Race Report - Low Gap Grasshopper 2023 Pro Men
Race: 2023 Low Gap Grasshopper - Men’s Pro
Date: Jan 28th, 2023
AVRT racers: Austin King, Florian Costa, Grant Miller, Cameron O’Reilly, Andrea Cloarec
Top Result: Andrea (19/44)
Andrea training for his No Hands skills
Course: 44 Miles, with the first part road, second part Gravel. One big climb of 20-25’ on each part.
It was cold!
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8467760870/overview
Nutrition: Two 500ml bottles with Maurten 320, total 160g Carbs (for 2h40min. Not enough)
Bike/Tires: Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M, 45mm wide, at 40 psi, on my home made gravel bike.
Recap:
So the race started directly with a 20’ climb… and we started fast! As expected, the field was quite strong, 6W/kg for the first 5’ if you wanted to stay at the front. Cam and Grant made that choice, with a very strong start! I preferred to stay lower, and pace the full 20’ more evenly. I finally caught Cam and Grant close to the top of the finish.
And I reached the top of the climb with Cam and two other Team Mikes Bike together.
One of the TMB, very good descender, directly left us. So we stayed as a group of 3 with Cam, me and the other TMB guy.
We did a good job together on the rolling roads part, and arrived together at the start of the gravel part.
Grant on the downhill section
The gravel part started with some small punchy climbs, from there I accelerated to follow a group of 3 with the TMB guy and 2 other guys. We kept riding together, pushing the uphills, and very fast downhill. And I put all my confidence in their lines, as I was not watching the trails at all, but just following the wheel in front of me and their lines, as I was sure they were better gravel racers than me. So they could choose the good lines!
Austin on the gravel part
Until I made a wrong turn.. Well, I went straight while I had to take a sharp right turn. Almost crashing with one of the guy.
I maybe just lost 10 seconds, the time to unclip, turn and start back. But I lost contact with the 3 riders. And 1 minute after, when trying to catch them, I unclipped, and didn’t manage to clip back in. Had to put the feet down. Just lost only 10 seconds again, but that was enough to not see the group anymore.
From there, I was alone for 1 hour until the finish line.
The long gravel climb felt awful. I wasn’t even sure I was still on the course, as a turn was VERY badly indicated, and I wondered if I made the right choice. I did. But a group not far behind me, with Cam, took the wrong turn.
I kept pushing as much as I could up to the top, to finally enjoy the last10 miles downhill on the road to the finish line. Keeping some power on the flatter parts, because I didn’t want anyone to catch me. And being careful on some muddy turns, because I didn’t want to have a stupid crash.
I crossed the line after 2h40min. Cam was already there waiting for me after an unlucky shortcut (course was definitely not indicated correctly!). (And he also didn’t have any post races photos! Sorry =/)
Grant followed shortly after, then Flo and Austin arrived all muddy =D <3
Flo finishing, easy.
That was a very great course, super happy with this first gravel race. And the Burritos after the race were so good, under the warm sun! Finally here.