Spinistry Gravel Stage Race / Dallas to Travis

 

The Spinistry gravel stage race from March 20 – 22 was set up for cyclists to race three long stages with very minimal gear on their bikes, meeting up with our support at campgrounds each night. Most of us who raced it, though, opted to practice some bikepacking skills, riding loaded with 30 – 40 pounds of gear and water. 

Check, double check, triple check

The stages were 125, 144, and 155 miles per day, and for the most part the weather was cool and beautiful.

Margaret drove me up to the start line at Cedar Hill near Dallas and we rolled out at 7 a.m. 

8 riders started at Cedar Hill, TX

 

about 100 miles in on Day 1 in Irene, TX. Irene herself was nowhere to be seen

The 125-mile ride to Lake Navarro Mills near Corsicana was easy and pleasant. I wound up riding the last 30 miles or so with Mike Buenaventura and Jenell Decker, strong riders from Tyler, and we finished the first day together in the mid-afternoon. I was prepared to get back on the bike and ride a couple of miles backward on the course to a BBQ joint for dinner, but Kevin Lee, the Spinistry race director, kindly shared some of the abundant food he had prepared. I also cooked and ate one of my camp meals. I was as full as a tick on Dracula but knew I would need every calorie for Sunday’s windy 145-miler.

I sat around the campfire that first night and soaked in the camaraderie with Kevin Lee; Mat Stephens, winner of gravel’s Super Bowl (the DK200) in 2017; Christie Tracy, the 24-hour national champion; Rich Waldschmidt, a prince of a guy who shared fantastic pour-over coffee in the mornings; Hoss Kleinschmidt, a guy who did the Gran Gravel 500 event last year with me; David Walker from Dallas; and Peter Rajcani, a 20,000 mi/year cyclist who completed the 1,000-mile Race Across Texas in grueling conditions last fall.

We rolled at 6:30 Sunday morning for the stage 2 ride to Mother Neff State Park near Waco. The route serpentined east to west before finally bending south into a strong, steady headwind. I rode a good part of the day with Mike and Jenell, including an obligatory stop for kolaches at the Czech Stop in West. The rollers near Clifton and Valley Mills took a lot out of me, and I rolled into Mother Neff about 40 minutes after them. Margaret drove out from Waco with burgers and beverages and enjoyed the campfire with us for a few minutes.

 

Margaret caught up with me just before the end of Day 2´s ride. This was the face I made when she told me she had Loyd Spence-made burgers and Shiner Blondes in the truck 

I slept well in the cool night air at the campsite. I’m finding myself having to relearn my camping and outdoor sleeping skills. I would estimate I spent a total of about a year sleeping outside during my Marine Corps career and I never had too much trouble sleeping under the stars in a sleeping bag and bivy sack. I largely lost that ability in the intervening years, though, and am working to get it back. Complicating the process was having broken two ribs in a dog-related crash in January.

Monday’s stage 3 ride of 155 miles to near Austin was to be the longest, windiest stage. We’d be headed south nearly every pedal stroke and the headwinds in the afternoon would pick up to a soul-crushing 20+ mph. Drizzling rain started in Temple. Stop. Rainjacket on. More rain. Stop. Rainpants on. The rain stops. I stop. Raingear off. It’s amazing how much time you can lose when you spend the whole day on the bike. The wind was making my nose run like a faucet. I stopped for food and cold medicine, which made me sleepy. I stopped beside a closed restaurant and sat in a lawn chair with my head leaned back on a wall for fifteen minutes. Bathroom stops. Navigation checks, connecting devices to my dynamo to recharge, refilling water bottles. All that time drags down your already paltry average speed. 

By noon I was already seeing it would be a 16-hour day on the bike. The efforts of the prior two days had my legs feeling like they were full of sand. The wind would blow me to an almost immediate stop any time I coasted. I chugged along for hours in the miasma of what I have learned is the essence of bikepacking racing and ultra-distance cycling: managing deep discomfort. If the soundtrack of the 45-minute crit race is heavy metal and the internal music that accompanies the Tuesday Take No Prisoners ride is Van Halen, the third day of bike racing is Gregorian chants, where you take a magnifying glass to the nooks and crannies of your soul searching for scraps of strength in the immense sea of your weakness. And in those moments, there is an infinite number of good reasons to stop. You just have to find a single reason to keep going.

Shortly after ten p.m. I rolled up the drive of the Holiday Inn Express in Elgin. In the darkness next to my truck, I saw the silhouette of my wife, the person whose soul is knitted to mine. We still had over an hour´s drive back to Waco from there, but home to me is wherever she is. I heard her shout and saw her make a little hop. Her applause echoed off the front of the hotel. Kevin Lee was waiting for me, too. He shook my hand and congratulated me. It felt good to finish.    

Done and dusted