Red Rocks Gran Fondo: Race Report

The Red Rocks Gran Fondo was a 62 mile bike ride with two timed climbs. It was a smaller event, only about 300 or so people participated. Jessica and I got a coupon at the Colorado Bike Expo back in May and we were able to save $50 on the event. I’m glad we signed up it was a lot of fun.

The venu was at a small event center off of highway 8 in Morrison. It was really quick to get to which was nice. We arrived early as we had to get our packets that morning. There was actually no line at all, so it went very smoothly.

The ride started off taking us through Red Rocks which was beautiful. The sun was just coming up that the rocks looked incredible. We looped around and headed through Morrison and then up towards evergreen. It was very chilly in the morning and riding through the shaded canyon didn’t help much. But by the time we got to Evergreen we had warmed up.

Not studding the course like I should have I wasn’t exactly sure where the first timed segment was. It came up on us very quickly. I saw the timing mat, and yelled out to Jess, “Here we go!”

I ramped up my cadence, put my head down and just went for it. There was a group of riders in front of us and after a few minutes I had passed all of them. I wasn’t expecting to go this hard, but something inside of me said, “Push It!” So I just went for it.

The grade started getting steep, and I thought to myself how much longer is this climb. Then came a segment that looked like a wall. There was a rider about halfway up it. I put my head down and just pedaled as hard as I could. I heard the guy shout out something like, “You’re gonna push me, huh?” I knew I was passing him then. This gave me more motivation. I was going strong and I wasn’t about to slow down.

It hurt, I was sweating like crazy and I felt drool pool in my mouth. But I felt like I had this, I just had to keep the pace and I was going to come out on top.

I kept pushing and eventually got to a section that flattened out. There was a van and a tent getting set up. I wondered if this was the end of the climb? Perhaps an aid station. This distracted me and as I realized it wasn’t, I shifted into my big ring, but my chain popped off. “Shit!” I yelled. I jumped off my bike to get it back on. I thought I had it, but then and I started to go again it fell off. I had to stop again. By this point four of the riders I worked so hard to pass, had all flown by.

I felt so defeated, the effort that felt so perfect had gotten disrupted. By this point I had lost my momentum and I knew that it cost me a lot of time. I was able to catch three of the four riders again, but the one guy had gotten away. It was the same one that had yelled out to me before.

As all this was going on there was spray paining on the road. I wasn’t really paying attention as it’s normal to see thing like “Shut up legs!” and “Allez!” But apparently there were dark messaged sprayed across the road. You can read more about it in Jessica’s open letter.

Finally, I reached the top of the climb and crossed the timing mat. There was an aid station where I could rest and wait for Jessica. I hadn’t paid any attention to where she was as I was just focused on getting up as fast as possible. I pulled out my phone and saw a text from her. Her gears got messed up! However, just a few minutes later she arrived at the aid station. She had an issue with her left shifter and was stuck in the big ring for the entire climb. And I thought I had a hard climb!

There wasn’t a bike mechanic at the aid station so we knew we’d have to make it to the next one. Lucky it was mostly downhill to get there. The guy looked at her bike and basically told her the shifter was stripped and needed to be replaced. He was able to get her in to the little ring so we could finish the ride. Turns out, that her shifter wasn’t that bad off and Giant was able to fix it for her for free!

After all of this the second timed climb was a lot less eventful. We both put in a solid effort, but didn’t race it. It was a good ride taking us through some parts of Colorado that we’ve not seen before, but man there were some steep hills!

We got to the finish and Jessica’s family was waiting for us, cheering us on like always. There weren’t many spectators at this event, but there was free beer!

We got to see our results on the climbs. I ended up 13th over all on the first one, which wasn’t as good as I expected. I think I would have been about 8th or so if I hadn’t had the issue with my chain. The second climb I came in 21st, which I was a little surprised at as I didn’t put in any special effort. Overall I really enjoyed the Red Rocks Gran Fondo.