The 2019 BWR is completed. I made it through my fourth Waffle ride (in 2018 I did the
Wafer). The ride overall went well. I had a very pleasant day out without major incidents.
Going into the event I felt prepared. I dedicated more time to bike training in the weeks
leading up to the event. I was also dieting seriously. My weight on race day was 163,
with a BMI of 20. I felt really skinny and nimble on the bicycle. I took ten days off work
prior to the race. I back loaded a lot of miles. I had a great week pretending to be a
professional athlete.
Let us state the obvious: I suck. I do not harbor notions of placing high in this event. It is all about finishing and enjoying the experience.
I planned on riding a 3T. I pride myself on obtaining and maintaining high quality bikes and gear. There was a mini disaster with my equipment four days before
the event. My bike mechanic (who will remain unnamed) went over my bicycle and
tuned it up a week before the race. He did not torque the crank arms properly. I had just
left my house for the maiden voyage when it happened. I turned up a climb, gave it 700
watts, and the left crank arm fell off. I did a faceplant and hurt my shoulder. I was
frantically trying to fix the bike. The day before the race I found another mechanic who
fixed it. Needless to say, the old mechanic is fired. I can’t wait to fire him in person. One
would assume tightening crank arms is important.
My left shoulder is hurting. I was going to get a collarbone Xray. I decided against it.
Conveniently, my left collarbone has been shattered into innumerable fragments since
2013. It cannot really be broken much more.
The BWR has become a huge event, with 1,000 people riding. Breakfast was fantastic:
waffles, eggs, bacon. I ate more than I have in months. I really enjoyed looking at the
expo bike porn. People seemed to have either state-of-the-art gravel bikes or junkers.
One guy had a fixie, but with fitted brakes. I am generally a rim brake guy. Some part of
me wishes I had ridden my road bike. We need to keep the rim brake fraternity alive
The first 20 miles were quite nervous and twitchy. The throngs were bunched up on the
road. Everyone was quite chatty. There was a lot of hollering, laughing, and
conversational narcissism. That didn’t last long.
The first dirt section was a fiasco. Lemontwistenberg was a Conga line of walkers.
There were just too many riders there all at once. It would make sense to have a huge
road climb prior to the first dirt section. That would spread things out. Take a look at some photos here.
There were long road sections with vicious headwinds. It was important to sit in the peloton during those sections. People kept asking me to take a turn pulling. As a younger man, I cut my teeth being a large lumbering domestique. I am familiar with the concept. They wanted the full frontal of 6'3" Alec. I feigned exhaustion, and wormed my way back in the group. I kept thinking Michael Marckx might chase me down and purple me. I was so purple I should have worn purple.
The off-road sections seemed easier than in previous years. I think someone bulldozed
many of the rocky sections.
My bike performed flawlessly. The tires made a big
difference. I never felt out of control. Previously I did the race on a rim brake road bike
with road tires. This year I had 37 mm knobbies. It was fun surfing through the deep
sand sections. I could have completed the event on my road bike with 28 road tires. The downside of knobby tires is you really suck on the road sections. It is like rolling on
suction cups.
The dirt sections are, of course, the essence of this event. Words cannot
describe the toll it takes on your body. Any mediocre cyclist can ride 135 miles, but not
this. As the day wore on, my whole skeleton started hurting. The constant vibration was
like being jack hammered. My collarbone started to nag at me. I ignored it and just put
more body weight on my right arm. The bikes were taking a beating. Everything rattles
loose. There was bike debris all over the trails. I saw someone hit a water bottle and
flipped over. He wasn’t really hurt, just pissed off.
My favorite section was Black Canyon. It is a long sand and gravel climb. The grade is
about 5%. This was perfect for me. I passed dozens of people there. I also made a friend there. We rode together for about an hour. He was from OC, and was wearing a Leadville jersey. We had similar ability, and a lot in common. I forgot his name
No one riding at my level was really racing. Everyone was just noodling. There was
lounging at all the aid stations. The food at the aid stations seemed slightly meager, but
there was lots of drink. After about 100 miles, the riders had stopped jabbering at each
other. Many were bonking and walking up the hills. I saw one guy Ubering.
The famous Oasis aid station was disappointing. The music was too loud. The playboy
bunnies of yesteryear were replaced by pot-bellied, buck-toothed gypsies. They seemed
fascinated by some type of water mister and were spraying it on everyone. I think they
were on acid.
I was gorging on food prior to the Double Peak climb. I have been known to walk up that
pesky road. It was quite cool, with a fine tailwind pushing us up the climb. It was
pleasantly anticlimactic.
The descent down to the Lost Abbey was fast; people were going 50mph.
I rolled across the finish line around 10 hours. I don’t know if I registered a time. The helmet timing chip was a piece of wax paper. I got two bottles of beer and a T-shirt. My
family was waiting for me. They seemed hungry and bored. I went to get my food, and
there wasn’t any. It was all eaten up. There were five dirty riders vying the last french fry.
There were only containers of sauce with fragments of floating chicken bones. This was
weird. I finished in the middle of the pack. It is customary to have food for the riders. I
have an inkling the food was gobbled up by non-riders. I was hungry but had to drive
somewhere to get food.
Now I am back in my rental house with my feet up. I had planned on doing a victory lap
up Mount Palomar tomorrow. Forget it. Now that the race is over, there is a certain
emptiness. I guess it is time to return to work.