Belgian Waffle Ride
I mean….who doesn’t love a Belgian waffle before a 76 mile gravel race? Now, that is just the Wafer, if you want the full experience, you have to ride 137 miles….sound exhuasting? Yeah, same….that’s why I keep saying I’ll do that one next year. I asked myself during a very long and arduous climb, “why did I sign up for this?” I’ll tell you….HTFU. Ask a Navy Cyclist, they’ll get it. Although, I don’t know if that was the real reason, it just sounded cool to say that just now.
Here is the 2022 BWR Crew (minus the best guy ever), we seem to be making a habit out of this event. This was the night prior where we treated ourselves to the famous Old Spaghetti Factory….we stuffed ourselves with pasta and bread.
2021 Crew
A race composed of road, sand, dirt, gravel, rock gardens and more. One of the toughest and most grueling races out there. I had a healthy mixture of having a blast, being in pain and pure terror on the downhill rock portions. But thank the Lord, I think he saved me from a good number of face plants. I wish I was exaggerating but I am most definitely not, I was quite literally praying and thanking for my safety.
Dan the Man crushed his race, finishing in over 9 hours, he did the full because he likes to suffer. Taylor, boy, unfortunately crashed vehemently while trying to stealthily ride through a water crossing only to ram his front wheel right into a boulder under the water and out of sight. He ended up losing all feeling in his left hand and had to pull chocks. Taylor, girl, crushed the Wanna race (40 miles)! She finished 8th out of 45 female racers!
Please see pictures below of the dreadful water crossing of boy Taylor.
It was in this moment that Taylor knew he had hit a rock under water. The watermark of the photo almost seems happy about it. Success!
All in all….I loved it. I loved racing gravel and the technical courses. Made the mileage fly by with so many thoughts of survival on my mind. I ended up placeing 29th out of 106 female racers and 6th out of 23 in my age group with a time of 5:35. Let’s see if we can beat that next year.
