Many of you know that Jay P offers two distances for many of his events including the Gravel Pursuit which features 60 and 120 mile options. Even though everyone has decent late season fitness, no one was anxious to spend the hours in the saddle that would have been necessary to complete the 120 mile loop just two weeks after Lotoja. We opted for the 60 mile which I think ended up being the goldilocks choice or in other words, just about right. The Gravel Pursuit was a top quality event all around; well designed, well organized, and well executed. It was among the highlights of the year for all of the Upper Valley participants.
Much of the route was very familiar to us as a result of numerous gravel rides in Island Park and specifically the Fish Creek area, but some portions were unfamiliar to us. I think the general consensus is that the route was just a little harder than we had anticipated. The climbs were not especially difficult, but fairly long. Portions of the route, particularly the top of the Chick Creek Road were rutted and rocky. Of the locals, Dan opted to run 40 mm tires and was the only one in the group to not experience at least one flat tire. In theory, tubeless should have the preferable option to avoid the numerous pinch flats which plagued many of the riders. Strangely, we had a couple of people on tubeless and everyone experienced about the same amount of tire trouble. Kellen had a very near miss when he blew a front tire on a high speed downhill.
Flat tires were probably the thing that kept Kellen and Ryan off the podium. Shae was once again the top female finisher and received some great prizes including a custom belt buckle.
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