by Maghalie Rochette

It’s no secret that gravel racing has gotten exponentially popular over the last few years. To the point where it has become the leading cycling discipline in North America. Personally, I’ve been reluctant to jump in and follow the trend. Partly because the races seemed too long for me and I wasn’t interested in that... Partly because I felt like it required abilities that were too different than what I train for cyclocross, and I didn’t want to sacrifice what I love most (cx performance) for gravel. But there comes a time when you have to jump in and see what it’s all about. And I decided that for me, this would happen at SBT GRVL, in Steamboat Colorado, this weekend!

Now don’t get me wrong — I’ve done many gravel races in the past. I’ve even won a few. But I’ve always selected the events that fit my abilities best: the short gravel races. 4hours and under. And that meant that I had never been to one of the major US gravel races where all the top gravel pros would be.

On the menu, we had 202km with 3200m of climbing, and a very big and very deep women’s field. To add some spice, the race happened at 2000m of altitude, an extra challenge for everybody, including this sea level baby (me).

The prep
Knowing that this gravel race (and a few more coming up) was on my calendar, we added some endurance rides in my training over the last few weeks. My main focus is still on speed and power right now, because cyclocross is coming quickly and I am not willing to sacrifice that for gravel. But, what we did over the last month, is we added 1 solid endurance session per week; 5-6h of consistant hard riding, with some tempo blocks, and sprints throughout the ride. I’ve finished every one of these rides with cramps.

That said, I felt like those endurance rides improved every week, so I felt confident for the race. Confident, but not delusional. I wanted to enter the race with an open mind: confident in my abilities and open minded enough to believe that anything was possible. Yet, I also had a very healthy dose of respect and humility; respect for my competition who have prioritized these endurance events for a few years already and who specialize in the discipline, respect for their strength and experience, and respect and humility towards the course, the distance, and the altitude.

The race
7 hours is a damn long time, so I selected 5 noteworthy moment of the race to give you a recap.

4:00 AM is an ungodly hour to wake up, but I was happy to find out the wake up time didn’t bother me too much; I was excited. I forced food into my mouth and felt happy to race, even with a 6h15AM start. The race started and everybody was together: pro men, pro women, amateurs. For a race that offers big prize money, it felt odd to me that pros didn’t have a call up or a start corral, and even more weird that women were not lined up together, and didn’t have a separate start (more on that later). But things are the way they are and I buckled up for a fast start.

1. The first bad move
Turns out, the first hour of racing may have been my favorite. I felt at ease in the gigantic peloton at speed, and quickly found myself at the front of a selection. Only one other woman (Lauren Stephens) was also in the first group.

To be honest, this was not ideal and I didn’t want this to happen. But I felt confortable in the front group, and kind of got caught there without really realizing that we had dropped other people. Now here I was, probably the weakest rider of the front group full of pro men…I could either fight hard to stay there and burn important matches, or let myself drop when it got too hard and ride alone. Both felt like shitty options. I had put myself in a crappy situation, but decided to be smart and follow as long as possible without going TOO hard. I eventually got dropped and rode 10km alone, until the second group caught me. By then, I was already tired as we hit the main climb of the day 45km in. Sofia Villafane passed me with a group of men, and I hung with her for a while, but I felt pretty dizzy in the climb and decided to keep my pace, while trying to stay in touch. Was it the altitude? Effort? Food? I don’t know. My hope was that I could keep her in sight and try to catch up in the descent, and that my body would come around. I had her in sight, but again I was alone and she was with people. Eventually the gap opened and I lost her.

A couple more women passed me during that time, and I forced myself to eat to try to regain energy. I rode alone again for another 10-15km, and eventually I finally found a group to ride with. 2 other women, and later a group of 10-15 people.

2. The relentless part
Generally, I can say I never quite felt good nor strong after the first 1.5h, but the worst part may have been between 2.5h-4.5h. However, I kept being positive because I was thinking that:
1 - no one must feel very good.
2 - everybody will probably have a shitty moment in the race at some point.
3- I’m sure my body will turn around and start feeling better eventually.

Cramps started to haunt me pretty early on, around 100km maybe, but I managed to keep them somewhat in control. I was just hopping to stop pedalling a quick second to rest my breathing and legs, but the downhills were not steep and you really always had to pedal if you didn't want to be dropped. It was relentless.

What was weird is that it didn’t fully feel like a race. It felt more like a death march. Because there is no women start, I had absolutely no clue all day of where I was in the field. Was I in 4th place or 43rd? There was no way to know. All I knew is I was not winning haha. I was just trying to survive the best I can. Eventually, past the midway point, David texted me and I saw his text pop up on my Hammerhead Karoo that I was in the fight for the top ten.

