Anyone doing the Little Apple gravel race in Illinois this weekend?
If not, anyone done it in the past and have any tips on the gravel? Tire choice? Etc?
I’m riding the 100K Open
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That is the one in Manhattan, right? Heard good things about it, but don’t know any specifics.
I would have considered it but I have a trade show this weekend…
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I haven’t hear much chatter but the promoter from BWR Michigan last year is doing a new race on the other side of Traverse City, routes haven’t been released but should include some awesome sections of road in Leelanau and Benzie counties, really looking forward to it
https://momittendurance.com/pages/the-momitt-2
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I’m waiting for the course to be released on this one before making a call on it. The BWR course last year was a mess and not well marked/organized.
If I know the roads, I’ll likely do it … but if it messes around all over the VASA again, I’m going to pass.
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It should be much better, will be the dirt roads and climbs around Glen Lake.
Yeah, course markings and people getting lost was a mess last year
Sounds like you have inside information?? 
I was just riding around Glen Lake and Leelanau for the last two weeks … I love it there. Please share 
Agree 100%. Barry is a super cool race. I’ve never noticed anything dangerous/concerning, but also I’m not at the pointy end of this thing.
I did the 62 mile wave 2. I hung with the lead group for the first 25 miles, ripping it up all the hills. At 185lbs I’m too big for that though…I cracked just did damage control the rest of the way. Next year I need to just settle in at my own pace once the group hits the climbs. Ripping 650 watts up the wall isnt a recipe for success 
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I have done it and had pretty great success last year at the race.
I will just say, you will not have “the right” tire choice because it literally has a mix of everything (concret, fast gravel and VERY chunky gravel).
The chunky stuff is not very much maybe 5-miles? but you will wish you had 48’s on the bike. The fast gravel is IMO a 40mm tire optimized and the tarmac… well its tarmac haha.
I did it with 39mm measured tires (Pirelli Cinturato H) and did 19mph AVG @ 203AP/231NP. Full race setup was 225lbs and I “think” i did a 41/42psi mix.
LMK if you have any other questions, its a great race and if its hot it will be hot as it literally has no tree coverage. Its pretty much pancake flat.
P.S - try to carve out or allot some time to hang out at the highway bar afterwards, it really is fun and a good time and they appreciate you being there.
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Bumping this one a bit- a co-worker is trying to talk me into the full Epic for next year. I’m curious which TR training plan (if any) that you followed. I used LV XCO which I think was a good fit for the half, but wondering if the XCM plan is well suited to the full, or just stick with XCO.
I only did the half Epic but I know that area well and I don’t think the XCM plan is a good fit. The climbs on that course are much shorter and punchier than what the XCM plan is intended for. The terrain is constantly changing and there aren’t any prolonged climbs. I’m doing another race in that area next month and I changed from XCM to XCO to better target the VO2Max efforts these climbs will suit.
Edit: This was only in reference to the MTB full Epic. I’ve done the full gravel before (not the full MTB, just the half) and the climbs are a little longer since they’re gravel roads vs. singletrack MTB trails. I still think XCO is a better fit than XCM, though, considering I saw very little VO2max in the XCM plan.
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Next weekend is the Ride across Wisconsin. 235 miles from La Crosse to Milwaukee. One day and two day options. Road and mixed surface. First time for me, but hoping for a fun day!
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Have fun…great event. Haven’t done it personally, but several riding buddies have and finished in the front group. Everyone had a blast. Well run event.
I don’t use TR, just ride my bike a bunch. Start the winter with a lot of Z2 with lifting and start adding threshold work when I can ride outside. Last year I raced the spring crits for my VO2 work. I swapped those for threshold rides this year.
Course profile below. I would say the climbing isn’t punchy, but it isn’t long sustained climbs either. I felt like the climbing on the gravel course was punchier. It is a longer race so don’t short your self on the base miles.
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Race report: Little Apple Gravel
I did the 100K Open race distance/category
I have many thoughts, and also a really grateful a shout out to “Midwest” thread contributor @teddygram
Never … and I mean NEVER … in my experience has a race profile so understated the difficulty of a course, nor caused me to misjudge how I thought a race would play out.
