Melting Mann-First Gravel Race of the Year

I celebrated the first day of spring with a gravel race called "Melting Mann." This race started in the small southern Michigan town of Vandalia and wound through the surrounding countryside on mostly hard-packed gravel roads. Here is a photo I stole from their FB page of the starting queue with their mascot Yeti.

The weather was excellent for March: clear, sunny and cold-in the lower 30s at the start. Overall, it was a positive experience. I really had a great time and am happy with my result. But I do see room for improvement.

The positives:

This was the first race with my new BMC  bike, with new Rolf prima wheels and Clement MSO 40mm tires:

Lots of cushioning because of the frame design, carbon seat post and allowance for wider tires. Compared to my heavier Surly, the weight difference really helped me get up those hills. The "wider than recommended" tires were really, really nice: they helped smooth out the bumps and I actually felt comfortable sliding around on the loose gravel or soft sand.

The course was fairly smooth, mostly hard packed. Here's a photo I took during a time of where I had to slow down to get rid of some lactic acid:

Beautiful roads, beautiful weather.

I also stayed for the awards ceremony and had some food and beer with everybody. The gravel racing community is really friendly and has a very low, virtually nonexistant "AH" ratio, compared with other flavors of bike racing, in my opinion.

The room for improvement:

One of the main reasons I race is that it gives me a clearly measured, objective result that I can use to measure my efforts to improve. My goal has been to finish above 50% of all participants. I can then consider myself "above average" and this helps to bolster my fragile ego. The actual result was 152nd place out of 219 so not so good. I was basically under-trained. But I do think the 50% goal is within my reach. My average speed was 15 miles an hour. In order to hit my goal, I should have been at 16 miles per hour average. I think the faster pace is attainable. Let's see how I do at the Lowell 50 in a couple of weeks.