Gravel Race Report - BWR 2019 Belgian Waffle Ride - with IM fitness

What is the BWR?

Short & fun answer:

Video (20 min) - it covers the course and race for 2018. If this doesn't make you want to ride your bike you are dead. Give it a minute - it starts a little slow to build the drama. The action starts at 2:30.

Long answer:

Although it says ride in the race name, this is race.

It is everything a bike race should be. It is 134 miles, 90 on the road, 44 on trails, sand, gravel divided into 16 sectors. 10 categorized climbs.12,000 of climbing. Pro riders line up with amateurs. There is a prize purse. The women's winner was Larissa Conners (2x winner Leadville 100 MTB race).

All the details below. FYI. The video is way more fun....

Why did I do it?

It is close to home. I had heard that it was incredibly hard. The video hooked me. I was looking for something different this year outside of triathlon, something is the EN Epic category. I like mountain biking and road biking, so this is kinda in the middle.

What bike did I ride?

Funny you should ask. I rode a Canyon Grail gravel bike, with 38mm tires. What is the difference between a road bike and gravel bike. Simply, a gravel bike has more clearance for wider tires (bigger than 28mm but smaller than 1.5"). For the bike geeks, the wider tires change the "trail," which is the the horizontal distance between the contact patch of the front wheel and the projection of the steering axis to the ground. The longer the trail the more "stable" it feels - which comes in handy when riding in loose surfaces like sand or gravel. The bike stays in a straight line better than a road bike with a shorter trail.

Tire selection is another key choice. Here, I chose poorly. Or maybe, next time I would change my tire selection. This is choice about optimizing for the road or the dirt. Wider tires are a better for the dirt (more traction, comfort over rocks, and more stable). Narrow tires are better for the road (less rolling resistance). For folks that are really into this, you can spend your whole training ride talking tire strategy. I chose a wider tire (38 mm) because I was more comfortable on the dirt and this is what I trained on. I tried a 32 mm gravel tire early in the month, but flatted early in the ride and the handling was sketchy. So, I was optimized for the dirt and figured I would sacrifice the rolling resistance

Can I ride my road bike? Yes, but you will need to practice or tolerate bumpy riding in loose gravel, rocks etc. Bring more inner tubes.

Ride/Race report

I broke down my report/analysis into Preparation, Logistics, Pacing & Data, Nutrition, Hydration, Focus and Decision Making.

Preparation: Primarily IM training. I still swam (2x week) and ran (3-4x week), but my emphasis was on the bike. I did 2x 100 mile rides in the last 16 weeks and consistently ride in the 3.5 hour range. Also, I added a gravel or mountain bike skills day to my training week. These skills days were generally easy/moderate rides (depending on the climbing involved) and intended to build some confidence on dirt, gravel, rocks, sand etc. Since this is a local race for me, so I rode sections over the spring just to familiarize myself with the course. In the lead up to the race, I got sick about 2 weeks out and was regaining my training leading into this race, which actually worked to my benefit because it forced me to reduce my training load so I was essentially tapered going into the race. If do this again I would go into this race tapered. I would also experiment more with tires, to see if I can find a better balance of road speed and dirt grip.

Logistics: The weather was great, high 50s to start low-mid 70s to finish. The race has several waves. Wave 1 is the Pros and Cat 1/2 cyclists and all women. (FYI. The women's prize purse was more than the men's.) Waves 2 and 3 are everybody else. Start time was at 7 am. Waves started 5 min apart with police escort and controlled roll out for the first 10ish miles. The Pro Men finish in about 6+ hours, Pro women 7+ hours. Rest of us mortals 8,10, 12+ hours. Aid stations are great - every 15ish miles. There are KOM/QOM, Sprints, King of the Canyon (the gravel climb) categories contested all by Strava. There are no age group categories. Just the Pro purse and the category awards. Everyone just shows up and rides hard because they can. For the record, there are actually two rides - The Waffle = 134 miles and The Wafer 66 miles. The Wafer is much of the same course without the larger road sections and minus the 1+ hour gravel road climb.

The aid stations have great volunteers are well stocked, but they are self-serve affairs. No ride by bottles on the fly like IM, but I had no problem stopping getting what I needed and moving on. There are Velofix or legit bike shop repair at each of the aid stations. I carried a spare tire & CO2 and GUP (an aerosol goop sealant thing) for flats. There are Belgian waffles with bacon at the start and waffles with ice cream at the finish, plus catered lunch/dinner. Oh, when you finish you also get a T-shirt and bottle of "Badass Ale" from the local Lost Abbey brewery, which is also the start and finish of the ride.

