Yesterday, I did the Jeroboam 150km gravel ride in the Dolomites, Italy, or rather, a 136km ride of the 150 planned. The weather was not ideal. The forecast fluctuated in the days ahead: it would rain a bit in the morning, a lot throughout, only in the afternoon and then only moderately. The basics: there were three options, a 300km, a 150km, and a 75km; the route was not posted; you needed to have the track on your GPS; and, there were to be two checkpoints with food.
While it rained heavily the night before, the morning of had broken clouds and sunshine. A couple of hours later, however, it started to get wet. Soon, it was hailing. After that, it was raining, usually very hard, with some bouts of a “white-out” due to the sheer amount of water falling.
I was with 4 riders when we passed what should have been, in hindsight as I looked it up today (Sunday), the first checkpoint. Nada. The same for the second checkpoint. It’s a good thing I had all my nutrition and, as I planned, I was able to refill my bottles with trail fountains.
My Garmin 530 died at mile 80 (of 94). My fault as I forgot to turn off the wifi and lower the screen brightness (although I was constantly referring to the map) to achieve a longer life. I continued another 6 miles estimating the remaining route, but I missed a turn-off. I ended up rolling into a restaurant and arranged transport (their friends had a van) back to the hotel. I later learned there were at least a few other abandonments. From sometime before mile 50, when I passed a group that had been passing me on climbs, I didn’t see another rider (that they didn’t catch up on the successive climbs made me wonder if they cut their ride short).
Overall, it was a “fun ride” with sightseeing and adventure.
Approaching an iconic view of the Dolomites. Shortly after this pic, a cow on the left started running alongside us as if she intended to cross in front of us. A local mountain biker who rode with us for a while sang to it and she stopped.
It started to hail moments earlier.
Some parts were peacefully desolate. This is looking backward whence I came. Ahead, after a small crest, the descending path has made with large rocks as some kind of perverse pavers. It was so bumpy I thought I was going to get a concussion. It finally ended and there was a wire across the path to keep the cows as bay. I stepped over it not realizing until it touched high up my inner thigh that it was electrified.
There was some traffic. This was actually a relatively massive herd. The billy goats didn’t care about me but some of the non-horned goats were quite interested in me.
A river crossing.
Scenic views.
Fountains like these were numerous enough and the water was refreshing. I used my last two maurten 320 packets to refill my bottles here. And yes, in the trough is a case of beer, though all but one was empty.
It was 80 miles with 12,100’ of climbing on the Garmin, plus 5.75 miles with another 1,000’ of ascent recorded using Strava on the iPhone after the Garmin died.
The results show 12 finishers for the 150. Yesterday morning, the organizers told me there were “about 50” for the 150. But among those 12 “finishers” is one person I know decided to pull the cord at kilometer 93 (basically at the end of the first part of the figure 8 course) due to the weather and returned to the start, so he wasn’t a “finisher.” I was disappointed with the event organization (I was looking forward to real food at the checkpoints), but the €38 entry was low.