Gravel

A few months back, I completed my first gravel ride. This is a bicycle ride done on gravel roads, double track and maybe a bit of pavement. Something in between mountain biking and road biking.

I should say this is my first “organized” gravel ride. I’ve been riding on gravel roads since I was a kid and back then there wasn’t any special kind of bike or equipment for it. You rode what you had and had fun!

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I ride road and mountain bikes on a regular basis. I’ve been wanting to try gravel / cyclocross and when my friend Tom offered to sell me his old cross-bike last year, I took him up on the offer. Mixing parts I had with what he sold me, I ended up with a great “no name” ride!

Speaking of “rides”, this gravel ride took place near the town of De Beque, Colorado. We stayed at High Lonesome Ranch, a “dude” ranch that is about ten miles out of town. The ranch has a few cabins that could be rented, but for the most part folks camped in tents or RVs. My friend Tom and I each had our own tent. He’s the one that convinced me to do the ride so everything that follows is his fault and my blessing!

The one thing that was ever present, the entire time we were there, was the dirt and dust it produced. There was six miles of dirt road to get to the ranch and pretty much nothing but dirt road until we left. The dust and sand, if you can call it that, had the consistency of talcum powder. Maybe finer.

With that said, there was also a lot of green! This has been a wet spring in Colorado and it shows.

Green is what I saw when I pulled up to an old log school house where the riders picked up their packets and also learned some of the details about where everything was. The school house and ranch are in a wide valley with green pastures all around. A beautiful area!

Once I had my packet I drove over to the parking area, grabbed my camping gear and hiked down to the pasture where we would be camping. I saw my friend’s car but didn’t find him until later, after I had my campsite setup. Our tents ended up being fairly close to one another. Great minds and all…

That evening (Friday), there was live music and food at the lodge along with vendor tents setup nearby. The Shimano tent had a bike with their new GRX group which held a lot of interest for me as it looks like the perfect group for a gravel bike.

After the festivities we headed back to our tents and settled in for what turned out to be a cold night and an early morning.

The day of the ride dawned cold and clear. We headed down to breakfast at the lodge around 6:30. Eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, fruit and more were all part of breakfast plus the most important thing, hot coffee! By the end of breakfast, we were all tanked up and ready for the ride, which started at 8.

A horse and rider lead us out of the ranch and onto the road, which made sense as this was a working ranch. The start was a little crowded and exciting as we had to make a tight right turn and immediately cross a cattle guard. With that out of the way, we were free to spread out and make our way up the main road.

The first couple of miles consisted of a slight uphill ride through a wide, green valley. After we made a left turn onto a ranch road, almost two track, the ride got a little steeper as we worked our way towards the high point of the ride.

Near the top, there is a rock formation called The Goblins. Check out the link above to get a view of them and other photos of the ride. The Goblins ended up being a good spot to stop and take a few pictures and catch my breath. It was also a good place to look over a nearby ledge and down into a beautiful canyon with steep walls and odd rock formations. The thing that got my attention though, was how close the road followed the edge of the canyon.

From this point I expected, based on the route map, to encounter a few small ups and downs, mostly downs. Boy was I wrong. All the downs were steep with some pretty rough sections and all the ups were just as steep. At the bottom of most of these down and ups, there was a dry water crossing. Throw in a sharp corner or two mixed with loose sand or gravel for good measure!

A few of these wouldn’t have been a big deal but after the 20th or 30th one (maybe a slight exaggeration), I started to wear out. Both physically and mentally. There were flats here and there too but some of them had been trampled by cows when they were wet so they shook your teeth out now that they were dry. At least it felt like it. The thing is, it was beautiful country.

We descended from pine forest into a fairly arid landscape filled with rock formations, scrub oak and dirt. Dirt with the consistency of talcum powder, again. Did I mention the sun and the heat and wondering if this road would ever end? I mean, EVER end?

You see, something I hadn’t realized with gravel rides is how far you have to ride before you get to a food stop. In this case, there was only one stop and it was in the middle of the town of De Beque that was at mile 36. The ride was 46 miles. Yes, I could have stopped and ate my own food, but that’s beside the point! Now back to the ride…

Just about the time I didn’t think I could go any farther, I started to see a house here and there. A few minutes later I reached a long straight, gentle downhill that lead into town and paved road! This renewed my energy a bit so I picked up a pace a bit. That food stop was calling my name!

The food stop was in a little park with a gazebo, in the center of town. There wasn’t much to eat by the time I arrived so I was left with a banana and some nut mix. It tasted good! I flopped in the gazebo as it was the only shade and rested for probably 20 minutes.

During this time I debated hard on catching a sag wagon back to the ranch. No sag wagon showed so I stopped by the Shimano truck that was there to assist riders and had the mechanic adjust my front derailleur as it and been missing shifts. While the mechanic was doing this he noticed my rear brake was dragging. With both of these fixed and the chain freshly lubed, I was off. The bike felt like new!

Probably a half mile from the food stop, a race organizer drove by and asked how I was doing. I mentioned a sag wagon wouldn’t be a bad idea and he said he would send one after me if I didn’t make it back.

The next couple of miles were on a paved road that wound slowly up a wide valley. This section of the ride was almost like resting as gravel (and my dragging rear brake) had added a lot of resistance to the last 36 miles.

The last section was back on gravel, the same road I drove in on the day before. This road had, comparatively, a lot of traffic on it. The traffic being, for the most part, folks that were already done and headed home. It was extremely dusty so it was nice that the cars slowed down for me. A semi even went on the opposite side of the road so the dust wouldn’t blow on me. In hind site, maybe I should have ridden on the “wrong” side of the road. That way folks wouldn’t have needed to slow down as the wind would have blown the dust away from me.

When I finally made it back to the ranch I had to decide, did I want to ride to the finish line and then to the tent area, or just ride straight to the tent area. By that point, I was exhausted so I rode to the tent area. After resting a bit and meeting up with my friend, I packed up the tent and headed home.

Looking back on this ride, I came to several conclusions. One, gravel rides are fun to do as they occur in less traveled places that can be beautiful. They are also much harder than road rides. My other conclusion is I needed to do a lot more training for a gravel ride than what I did. By not doing that training, the ride became more grueling than fun as it progressed.

I am proud that I finished this ride but also wishful that I had been biked up before I did it as it would have been a much, much better experience.