Reliance Deep Woods Gravel Race - Stage 1

 

Shannon Burke, who operates TennesseeGravel.com, started this 2 day gravel race last year.  With a few tweaks this year and a lot more sponsors, he had upped the game and I had a feeling this was gonna be a great weekend to race, swap stories, and even party a little. You could race the long routes, or you had the option of riding 2 shorter courses each day.  Afterwards, you could clean up at the campground, chow down on some grub, and have a beer or NA beer, or two. This was as much a festival as it was a race.

Saturday's course was burly: 66 miles and 9200 feet.  And with a good bit of chunky gravel/double track, my 2016 Niner RKT RDO with 2.2 Race Kings was the right bike for the gnar.  It had dumped rain the night before, so sections of the course could be particularly spicey. The starting temperature was 60 degrees ... perfect!

The start was faster than my legs wanted to go this early on, but I knew I needed to hang on to enjoy the draft going up Childer's Creek and Power House Road.  Five miles of mostly free speed on pavement ... I will take it!  Just that one stiff little climb, where I was able to pull away from a few ladies, as the diesel engine was warmed up ... much sooner than I expected. The 3 mile climb after the swinging bridge went by quickly.  Well, hello there, sparkly legs!

The Smith Mountain climb was a beast at 6 miles of chunky double track.  Fortunately, I was having a great day and ended up passing another woman on a short descent.  This section was quite wet and a little muddy, but the Kings were hooking up well.  Wish I woulda tried these tires years ago!  

I followed Scott, aka "Sugar," down the Kimsey descent to Piney Flats. This descent is WAY more fun after only 20 miles in your legs as opposed to 120 miles when doing the Dirty 130.  Piney Flats was wet but grippy.  There were a couple of severely rutted out sections where you had to carefully pick your lines.

The aid station was at mile 32.  I stopped briefly to eat a banana and refill one bottle.  Then I was off to tackle the 10 mile Wolf Creek-McFarland climb.  The Wolf Creek section was smooth, 6-8 % average grade.  Legs were still sparkly ... huzzah! From there, I made the right turn onto McFarland and continued climbing another 5 miles, but with horribly steep pitches, washed out road beds, and chonky bedrock to negotiate. Still motoring, I made it to the top in record time, a new PR for me!

Then it was back to Smith Mountain, but this time I got to descend it.  Got a chance to recover a bit, although I still had to stay focused, as it was wet and chunky. As I turned right off of the Smith Mountain descent, Randy Kerr came riding up behind me.  WTH?!? Apparently he had ridden the Piney Flats section twice instead of coming down Smith.  Man, I hated it for him.  When the course has lots of criss-crossing, you have got to be astute in doing your homework, as well as watching for the upcoming turns, so that you don't end up repeating a section or going backwards on the course.  Ask me how I know ... Gravel Worlds 2023 😣

I passed by the aid station without stopping and then began the short climb on Lost Creek.  I could not believe how good I was still feeling. The last 13 miles seemed to fly by, standing and hammering the climbs and raging the descents.  I tried to stay conservative, as tomorrow was another hard day, but I was having so much fun. I ended up PR'ing the Lost Creek section, too.

I rolled into the finish line, 1st Master's and 2nd woman, with a time of 6:07.  Chelsie Tan had finished in 6:04.  I had heard about her and finally got to meet her.  Tiny, she's lucky is she stands 5'1", but I bet her watts/kg is phenomenal.  Previously a World Tour level athlete, she has found that mountain biking is much more fun. And today's course was a mountain bike course, for sure!

Unfortunately, I could not stay and join in the afternoon camraderie and festivities, as I had to go home to let the kids out.  Both Carly and Charlie had to work today.  But it also gave me good reason to get home and try to recover for tomorrow's stage.

This year's Day 1 course was so much better than last year's.  Long climbs and technical descents made for a great day of racing and adventure in my backyard.  If you want champagne gravel, head to the middle of the country.  If you want to do hard things and destroy your limits, then this race is for YOU!