhill when towards what wasn’t even a Class VI road but standard mountain biking trails, which I had no problem bombing down
Oh, I should probably talk about the bike I was riding. After three times racing the Overland, I built up a bike last winter with half the intent of being the groceries-fetcher and half being what I imagined the perfect weapon to handle Vermont (aside from my trained fitness and skills) had a black steel road frame with extra clearance, flat mountain bike bars, wide slick tires, mechanical shifting and hydraulic disc brakes. Best part was picking custom gearing, the same 11-30 toothed rear cassette I keep on all of my non-mountain bike wheels and a 46-33 teeth front chain rings. Frame geometry for pedaling hard, cockpit for technical off-road descending, unusual gearing range for unusual terrain. I’ve dreamed forever for what the best do-it-all bike is, and this was my imagined pièce de ré-sis-tance for the jack of trades that was both indomitable and unassuming and maybe revolutionary. Naturally I named her Chimamanda
Frankly speaking this bike has survived everything, even me. TOUGHER THAN ANY MAN
Basically for every downhill I’d shift to the front chainring, ride a smooth line around everyone struggling on curved handlebars, and carry that momentum along as well as I could. It’s hard to say from the heat of the moment, but that method seemed to move me well into the top hundred riders to start. Which was great-ish for the lead in to the first real hill, six miles and nine hundred feet of climbing on slightly less nice gravel. This kind you’d definitely avoid catching up at your college reunion. This one took me twenty-five minutes to ride up, which was only five minute slower than the men’s winner. Only 25% off top pace!
At this point it was my turn to be cocky, into the brief pavement downhillI caught back up to Admiral_Hooligan and declared if he was ready to “start racing,” he should get going. Yeah he’s a local retired pro, but that was mountain bikes and race-drunk-me was convinced that being just as fast as him on the road would be enough for today. Admiral_Hooligan laughed and we settled into the next climb. Which he proceeded to ride up and away from me. He’d go get seventy-fifth for the day, which was pretty cool to ride at least that much with him
The next climb took twenty-two minutes (fifteen for the men’s winner, 30% off), and at that point I knew that was as good as the day could get. The feeling after a thousand feet of climbing over three miles was almost leg-breaking. While I had more attitude to give, I definitely did not have enough energy to both climb faster and descend safely all day. It also was about an hour of riding at that point, so I hit the lap button. Fifteen miles, 3.23 watts/kilogram, eight hundred calories of work
Both in the spirit of ‘unwritten rules’ and ‘gravel racing,’ the Overland course changes a bit every year, but I could vaguely remember that the race always goes up the Rich Trail in the first third-ish of the course. Word’s don’t really do it justice, so here’s the best picture of it for the day
Vermont Social (His_Dickey’s day job company) caught this shot. The only way it could have been a better image would be if a few more riders were shown attempting to ride up. Emphasis on “attempting”
Many riders at this point panic- even being told about the Rich Trail doesn’t really prepare someone for being literally forced by nature to not ride up. It’s super frustrating, but it’s a good spot to slow a little and ‘rest while moving’- pros have run up with their bikes in seven minutes and reduced the off bike to a mere minute, but they’re paid to do that and are given the bike that can handle it. I somehow managed to only do it in twelve minutes, with a solid four minutes of walking off the bike. Chimamanda is a big tough woman, and nobody really likes hauling uphill, especially study steel bikes
It’s also just really amusing that after the Rich Trail the Strava GPS calls the rest of the course, “Hope is not a strategy,” which is gratifying many times over to meditate upon, as Chimamanda and I now average ideal-road speeds descending on trail and gravel and pavement, averaging over twenty miles per hour. We only went over forty on the most safe parts, promise. Somewhere after finishing the long slog that’s topped by Rich Trail- that section being six miles, thirty six minutes of surviving- I hit the lap button again for hour two. 11.5 miles, seven hundred calories of work, 2.79 watts/kilogram. Which was definitely to me a sign that the rest of the day was going to be very long getting back to the finish. Which caused me to despair a bit, as I had told Jazz-man that if she wanted to come hang out after the race to come early enough to watch me finish in 3.5 hours. No way I’d finish thirty miles in ninety minutes
