Coast-to-Coast Gravel race 2023
After successfully finishing my seventh Lumberjack-100 mountain bike [1] race on June 17th, I then took on the Coast-to-Coast Gravel race a week later June 24th.
I finished the event in 2019 with a time of 15 hours-22 minutes, beating the sunset. In 2021, I dropped out at the second checkpoint at the 100 mile mark due to the weather which was constant rain resulting in so much of the gravel road surface the consistency of speed-sucking peanut butter!. 2023 was my third start with the Coast-to-Coast Gravel race.
The race starts at Au Gres on Saginaw Bay/Lake Huron and ends at the beach park in Ludington. There are three checkpoints every rider must pass through so the event organizers know where everyone is on the course. Checkpoint #1 is 50 miles into the race in Gladwin. Checkpoint #2 is at the 100 mile mark in Marion. Checkpoint #3 is at the BigM recreation area another 70 miles further. The fourth segment is the shortest going into Ludington at about 35 miles.
Unlike Lumberjack the week before in which the morning temperatures were in the low 40s and climbed to 80 by mid-day, this day the 6am temperature was already 64 and would peak in the 90s by noon! I started with a windbreaker but peeled that off after the first fifty mile.
Section one is pretty fast. With all the races starting at the same time at 6am, I was able to ride in pacelines for most of the first fifty miles. Once we hit the checkpoint, these pacelines pretty much broke up and then it was solo riding the remainder of the course, on occasion passing a rider or two, or getting passed.
Cool sighting at mile 66! A black bear crossed the road!. I was maybe a hundred yards behind a rider from Rock-n-Road bike shop and the black bear crossed the road some yards in front of him! I caught up to him a few miles later as he stopped for a minute and I asked “had the bear cross in front of you?” He said he rode on but was shouting “hey bear, hey bear” so as to not surprise it.
Section two has a bit more climbing as you can see from the graph, but I completed the first 100 miles in about 7 hours/12 minutes. (Not bad on gravel considering I can do a one hundred mile road ride in 6–½ hours).
Joni drove my car ahead to each checkpoint where I would get fresh water bottles, drink a small Coca-cola (8 ounce can) and grab a bite to eat before heading out on the next section.
In 2019, my feet were killing me as I reached checkpoint #3. They had swelled up in the heat and were aching in my Giro bike shoes. I bought a cheap set of bike shoes a size larger after that. My feet were already aching by the 100 mile mark at checkpoint #2 so I swapped into the larger shoes and went out for the next 70 mile segment. (I also use the yellow shoes mostly on my trainer in the basement).
Section 3- UGH- some of the most miserable riding, but I get ahead. In 2019, I didn’t carry enough water for this segment and was going hydration deficit by the time I got to the third checkpoint. Lesson learned.
For section one I carried only two bottles on the bike. Section two I carried three bottles- two on the bike and one in my jersey. Section three had me carry FOUR bottles of water. The first 35 miles or so of this section was wide open farmland riding west on (mostly) 21 Road or 22 Road as they are called. The sun was blazing hot in the 90s! Only a few miles out of Marion, a family on the route had a water station where I stopped and drank half a bottle of cold water AND refilled one of my four bottles I had already consumed. I don’t think we had gone ten miles yet. Then again about another 10–15 miles another family had set up a roadside support with water and a hose to mist yourself. I filled again. I think all told in the 70 miles of this section I went through maybe five bottles of water (120 ounces)! The race had a water station also at mile 143 which I rode past since I had enough water due to the previous two stops.
I rode with two Garmins. I used the lower-end Garmin 210 to actually record the ride so I could also check it for mileage as I rode. My Garmin 510 had the route with turn-by-turn map loaded which I used to navigate the course, but in navigate mode it does not show mileage traveled. I plugged both into a back up battery, but apparently the two computers drained the backup battery by mile 100, so I had Joni plug it into the car to recharge while I rode the 70 mile section three. Then, minor inconvenience at mile 138- My Garmin 510 lost power and with it I lost easy navigation. This was just as the course was entering the national forest two tracks. Fortunately, Matt Acker’s flagged stakes in this section were well placed and easy to follow for the most part. I had the race’s cue cards for navigation but they are mostly only usable on the roads where there are road signs at the intersections.
The next twenty miles were, frankly, MISERABLE riding. From about mile 140 to to 170, but especially the last 15 miles after we crossed M-37 highway, the forest roads were like riding on the beach- sand upon sand upon sand! If you weren’t hopping from one tire track to the other searching for a good line, you were trying to power through sand, or walking, or falling over as your bike came to hard stop in a sand pit. Just miles of sand that I am sure the demi-gods at the front of the race blew through with ease, but for us mere mortals, it was a time-sucking pit. I completed the first two sections of 100 miles total in just over seven hours. It took me just under seven hours for the 70 mile third segment!
FInally, I reached the Big-M parking lot. Went back to three water bottles for the last 35-ish miles into Ludington. Grabbed my headlight and put it in my jersey pocket since I was going to finish in the dark in all likelihood. The course then went out onto the mountain bike trail for a short bit to connect to another forest road on the north side of Big-M. That forest road appeared to go straight west for some ways and, of course, had MORE SAND! Again, some sections NOT rideable, especially as the legs have already had 170 miles on them. It wasn’t like I was totally depleted. Once back onto gravel and pavement I was able to ride 17–20mph on flat section.
Anyway, left Big-M for the last segment. Once on gravel I was able to move along but the sun was setting and darkness was closing in. I stopped right after I crossed US-31 at mile 190 and mounted my front light onto the handlebars. I had already turned on my rear tail-light. The last 14 miles were in the dark. I also turned on my Google Map sharing. I use Google Map sharing when I do solo rides. I share with my wife and all she needs to do is open her Google Maps on her phone and she can see where I am out on the road.
Now mostly on pavement I rode in to the finish chute with a time of 16:47. I was 149 of 196 finishers, 6 of 10 in the 60+ age group and 136 of 176 male finishers. Average pace for the event was 12.2mph.
Probably won’t do this event again soon. The Gran Fondo road event out of Grand Rapids is the same Saturday and I would like to go back and do that again. I have rode the Fondo four previous times.
[1]
https://medium.com/@dennisbmurphy/lumberjack-100-mountain-bike-race-report-e40b98817e31
