Rebecca's Private Idaho 2017

The August 2017 issue of VeloNews featured a cover story “America’s Dirty Secret” dedicated to gravel racing in America.  It profiles some of the country’s best gravel races with features on Rebecca’s Private Idaho and The Crusher in the Tushar. Both of these events set a gold standard, but it is probably not a big surprise that VN rates Rebecca’s much higher in the fun factor. I did not participate in the inaugural edition of either, but I feel fortunate to have been there in the early years of both.

Rebecca is a gracious host and a fine organizer. She puts on a great event and for better or worse, people have taken notice. RPI has undergone exponential growth and people are showing up more motivated to race. VN has plenty of praise for the gravel racing scene and their commentary reflects my own experience. Gravel races tend to have a festival like atmosphere providing fun, adventure, and scenery with a flexible racing format that offers something for a range of riders from elite competitors to the guy just praying to make the time cut.

We arrived in Ketchum on Saturday just as the Wagon Days Parade was ending and a free community concert was starting: Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real—Willie Nelson’s son and frequent backing band for Neil Young. The race packet was generous as always with a very cool ¾ sleeve baseball style T shirt. We timed our arrival to see a matinee screening of Rebecca’s movie Blood Road between packet pickup and the 6:30 riders meeting.

I did not know exactly what to expect from Blood Road. Most of you are familiar with the general outline: Rebecca and Vietnamese Cyclist Huyen Nguyen travel the 1200 miles of the Ho Chi Minh trail through the jungles of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in search of the crash site where Rebecca’s father was shot down during the Vietnam War. It is a beautiful movie; well crafted and very powerful. I get a little emotional just writing about. It is available on-line and streaming. I would encourage everyone to see it.

I feel like road conditions were generally good this year, but that is relative I guess. RPI is still a long ride on bone jarring roads. In contrast to the cold conditions that have predominated for the past couple of years, RPI 2017 will be remembered for record heat. It was actually pretty nice at the start, but getting a little uncomfortable by mid-morning. I drank all the fluid I could get my hands on, eight bottles (half plain, half with various mixes), and two Red Bull’s and still finished pretty dry. The combination of heat, high participant numbers, and remote aid stations put some real stress on water supplies out on the course.

Southbound into Copper Basin, we rode into a significant headwind, but I was able get into good groups when it was helpful and time trial when it was not. One of the guys in some of the groups that I spent time in was Ketchum resident Roger Mankus, age 60, finisher of 23 of 24 editions of the Leadville Trail 100. A fractured femur prevented his 24^th finish.

In addition to me and Dan, other locals at RPI included Chris Huskinson and Ryan from Bill’s Bike Shop. Shae volunteered at the finish line, entrusted with the mythical RPI bolo tie which goes to the first 75 finishers. I commented last year that I had likely received my last bolo tie. Two things sealed my fate as a bolo tie non-recipient this year and presumably into the future.  Rebecca allocated 25 bolo ties to the top female finishers with the remaining 50 going to the top men.  I think that is only fair. Added to the explosive growth and the higher level of competition the bolo is going to be a very elusive prize going forward.