“To say the Gran Fondo Ephrata is a hard ride is an
understatement, even on a nice day. This was not a nice day. It was a day that
any sane person would avoid outdoor activities. They surely would not consider
riding a bicycle on 80 miles of primitive Central Washington back roads.”
Jake
Maedke
Race
Promoter
Ephrata
Gran Fondo
The
race promoter for the Ephrata Gran Fondo promised the ride would be
“epic”. For starters, this is an 80 mile
ride at the end of March in Eastern Washington.
That alone is a recipe for epic.
Add to that the fact that roughly half the ride took place on gravel
roads or muddy hard-pack, and your epic experience is guaranteed.
So
on Saturday, March 31st, at approximately 0-Dark Hundred, my
teammates Joe Brown, Jake Whipple and I threw our bikes on the top of Joe’s car
and aimed for EPIC. Clutching our coffee
mugs, we bowed with gratitude as we passed Blue Star Coffee Roasters on our way
out of town. Always good, often
necessary. This was one of those times.
A
Gran Fondo is a timed event, not a race.
Tell that to the participants.
There were clearly people who showed up to race—or at the very least put
in a good time. For my part, I had no
idea what to expect from this experience.
My goals were to finish and keep the shiny side up.
Just
as we rolled out of town, we encountered the first climb—a steep mud-and-rock
infested section of hard-pack. My plan
to stay in low zone 3 went out the
window. I redlined. Once the climb was
over, the course returned to pavement.
The pack was scattered, the faster riders long gone, the rest of us spit
out to fend for ourselves. There were
little clumps of three or four riders, but mostly ones and twos. I was riding solo.
I
have ridden many centuries and ultra-distance events, but never one like
this. There were no packs, at least none
that I saw. Nobody worked together--
more like survival mode. This was later confirmed by both Joe and Jake, who,
while finishing way ahead of me, also road mostly solo. As pavement turned to
gravel and gravel to mud, I would encounter a couple of people riding together,
but no groups, no pelotons, no pulls. Much of the terrain would have made for dicey
pack riding anyway, but make no mistake.
On a day like this, misery loves company. And on this day, there was no company to be
had.
The
ride had one aid station at the halfway mark.
I re-fueled and quickly hopped back on my bike to avoid letting
hypothermia have its way with me. Twenty
miles from the finish, I caught a guy’s wheel (finally!) and we rode in
together. It was nice to share the
hailstorm with someone. Such as it was,
we ended up “working together” and managed to pick off five or six riders.
My
new buddy and I finished in 6:10, and I was happy to have accomplished my
goals. Best of all, no flats, and no
mechanicals. I ran Schwalbe Marathon
Cross tires and they saved me!
81
riders started the day. 67 finished. 5 of those were women, and I finished
third among those five. It’s shaping up
to be an epic year!
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