Getting Ready For Gravel Worlds

GRAVEL WORLDS 2010 from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

This Friday I'm leaving for Lincoln, Nebraska and will be participating in the Good Life Gravel Adventure, or otherwise now known as "Gravel Worlds". The fine folks of the Pirate Cycling League are putting on the event which was a blast to ride at last year. This time I will be arriving in Lincoln on Friday much earlier, so a good nights sleep is much more possible, which should figure in to a better ride than last year.

The scene will be pretty crazy this time though. The move to make this event the Gravel Worlds, (which by the way, was partially my fault, since it was offered to d.p. and I to make Trans Iowa the Gravel World Championships first), will have a lot more folks in the event this go round than ever before. How many more? Hard to say, but I'm betting it'll be hundreds of riders. My plan is to stay out of the contenders way, do a good average speed, and finish this beast.

This year hasn't been that great from a riding  standpoint. The heat has wreaked havoc on me this summer. I couldn't finish Dirty Kanza, or my own GTDRI due to the heat. I rode okay at the Fargo Adventure Ride, but I had to pull out of doing some other things due to poor fitness early on, and scheduling conflicts. To top it all off, I have had a bad two weeks leading up to this event. I had some health issues, and scheduling training was not possible due to other obligations anyway later on.

So my goal going in is humble. Finish. I'd like to come in before the sun sets, and if I can manage to keep moving and hold a decent average speed, it'll happen. The heat isn't supposed to be too bad Saturday- it should be similar to the Fargo Adventure Ride, where I did pretty well. I'm hopeful, and my rig is ready.

Oh yeah- the rig. It'll be the Singular Cycles Gryphon. I have set it up with Bontrager XR-1 tires tubeless on Race X Lite wheels. I'll have the Revelate Designs Tangle Bag with a Banjo Brothers Top Tube Bag. Two water bottle bottle mounts with an extra in the Tangle Bag. Single speed gears at 36 X 17T, which is just slightly lower than last years 38 X 18T.

The plan is to eat on the bike from the grub I can scare up on the road. I plan on getting a beer at the last checkpoint too! Should be good times.