3. The walk of shame
At 140km both my legs fully cramped on a climb. I tried to keep pedalling, but this time it didn’t work. I had to get off the bike. I couldn’t believe that I was walking up the hill. “Well, that’s a first”, I thought. The only thing to do was to laugh. I eventually got back on the bike as the cramps more or less diminished, and used the opportunity to stop at the feed zone to fill up my bottles. "If I'm walking, might as well stop for water". People were passing me and I thought I was a loss cause. “60km to go, let’s go Magh”. Luckily the last part was much faster, I found 3 guys to ride with and we exchanged relays in the wind. It was fun to feel like the kilometres were ticking down again.

Maghalie Rochette
photo : Linda Guerrette, affichée sur Instagram par Maghalie Rochette

4. The final drop of willpower
With 25km to go, we hit the last climb. Suddenly two women caught up to me, including my friend Devon Clarke from Canada. For a second I thought “You guys just go, I’m dead”. And then, I caught myself. “Come on Magh, for sure they are also dead. This might be the top ten. Be mentally stronger.”

I fought hard to stay with them to the top of the climb, and the three of us rode together. On the last technical cow path road, Devon and I pushed the pace and worked together to drop the other woman. We were flying on that tiny road full of rocks. We got a gap and that part was so fun!

5. The CX skills coming in handy (How the sprint was won)
Unfortunately, as we hit the pavement with 10km to go, a group of me brought back the other girl to us. More joined as we looked at each other. There must have been 8 women in the group now, and at that point the men were nice enough to stay out of it and let us race. I was fighting off big cramps by then, but convinced myself to hang on until the end. I decided to be confident in my sprint and just stayed patient on the pavement when others were attacking. With 3km to go, I looked at the map on my Karoo. I saw we had 3 tight corners before the finish. I knew what my move would be. I was 5th wheel as we approached the first corner with speed. I attacked and passed everyone inside, taking the first corner super tight. Second corner and third corner as fast as I could, using the maximum width of the street, and launched my sprint. I had 200m to go and didn’t look back.

I was pretty happy to win the sprint for 11th!!

Conclusion: How do I feel about it all? (plus updated feeling 24h later)
To be honest, except from feeling tired, I’m not certain how I feel. I wasn’t thrilled with my performance, but I wasn't disappointed either. I'm happy with my effort and for finishing. For a first try, it wasn’t too bad! This thing is a beast and mad respect to everyone who completed it.

That said, except for the sprint, like I already said, it felt like I wasn’t really racing, which was a bit weird and may explain why I didn’t feel the high that often come from races. I had fun at some points, and other moments were pretty long and boring…but maybe that is also the point of these long races? Part of the fun and the sense of accomplishment comes from conquering these long, hard, monotone moments. It comes from having the mental strength to push through the moments when you feel like you can't go anymore and accept that you'll get there one pedal stroke at the time. Type 2 fun for sure, but I can see the appeal. It's just not the same excitement of head to head intense, full gas racing I'm used to. ****

One thing for sure is that I’m very happy I tried! I saw what this whole gravel thing is all about, and I understand why it is so big and popular. Thousands of people were racing, the expo area is big and goes on all week. The vibe was high and truthfully I enjoyed the energy around the event and venue. It was cool to be part of it and I had fun.

Will I try again? Yes. Yes I will.

edit:*** I had written this just a few hours after the race. 24h later, it seems like my perspective is changing and I have a pretty positive outlook on the race. I feel proud of my ride and find myself wanting to try again to apply the things I've learned.

- Maghalie

Have you watched the Tour de France Femmes? Yes, it was incredible.

As much as I look back positively on the whole SBT weekend, the one thing that I find unfortunate is the women racing thing. I normally race events that put women racing on an equal platform as men racing; We all have our own start and our own race.

I find it very weird that such a new discipline as gravel didn’t choose to start things equally from the beginning. One could argue that it’s equal because everybody starts together…I get the idea, but if you don’t see your competitors from the start, because they are lost among 1000 other people, it’s really hard to be truly racing. You loose the opportunities for dynamic racing, such as breakaways, attacks, etc.

A lot of the disparities we are fighting in women sport come from traditions that need to be changed…but there are no traditions in gravel yet and it seems to me that it would have been simple to just give women an equal platform from the beginning. We have equal prize money which is awesome, but why not a real women race too?

There are sides I don't know for sure, but I think it could be simple to simply have us lined up together and start 2min behind pro men, 2 min before amateurs...or something like that. It would be A LOT more fun to race, more exciting to follow, more exciting to watch. I know the UCI gravel races now make it mandatory, and Lifetime events have followed. Let's hope it becomes the norm :)

**note: I'm new to gravel, so I don't want to sound like a know-it-all. But sometime if you've been in it for a while you don't see it, so this is just an outsider opinion.

What's Next
Sept. 14 : Chequamegon MTB Festival
Sept. 21-22: USCX Series, Rochester CX

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