It was hot, humid and if not for some merciful cloud cover which rolled in about 2/3rds through the race I may have blown up. I went through the equivalent of four 750ml bottles (each with a 1000mg Precision Hydration tab) in just over 3 hours of racing.
It wasn’t even THAT hot for August in the Midwest. My computer recorded a high of 90F but mostly measured temps in the low/mid 80s — but those Illinois cornfields seem to have a way of radiating heat. However, the humidity was a capital-P problem …
With all that said, based on course profile — with only 600 ft of climbing — and my experience gravel racing in both Michigan and Illinois (this race is not too far away from where the Rough Road 100 takes place) I thought this was going to be a gravel crit. See course map and profile below.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I rode my OPEN UPPER with 35mm Schwalbe G-One R tires. These are fantastic, fast tires and I can’t wait to roll them in the Rough Road and Barry Roubaix next year, but were wildly overmatched on this course.
@teddygram recommended 38s for the job and by the time I read that here it was too late to swap … but if I was doing it again, I would either do it with 40s with some knobs, or perhaps 42s.
The one word description I would use for the course is “slush” … the gravel was deeper, thicker and sketchier than anything I had previously been on, and the job was made incredibly more difficult by my too-narrow tires. Some of the roads were dirt, some rocky with hard-pack grooves … but 50% of the gravel was deep, loose-over-loose … culminating with a coup de grâce in a place called Cougar Rd. about 10 miles from the finish which saw half of the remaining riders I was with bury their front wheel and either go down, or have to put a leg out and stop.
I have heard of gravel like this … I think people describe Iowa gravel as “slushy”, but I’d never seen it, nor had I ever raced it. Every 90-degree turn that was gravel-to-gravel made me feel like I was going to crash. If we were riding in a decent groove and had to flip to the other side of the road to pass a rider … I felt like I was going to crash. When I wasn’t pulling, watching the riders’ wheels in front of me was completely unnerving because they were constantly sliding and fish-tailing.
All of this led to a race developing which was completely attritional and in many cases totally negated any advantage of hiding in the group because we were almost always single file and the rolling resistance was super high.
Results … after an hour we were down to a lead group of about 12, after two hours it was 6. One rider flatted and another crashed taking a corner at about 5 mph … his front wheel just washed out on 2-inch deep gravel.
Three of us came out of the aforementioned Cougar Rd. in the lead at about mile ~54 … but the effort I was making to fight my bike and stay upright, plus all the micro-surges you have when pedaling with a slippy back wheel had completely beaten me down. I was feeling imminent cramps in 3 different places on my legs. We hit a rise at mile 57 and the two others surged — I tired to respond but it felt like I was pushing with oatmeal. I was dropped on a hill that just 3 hours earlier I wouldn’t have even called a hill 
Worse, I tried my best to TT home for a podium spot for the last 6.5 miles and felt on the limit for that whole time, but the guy who crashed on the corner 10 miles back had tracked me down and caught me with less than a half a mile to go. Summoning all my remaining strength, I uncorked a whopping 680W sprint and lost to him by a half-wheel for a 4th place overall.
Honestly, I feel good about the result, but missing a podium by inches stings.
Here’s my “shout out” …. I rolled back to the staging area/bar/beer tent/podium spot and heard somebody calling my name … I was absolutely destroyed, still tasting the copper in my mouth and completely disoriented. It was @teddygram … and to this minute, I have no idea how he recognized me in that moment, as we had never met in person … but the guy walks up introduces himself, takes one look at me and guides me over to a bench to sit down, grabs my bike so it doesn’t fall and goes to grab me 2 cups of ice water — he handed me one to drink, and took the other one and said, “get ready” and pulls back my jersey and dumps it down my back. Maybe one of the best things I’ve ever felt in my life 
A completely awesome gesture and great favor from a guy I’d never met anywhere but on this forum.
I’ll leave it up to him to tell you all how bad I must’ve looked … but I’m guessing it wasn’t good. At all. 
Oh, and he probably won’t mention it, but I’m going to leak it to the group @teddygram sprinted to a 2nd place overall in the 50k Open category and had himself a day on the podium. Huge congrats, dude! 
