- (claps) Let's do this.
(beep)
Let's do this.
(beep)
Was it you in there?
Right, let's do it.
(dramatic music)
(tires screeching)
- Steamboat Springs in Northwest Colorado
is a hidden paradise.
For snow sports in winter and two-wheels in summer.
The mountain biking is off the scale,
but it hasn't been well-known for gravel
until the Steamboat Gravel Race was announced
in winter of 2018.
Scheduled for August 2019, it sold out in just six days
with 1,500 people registering for either the 39-mile,
the 100-mile, or the 140-mile black route.
Now, guess which one I got signed up for?
As with all gravel events, the front is a race,
while further back, riders focus more
on the challenge of completing it.
Men and women race and ride shoulder to shoulder,
and in this event, 30% of all riders are women,
which is fantastic to see,
and a just reward for the efforts of the organizers
in trying to boost female participation
and push for equality.
Steamboat Springs is just the coolest place,
and I can't quite believe that I've been invited out here.
I'm not going to lie though, I am a little bit nervous.
I've done a lot of bike racing in my time,
road, mountain bikes, cyclo-cross,
but I've yet to do a proper gravel race,
so this is going to be the first one.
Probably not the time to worry about it though,
given that this is just the day before.
I'm actually just off to, firstly, sign up,
and also pick up my bike for tomorrow.
A mix of Canyon, Mavic, and Stages,
have apparently sort me out something very special,
so I need to go make my acquaintance.
And then can worry.
(upbeat music)
(suspenseful music)
- All right, I've got about 15 minutes till the start now.
As you can see, the sun's just starting to come up.
It's super cold right now,
but it's going to be a scorcher today.
I think I've got everything sorted.
I got the route profile on the top tube.
I've got an, as per recommendations yesterday,
all my nutrition is in my back pocket,
a couple of spare tubes, hopefully I won't need those.
And then, more importantly, a bit of motivation
on my handlebar there.
Gravel is the future, at least it will be to start with.
Whether or not that's still true at the end, I don't know.
But anyway, I'm going to go try and line up.
I want to be close to the front to give myself
what's known in the road trade as sliding space,
so basically, rather than trying to make up grounds,
you can just gently go slower than everyone else.
All day.
So, that's my plan.
(dramatic music)
- [Man With Megaphone] Three, two, one, SBT Gravel.
(cheering)
- So when the race actually kicked off,
it kind of felt like old times.
Like, although I was riding with wider tires
that I've raced on the road, and I was on pavement.
I was on a drop-bar bike.
It kind of felt a little bit like being back in a road race.
And then, it became clear as soon as we hit gravel
that this totally was for all day.
Tarmac in a group,
you just hear like a kind of gentle swooshing noise
and not much else.
But then when a mass starter then hits gravel,
like it's insane.
The noise of one bike crunching on gravel, wipe out.
But when you've got like 200 people around you,
and you got stones pinging off and all sorts.
Just super exciting, Super exhilarating.
(intense music)
You just felt like you're in the middle
of something pretty cool that's going on.
I've had a cunning idea.
Behind me is the pro panel.
Which is basically a collection of the biggest names
in gravel racing and Erik Zabel.
Once the finished answering question up there,
I'm going to grab them and try to
get some last minute tips for myself.
Colin Strickland, I need some help. Okay?
So, first gravel race tomorrow, just
some last minute tips, I can't do any more training.
Which is a shame.
But, do I need to draft tomorrow?
- You'll certainly need to draft.
You must draft to survive.
- I'm maybe the last person you should ask about drafting
because that's definitely a weak point
as Colin will tell you. - You just win solo right?
- (laughs) I mean eventually solo but the idea is to not
be solo until everybody else is solo
as well and these races are races of attrition.
- Of course I'm all about the wheel sucker, you know.
Efficiency is everything, and you know you got to do the job.
You do the job in the front but if not I will find the good
wheels and be like all right I'm working this.
Come out when I need to and then go back in.
- This is quite a unique question to gravel.
Where do you carry your stuff?
Bum bag or top tube bag?
- I find each race a little different.
This one I'm going to try no bags all pockets.
So, that means relying on the eight stations
a bit more than normal.
- Oh man, I'm a big fan of the fanny pack when I'm training.
Tomorrow's going to be pockets.
- Well you know I've come very ill prepared
so I'm going to use my good old-fashioned
pockets like a true road racer.
