Ionia's premier Gravel Grinder Cow Pie Classic

Now that my first gravel race was in the books, I had a better understanding of the things that I had to work on to be better prepared for the next races in the series. The previous weeks leading up to the Cow Pie Classic I focused on interval training and upping my pace on longer rides. Finding time to train in May and June became a little more challenging because summer activities with the family picked up so I found myself squeezing in rides in whatever spare time I could find. Weekly rides with my local team always proved to be the best and more effective training for me. One of the sweetest parts of this journey has been able to share my passion for bikes with my family, we now go on several family rides in different areas of the state because we quickly found it is one of the sweetest ways  of discovering new places. 

Biking with the Family on the Flat River Trail in Greenville

Race day is here!  As always, I woke up very early and even more excited because this time my family was coming with me to cheer me on. First, I want to commend the organizers and volunteers for doing an awesome job at the packet pickup, they had the traffic dialed down and were taking care of almost 600 riders extremely efficiently. Once we reached the downtown area you could tell it was going to be a great event, many businesses downtown were open early and were very eager to serve and help in any way. I even scored some free water from the local movie theatre who kindly had their doors open for people to use the restroom facilities. 

Every Michigan Gravel Races Series has it own unique feature and Cow Pie is no exception, besides the beautiful and challenging course we rode through a very picturesque cattle farm. The section took us through a real nice pasture and then through some woods which had a very challenging hill which eventually led inside a very nice barn that was set up as a pit stop.  The rest of the course proved to be a good challenge too, after a while I finally found a group that I stuck with pretty much the whole race. 

PHOTO CREDIT: ROB MEENDERING PHOTOGRAPHY

Overall I felt really strong during the whole race, I was pleasantly surprised after looking at the results that I was able to up my pace to 17.5mph and was able to finish the 31.8 miles in 1hr and 53 minutes.  I know there is a lot of room for improvement especially after looking at the winners in my age category (very strong riders) but I can definitely see a very good progression on my end. Now that I have two races under my belt, I can surely say that all the gear provided by the sponsors has played a crucial role in me being able to finish comfortably. The Bearclaw Thunderhawk and Velocity wheel combo has performed flawlessly, after all the miles I’ve put on them they work without any hiccups. I am now an official fan of Squirt Cycling chain lube, blows my mind how clean it keeps the chain even going through some gnarly terrain. Finally Hammer Nutrition and Floyds of Leadville have kept me going strong and helped me to recover quickly so I can keep clocking miles day after day.

I want to thank all the riders that recognized me or my bike and said hi, it is always fun to connect with new people! Next race up The Divide in Manton, MI hope you see you out there!