Gravel time trial results, April 20th

Ride Gravel
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Wowsers, I couldn’t believe the crowd at the outlet mall for tonight’s ride. Not sure if everyone just loves a TT that much :wink:, or maybe it was just the weather, especially since we’ve been rained out for what, the last two Tuesdays?

Here’s my crazy panorama shot as I stood in the middle of the group and rotated around: :grin:

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The gravel roads on course ended up being in great shape. Not much loose stuff aside from corner #1 that is usually a little tricky. Not too many potholes either, and for a lot of stretches, the crown was very smooth and fast.

What wasn’t helping us go fast was the wind though. Felt like it was SSW. The opening section on Powell it wasn’t too noticeable, but the the entire stretch along Posey was a pretty tough cross-headwind. Then Bam!, turn onto Lavery and that was the worst of it, but thankfully a shorter stretch.
The return leg on Lawson was mostly crosswind, with just a hint of tail. I know a lot of us were trying to figure out how to maybe twist or turn to take best advantage of the wind.

The one relief was the return on Powell was mostly a tailwind, which was also nice as that section is pretty climb-ey. I saw a lot of PR’s on the segment “Two Humps to go”. On the leaderboard now, 6 of the top 10 were set today.

Here’s the results pulled from Strava. As I mentioned I don’t think too many PR’s given the wind - I know I was about 1:30 off my best time. But hey, that just means next time we can all set new 2022 PR’s :rofl: :rofl:

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That was great thanks for organizing! Congrats to Andrew on a ripping time!

I was similar in terms of time difference (~2 mins slower and about 20 watts lower compared to PR).

It’s amazing how much difference wind and temp make. It was like riding into a wall. :slight_smile:

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Awesome fun, Kevin (well, except for the actual TT part:) Such a good course you found. I can’t imagine a better one in the area. Thanks for organizing.

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Credit where credit is due. The idea of a gravel TT came about a while back. I recall chatting with @CANGERMANN about it one day while on a ride. Then a week or two later, boom, he messaged me saying he found some gravel roads with corners where the traffic signs worked out so you had a rectangular course with no stop signs.

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Nice write up, and thanks for summarizing the results. Think I was one of the rare few that set a PR last night. :thinking:

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Thanks so much for being so welcoming everyone. I had a great time.

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I echo the comments so far. Thanks for organizing and I had a lot of fun. It is good to challenge yourself like this periodically and see where the fitness is (or went). Hope we can do a few more throughout the season. I also PR’d last night. However considering my only other attempt was on a fatbike I would have been distraught if I hadn’t.

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27 participants!! Wow, this gravel thing is really becoming a thing. My next rig will be a gravel one then :slight_smile:

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