But if I had the choice I'd probably
have the little handlebar bag.
- Do you feel like real food
or like sports nutrition.
- No, no I'm a big fan of Mars and Snickers and bananas.
So I'm pretty much old school.
(peaceful piano music)
- I managed to use a little bit of my road
racing craft to stay at the front of the bunch.
It was great.
So I actually get a clear view of things.
And also then manage to stay with the lead group for a bit
longer because I was able to just
drop back ever so gently on the climbs.
So I didn't have to go quite as hard.
Because let's face it I didn't have anywhere near
the fitness to stay at the front.
But with a little bit of kind of like Wile E tactics,
I was able to stick with em.
For quite a long time actually.
You know which is why there probably isn't that much footage
from the entire race because I had my head down
and I was trying to race.
(upbeat music)
(bell rings)
- The race split over the first KOM point.
Key OM point.
And I was in a group,
I think we were the third group on the road.
Probably 50 of us in total.
At that point in the race you had a front group of like 20,
a middle group of 20, then my group of 10.
And we were pretty motivated to get back on.
So at the top of the KOM we worked really well together.
And fortunately the front of the race kind of sat up.
So we regrouped and then we had a really nice tow
all the way down this monster tarmac simmer.
I think I kit 89 K's in an hour.
Which was pretty cool.
(upbeat music)
- We got to feed zone number two. Which is where I think I
worked out that having a quick pit stop strategy is good.
My tendency is fath meant that I actually missed my group
leaving and that was the last
I saw of the front of the race.
Basically I spent too long eating.
And that was that.
(ambient music)
- Yeah, so one of the cool things about the event website
is that on the home page you scroll down and there's a wild
life check list there.
Most if it is completely alien to me as a Brit.
Like, there's moose on there, which I've learned this year.
Not to be trusted, dangerous animals.
Elk. There was birds of prey on there: eagles, I think.
Ant there was also a prong horn.
Don't know what one of those is but I could have seen one.
Anyway, so when it started, that I play wild life bingo.
Any time I saw something, I'd get
a point if it was on that list.
Wild life watch, I'm not the best ornithologist in the world
but I'm calling that an eagle.
Yes.
- [Other Biker] Vulture
- Vulture? No! I'm not that suffering, that badly!
That's definitely an eagle.
Move.
(gentle guitar music)
(speaks indiscernibly due to loud wind noise)
- Feels good.
- Wild life watch.
Now here's something they didn't tell us about.
Lamas. Yep!
I got a bonus point for a lama.
(upbeat music)
- Tiredness really started to kick in.
I'd say probably after about 80 miles.
And then the road started to climb up.
Every ramp was just every rider for themselves.
So you'd kind of say good by to people at the front
you'd say good bye to people at the back.
Where as in the beginning of the race it very much been
a bunch race, but, at that point it was like a time trial.
(upbeat music)
- It might have been a good thing.
It might have been a bad thing.
But three days before steam boat gravel race we stopped
of to see Neil and mack from Suffer Fest
in a high performance
lab in boulder, made said they're very kindly.
But they did very kindly hook me up to their fitness testing
equipment and they have all sorts of gas analysis,
metabolic analysis as well.
And so three days before the race I found out,
in no uncertain terms, how fit I was.
How much I was succumbing to altitude.
But the hammer blow came as I was leaving.
And they just kind of casually said: by the way we noticed
from your metabolic data
that when your riding sub threshold,
so a kind of comfortable pace that I could
sustain for four or five hours,
you're burning 150 grams of carbohydrates an hour.
Which is a monumental amount of carbs.
And so the were like, just when you eat,
consider your fueling strategy on Sunday.
And so with that I then had to think,
there's no way I can take in near enough.
You can only fuel like 70-90 grams an hour?
So I knew I had a count down until I was going to blow.
So I decided that actually I had this kind of rev limiter
basically, where as my fuel gauge dropped bonkometer
basically I would get to a place where I was at rock bottom.
And so the whole way through the event I was thinking
right, okay, fuel now hydrate now,
bonkometer just starts to go up a little bit.
And then maybe there would be a period where like I didn't
feel so good.
And I wouldn't want to eat. And then the bonkometer
would go down.
So it was just constant a constant battle between fueling
correctly and hitting rock bottom.
And I thought I bonked pretty bad
about mile 80.
And it turns out that wasn't bad at all.