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Great review!
I really want to emphasis that this is a great race to do, it is a “pure” gravel race if you ask me. The course doesn’t send you down MTB trails or anything “epic” like that… Just pure mix of different types of Gravel roads.
@batwood14 gave a great recap, I will admit it… He was pretty wasted from his effort at the finish haha. His race recaps and contributions was how I identified him, knowing he was going to be at the race it was easy to identify a Black Open bike and a bright Green Neon helmet (posted a pic somewhere) and I just gambled. I am very glad I was able to help bring him back down to earth.
I am not one to typically talk about my results but he is correct, I took a 2nd overall and this is my 2nd year in a row taking 2nd OA. This year, I was the aggressor and was able to break the peloton up over the course with 5-hard attacks and a final result of a 3-man break away by the “slush” and worked together to the finish.
The gentleman who won the OA did a little attack about 1-mile out and I “chose” not to follow the wheel as I thought the other rider would be stronger. He probably got 200-300 meters out on us and at 800 meters to go I went all in and got to his crank on the line. The third place gentleman finished some 8-sec behind me, super strong guy and lived in the area so knew the course very well.
That’s part of racing, I was just happy to participate.
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Short race report from the ~250 participant Seeley Pre-Fat MTB race in Seeley, WI on 8/19:
I started on the front line with some known strong HS and college kids. Last year, I was with the front group until cramps set in within the last 2 miles, so I was hoping for a similar race this year. The start is 1 mile paved neutral rollout followed by 8 miles of rolling hills gravel road. The rollout was surprisingly single-file and then it exploded when we hit the gravel with a few instigators at the front putting in hard turns to break it up early. I managed to hang with the front group of 7-8 until we hit the singletrack, but shortly after, I lost a wheel in a turn, probably due to being on the limit, and I subsequently lost the front group. From there, it was effectively a 70-minute MTB TT since I saw no one ahead or behind me for the rest of the race.
Legs felt ok and fueling (Flow gels, mostly) went well enough as I felt strong even at the end. MTB effort is always hard to analyze considering the nature of the trails, but I normalized 88% of my FTP for 100 minutes and I’m happy with that. My time was 5 minutes (~5%) slower than last year, which I attribute somewhat to MTB skills being less developed this year and potentially warmer, more humid conditions (which would also explain the significantly higher max and avg HR this year).
My next main race is the Chequamegon 40 on 9/!6. Having done much more and much longer VO2max work this year vs last year, I’m hoping I weather the repeated hills better and that better fueling/hydration will help stave off cramps. I’m also hoping we’ll get typical dry midwest weather with a cool 50-60F start rather than last year’s epic mud fest and torrential rains halfway through!
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FYI @Buckethead @wistoon33 and anyone else doing the Cheq 40, there are some BIG changes to the course this year: 2023 Cheq 40 Course Map (Final) - A bike ride in Hayward, Sawyer County. They added the Birkie Duffy climb in reverse at the start rather than the Rosie’s field opening, including going over the Hwy 77 bridge. The bridge could be a bottleneck but the Duffy hills will definitely thin it out somewhat. At the other end, the last 6 miles are different and follow the Short n Fat course, including the Big Bertha climb at mile 37.5. Total mileage is over 41 now and the changes are definitely going to make it harder, so I would plan for a longer race this year. A conservative guess would be potentially another 20-30 minutes for me, depending on conditions.
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Holy smokes, yea it’s very different. Looks like they also cut out a large chunk before fire tower too. No longer go right along lake helane. Bummer. We now take a left to start the climb instead of the right. Thanks for the heads up. Any idea why such large changes? Lifetime Grand Prix feedback?
Good catch on the Lake Helaine reroute and the fire tower approach, that’s certainly a key point. I don’t have any insider info. That Helaine descent could often be sketchy when washed out and eroded and speeds are usually very high going down it, so maybe it was a safety concern. My guess on the last 6 miles is that more overlap with the short course may lead to less confusion with turns and labeling, and I know they received some negative feedback on that last year.
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And maybe changing the end/finish was because of all the carnage there last year between mud pits on the last uphill before the last quick left and then right into the finish.
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