2024 BWR ARIZONA Race Report (video to follow)
First off super huge thanks to my Uncle Alan for putting me up for the week and all of the logistical help surrounding the race 🤗🤗🤗
I scouted lower McDowell trail section on Thursday, and did a group pre ride on Friday with Deana which was supposed to cover the initial upper moto section but I think the ride organizers changed plans in the moment and we did some mellow single track instead. I really wish I would have scouted the moto section ahead of time though 😬😭
Race day I was eager to get down there early, found a good spot and ate some waffles bc that’s what you do at Belgian waffle ride. I took my time getting ready at the car as I assumed the official lineup didn’t start for 15 minutes before— I should have definitely planned to be in the pen 30 minutes ahead of time though since it turned into a bit of a fight just to get into the pen by the time I actually got down there 😂 once the race started I didn’t even get on my bike for a full 90 seconds and I had to sprint to try and make up as many spots as I could up the initial road climb.
Once we got to the top of the initial road climb the course cuts off onto a downhill moto pump track which got pretty rowdy with how many people were bombing down it at the same time 😆 I felt like I was managing this section pretty well and started letting myself carry more and more speed until I got down to the lower part of the moto pump track and I hit some big whoopties and got bucked off the bike— hit the ground pretty hard on my side and knocked the wind out of me— not how I want to start a day like this 😛.. took some deep breathes and jumped back on but with a much more reserved approach— (apparently I lost my cactus comb here also, so thank god I didn’t catch any chollas!!!)
After another few miles of progressively more and more technical moto trail riding, it finally opened up a bit and got into some very fast dirt and ended up working together with a few other people heading down to rio verde. Our group was caught by a group who i think was riding the 70 mile distance as we were heading into McDowell (31 miles?).
The first 20 miles of trail in McDowell were super flowy and fast, which turned out to be a bit deceiving considering the next 10ish miles (50-63) were quite chunky and technical. By this point I was starting to settle into a sustainable grind, hoping to save some matches for the final road climb which I mistakenly believed would be the final hard section 😆
Miles 63-70 were relatively open albeit still false flattish, was able to pace with a couple guys through this until the 70 mile aid station, at which point, you have to go back UP the gnarly moto section. WOW this was a grind, like going uphill through constant shark teeth, I had to push my bike up quite a few of the loose pitches, it was not fast moving and it looks like I averaged 8.3 mph through this sector dubbed “WILDE KAT OMGEKEERDE”
Eventually by the time I finally made it out of there, it let back out onto Bartlett dam road (paved) where there was a brief fast road downhill section that fed right back into the final climb of the day where I paced the entire road section with another guy I had been yo-yoing with throughout the day. During the climb he informed me it was about to get harder lol— the last mile of the Bartlett dam road climb was on steep loose dirt, and the downhill that followed was chunky steep and gnarly 😭
Not wanting to crash again, I absolutely babied my bike through the final dirt sectors, hats off to the guys who were handling this stuff bc there was some pretty scary spots to be hitting with a drop bar gravel bike 😳… this section dragged on for probably 30 minutes longer than I was expecting, and I eventually ran out of water before getting back on to the pavement.
Luckily there was another guy starting the final road descent at the same time as me and we traded pulls all the way back down into cave creek 😎✊
A couple final notes/observations:
-First half of the course was significantly faster than the latter half, I averaged 16.5mph in the first half, and I averaged 11.6mph in the second half (big OOF!)
-My technical drop bar handling certainly leaves a lot to be desired, I was bleeding positions the entire second half of the course due to lost confidence in the chunky tech stuff. I’m almost wondering if my 650b hardtail would have been a more optimal choice considering the course was IMO much much higher % of mtb territory.
-definitely walking away from this one feeling a bit inspired, some of the “gravel” races are really pushing the boundaries of what you should be riding on a skinny tire rigid bike 😆 I think I will be meditating on this one for a bit in terms of how I might approach it for next time 😼
Race Stats:
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