The best was yet to come.
The effort is really starting to bite now.
On bonkometer, I think I'm redlining it.
So every time you hit a little gradient like this one,
you just doing every thing I can
to stay with my new buds.
We've been together for like 80 K's now.
The problem I'm facing is that Stages head unit.
This is sort of, the lower slopes
of the second big climb of the day.
So I'm just gonno dig in, hang in there,
and hope that once your at the top: it's playing sailor.
(upbeat music)
- Getting towards the top of the second tail end now.
And I think I may just shift my bonkometer of the red line.
I had a little bit of a longer stop at the feed.
Took my time, Had a hand full of crisps or potato chips
I believe they're called.
And it's going to give me slight second wing.
And also the fact that I'm now riding
on my own a little bit.
So I've kind of convinced myself that
I'm going really quickly.
But in actual fact I'm probably not.
(upbeat music)
- That is the top of that second KOM.
One absolute brute. A lot longer than I was expecting.
It sound stupid seeing as I've never done it before
but any way there we go. There is my optimism.
But as you can see. I just lost the group in front but
there wasn't much I could de really.
Going to try and fuel up now on this longer set,
ready for the last 40 miles.
(upbeat music)
- Basically procrastinating and
avoiding getting back on my bike.
So I found one of these, infamous pickle,
so when in Rome, as they say.
(bell rings)
- Maybe it's like a slow burn thing.
Coming up to what I think is the final climb of the day.
Can you see my rest today now?
Frankly, the pickle has given me a little bit extra.
So I should be able to hold the wheel now.
This dude is ridiculously strong. What's your name?
- Rob
- Rob's Killing me. But he's also been very nice.
I know I'm making me give him too many tests.
When I was speaking to you earlier and telling you that my
bonkometer was on the red line.
Oh, It wasn't on the red line. It had further to go.
I was just on the yellow warning light.
I had a catastrophic melt down as we crested that KOM.
And on the descent it was a little bit bumpy for the first
time pretty much today and there's a massive head wind.
I might have shouted at the rocky mountains because I was
getting a little bit crass. It was one of those.
Anyway, I'm through that now. I'm on the crest of a wave.
I think I nearly hit 200 k's.
It's nice to be able to swap between miles and kilometers.
It'd be more uh, clean moments to tick off.
(yells) Woo hoo! Yes!
(bystanders shout and ring bells)
(yells)
(upbeat music)
- Wow, my wild life vlog hasn't really progressed in the
last 30 miles or so.
And I don't know whether it's because I haven't seen any
wild life, or whether it's that I got tunnel vision and I
haven't noticed black bears and Elk and whatever else.
Did see a prairie dog, I think.
Yeah, I'm looking out for moose.
I'm not forgetting what Rebecca Rush told me:
Most dangerous animal in north America.
Or something like that.
(cheerful music)
- Get some steam going now.
There's my man Rob.
Better not lose his wheels because I'm trying to vlog.
There we go, couple of K's to go.
We've done it. Uh.
If I'm emotional, I feel very emotional,
I think it's the dehydration, it must be.
(upbeat music)
- Stick a fork in me, I am done.
That was me taken to the edge.
But I crossed the line in seven hours 27 minutes and seven
seconds, In 59th place.
Ted King won in a time of six hours,
34 minutes and 50 seconds.
I guess he didn't stop for pickles very much at all.
Brodie Chapman was the first female finisher
in 16th overall.
Well post ice bath, post drink and post food I honestly
thought that I would be able to think of something really
profound to say about my experiences here today in the
Steamboat, but frankly I'm way to tired for any of that.
So all I can say really is I absolutely loved it and I wish
I discovered gravel racing earlier on.
Firstly, being up front an in the mix was hugely
exciting even though I knew that I didn't have a chance
in hell of actually staying at the front.
But then just riding with everyone and getting around
the course was a huge experience
and a huge achievement as well.
So, I was super chaft.
In terms of how hard it was, I averaged about 191 Watts.
And according to my wheel band here I've burned about 6788
calories so I'm off to find some more food right now.
I've got to say a big thank you to Steamboat's Gravel Race
for bringing us out here and also with the help of Canyon,
Stages and Mavic as well.
Big thumbs up to all of those.
If you want to see a video about my bike
and the tech that was on there.
You can get through to that one by clicking on the screen.
It's over on the tech channel now.