Pacing: Overall, this race does have many qualities of a road and mountain bike racing, with early hard efforts, surges for passing in narrow sections and legal drafting tactics. The start was surprisingly under control and not a complete hammerfest. This was partly because of the police escort and partly because everyone at least acknowledges that we are going to be out there for 8+ hours. I can see that there are some advantages to putting in some surges though. During the approach to each dirt sector the pace would pick up in order to gain some positioning because these were typically narrow and more difficult to pass and can take up to 20 minutes to complete. I was familiar with the course and found myself behind folks that were not as confident which put me waiting for a good time to pass. Also, it was good to exit a dirt section with a group for the drafting benefits on the following road section. More than a few times, all the gains I made on the dirt were lost because the group would catch me on the road (both because I was riding solo and because I was riding wide high-rolling resistance tires optimized for the dirt). Other times I would get dropped by a group or rider and pass them later because they got a flat, crashed or were just hanging out at an aid station. I was around, could see, or rode with people all day. At some point the shorter Wafer ride merges with the longer Waffle ride and you get the same dynamic of a multiple loop IM run course.

I was using this race for my race rehearsal for Leadville 100 MTB. I failed miserably at managing my effort early. I was felt good until the 4.5-5 hour mark. Around the 6 hour mark the effort got hard and by the 7-7.5 hour mark it was in the really hard category. No cramps, but my stomach didn't agree with the SIS products on course. Not a show stopper but good to know. Switching to water and some Coke helped. But, after the 6 hour mark the experience was very similar to the entire body race fatigue of IM. Funny story. At the 120 mile mark there is a 0.75 mile 10-15% grade climb, which I ride routinely during training. At that late stage, I thought I might have to walk - but I crawled up the climb, with every gear I had left, with a slow cadence and ridiculous power numbers and got to the aid station - I didn't speak, I just pointed and the volunteer was kind enough to interpret my lost look and hand me a Coke. Then it was only 3 miles of downhill single track followed by a road section and the finish. So, lesson learned and I will try harder to show patience and better EN tactics for my Leadville attempt. From what I have heard and read (I'm a Leadville rookie) Leadville has similiar race dynamics with a trend to ride harder, earlier than is appropriate because of early congestion and narrowing of the course. I'm still looking at the data, but based on this experience, I will do my best to show some early patience and have that pay off in a more coherent second half of the race.

Nutrition: I packed my pockets with bars (Bonk Breaker & JoJe) and used shot blocks during the last 2 hours. Again the aid stations were well stocked. Generally, I stuck to my schedule of a bar an hour, divided into 15 minute intervals - sometimes the terrain dictated when I could reach into a pocket etc. I used salt taps and avoided any cramping. I could have been more disciplined here and gone to the shot blocks early, but really my fade was more an issue of pacing then fueling.

Hydration: This year I have experimented with other products outside Gatorade Endurance. I have used Marten, GU Roctane, Scratch and now SIS (Science In Sport). I started with Scratch in bottles and transitioned to SIS, then water and Coke. For Leadville, I will use Scratch or GU Roctane the entire way. I weighed myself before and after and didn't lose more than 2 pounds.

Focus: The thing that I like the most about gravel and mountain biking it that is requires me to be present in my thought process - rocks and loose dirt have a great way of focusing your thinking. I feel really good early - both physically and mentally. I was thinking one or two sectors ahead, picking good lines, staying positive etc. By the 4-4.5 hour mark, when it was starting to get hard, was still thinking one or two sectors ahead but there were some negative thoughts and doubt that I needed to work through. At the 6 hour mark the negative thoughts combined with the mounting physical fatigue made the mental game a little tougher - ie. my thoughts of having to walk a 10-15% climb I have done in training. Here my internal goals became shorter and shorter - transitioning from 10 or 5 mile sectors to just individual sectors and finally to lampposts, traffic lights and corners. I am encouraged that I had the presence of mind to understand want I was thinking and either solve my problem by replacing it with other positive thoughts or physically by changing my fueling, going to the Coke (caffeine + high fructose corn syrup). Overall, this race was as challenging mentally as any IM race.

Decision Making: Overall, I liked my decision making. My choice of pacing could be improved, but I didn't crash, flat, cramp or get into major stomach distress all day - which means I was immediate making good decisions on speed, line choice, passing, cornering and fueling in general. I worked through some minor stomach distress from the SIS stuff and made some good choices adapting my nutrition and hydration. A couple of times, it made more sense to ride by myself than to push over my limit with a group, just be patient and recover during a technical section or get involved with small "Ricky Racers" battling for position on some unknown hill in the middle of nowhere.

Why is it called the Belgian Waffle Ride?

The race director liked the idea of a "Spring Classic" in the United States. He was inspired by European races like the Paris to Roubaix. He also likes to make something completely unique. He names all the sectors with some goofy or hokey naming. He knew someone that put on a race in Northern California called the French Toast ride. Since French toast was taken, he opted for Belgian Waffles.

If you got this far - thanks for reading.

@scott dinhofer @Kori Martini