Life Time Grand Prix series - Big Sugar Gravel
When I applied for the LifeTime series I knew it would be an insane year of traveling. But on the flip side it would be awesome to be part of something new: to be part of the professionalism of gravel or offroad racing in the USA. I raced with a different approach towards the races than a lot of the young guns did. I’ve been a pro cyclist already for 16 years and I am extending those years with some off road fun, while balancing a lot of other projects. I try to inspire people to take their bikes more and in the meantime I’m having a lot of fun doing that. The fun part stays the most important. Back in the pro days, I’ve been pretty grumpy when results would not be satisfying. The satisfaction of these trips wasn’t measured by any result. It was measured by the amount of fun we had still racing bikes ones in a while.
To recap, I did five out of six races of the series (one ‘by-race’ was allowed). My best result has been a 2nd place among the LifeTime athletes in Unbound gravel, the race that suits me the most. Furthermore, I did okay in the two other gravel events, while I still suck at mountain biking. I lost a lot of points over there at Leadville and Sea Otter racing flatbars. I tried to learn the trick at age 41 but I didn’t succeed. Never mind, the most important thing is that I traveled to four of those events with friends or family. I could share experiences and felt rich to be able to teach my kids, what can happen when you’re chasing your dreams.
The Big Sugar event was the last event in the series. In order to make the final results you had be at the start line of this event, which made it maybe te most stack field in the whole year. Throw some Specialized World Tour guys from Bora and Quick-Step in the mix and it made for a peloton which reminded me of my World Tour days. But the lead up to raceday was totally different than back in the team bus. The family was having fun in Texas with Fabian, the organizer of Gravel Locos who became a good friend. We traveled to Arkansas in a RV, but we stopped at every baseball field we found to play ball all together. We had fun and there was no time for race nerves.
But oh boy, I felt those nerves in the bunch at the start line and in the first kilometers on tarmac. It was like a start in a stage of Paris-Nice hitting a crosswind section, that’s how the energy of the racers around me felt. Luckily I could manage myself in a good position into the chunky Bentonville gravel. But the diesel engine wasn’t warm enough yet. As this race would take more or less five hours, I noticed there was no holding back in the beginning of the race. With a seven hour race (like the Gravel Locos events) or the big nine hours of Unbound, the young fast guys are a little afraid. They hesitate, and I can warm up. Here? Nothing like that at all: I found myself sprinting out of corners, sprinting up small hills on the big gear gasping for air. You get the picture. Disappointed, I had to let the group go after like 40 minutes into the race to settle for a more gentle pace.
And here I made a mistake. I stopped believing right away. Whereas in Unbound my mind was so strong that I never stopped believing I could win the race, till the final straight line, here I stopped believing in the first hour already. I found a 3rd group and in hindsight we still did a great job pacing ourselves around the difficult Ozark hills. We sticked together for a long time and started to pick up guys from the front. Guys who collapsed and guys who’s tires or bikes collapsed. I had no clue at which position we were racing as the front group was big when I dropped after that furious first 30 minutes. But somehow the diesel did its work in the last hour, as I suddenly clicked and started going faster. Guys I could barely follow a few hours earlier, were now dropping from my wheel as I started going faster.
Fast forward to the last kilometers of the race: I suddenly saw two guys playing ‘cat and mouse’ in front of me. At first I thought they were some 50 milers who still had some legs, but as I came closer I realized their attacks were too strong and I recognized an ‘Orange Sealed’ kit. This must be Cole Patton, I thought and I started to go faster. I tried to surprise him and the other fella (Owen was his name) but they saw me coming and could stay away untill the finish line in downtown Bentonville. I crossed the line and saw a lot of tired racers around me. Boys I didn’t see all day, but apparently I had come pretty close as they had clearly not finished too long ago. Russel Finsterwald, the guy I was second to in the Gravel Locos race three weeks earlier, had taken the win. I learned a lesson over here at the last race of the year at age 41.
Never stop believing.
Want more? You can watch the video, read the power debrief by Jim from Join.cc and check out the route on Komoot below.