It’s a long descent on Class VI roads and mountain bike trails; basically done in two ten-minute sections, three and four miles respectively. It’s grueling enough experience in the slick conditions that you start to see isolated riders get off the bike and just sit in abject exhaustion. This trail quality was so bad you’d send it to boarding school to whip it into better shape. I didn’t stop-I even pushed the pace-, and ultimately paid the price for doing so. Flat bars are crucial for technical downhill descending, but on aggressive frame geometry and hard steel my back and wrists took most of the shaking. Makes for a fairly tired and ruined body to hit Durham Hill, which another fellow rider assured me was the last ‘bad climb’- seven hundred feet in one mile. Fourteen minutes for me to limp up, compared to just seven for the men’s winner. At two and a half hours, I was just trying to pace and keep my heart rate from dropping too low and my body from resetting. All that just made it more devastating when I took a wrong left turn on the downhill and lost all speed and motivation riding back onto the correct path. The GPS computer correctly told me to turn right, but that was uphill and mentally I didn’t want to believe that was where I had to go. Totally using that as my excuse for the fifteen people that ended up passing me back before the finish
Lap button hit again idly rolling in the second-to-last long downhill, fourteen miles, 2.22 watts/kilogram, just five hundred fifty calories of work. No, I’m not magically more efficient mid ride at pedaling, this kind of drop off was an indicator at how much I was attempting to conserve energy and not die. Remember, math says that’s over two thousand calories of work; that’s what the average person burns throughout a day. Any bravado I had passing or riding with people was gone; I basically didn’t want to see anyone out there. Which was perfect timing for President_Results to roll up behind me. He’s chatting non-stop (no surprise, he _always_ chats nonstop), and it’s simultaneously rejuvenating and nerve-wracking. Not another person to pass me! Which is an utterly ridiculous to think about in the middle of nowhere and suffering like a dog. He’s very understanding and patient about this as I bolt ahead with new life in legs in an attempt to ride faster away
That lasted maybe eight minutes before President_Results caught back up again, this time with a good mix of racers that also do cyclocross, the self-dubbed the NECX crowd. Which, after a year of no cyclocross and just a few weeks away to season start, was a sight for sore eyes. Overall this was another twenty five minute climb over four miles- I don’t know how fast the men’s winner was up this climb, he didn’t have President_Results being witty and other NECX being cheery to boost spirits. Considering it was a race and the day was still overcast and wet, it was a lovely reprieve to trudge up the course, together
Into the long dirt downhill- the nice kind, the one you’d want to take home and fantasize marrying- some of the women in our group realized that they were in the top ten overall and had just ten miles left of racing to get a better placing. Sure, world tour pro from Canada was ahead and had likely won by now, but kudos dammit! This was still a pedaling competition. Our tired groupetto turned from a casual bunch to suddenly skipping at high speeds across potholes and puddles. There were a couple of cars coming the opposite direction- again, dirt so nice everyone wants to hang!- but we had enough sense and visibility to check ourselves and stay safe. We even pick up a few riders that rallied and joined our group
It was just ten minutes doing this- easily the best ten minutes of the race so far- when we had a sudden left hand turn up a Class VI section. It was steep yet short, but one look at it and my legs just quit. It ended up being just fifteen minutes of racing left at this point, but it was nearing four hours and a wet grey day wasn’t the hot summer ending I had psyched myself up for, rolling in slowing to a wet finish
Yet again, that was also 2019 that I set that alarm for what would be 2021 Overland preregistration. I had a small private New Years that evening, dancing with Jazz-man, and a long twenty months later she was pumped to see me finish this ‘no rules’ bike race. She’s even intrigued enough to rent an e-bike to ride the tamer sections for fun. Maybe some time, she’ll set an alarm on New Years Day (ten AM, if you are also so intrigued)
“You’re never this tired!” “Yeah, that’s why I only do this once a year” “I don’t know, I think you could do it some more”