It’s the time of the year where there aren’t many events left and the ones that are tend to be a little more “fun”. For the 3rd year in a row the crew at Sycamore Cycles put together a little event they call the “Gravel Gambler”. It’s not a race, it’s a poker run, you basically ride a route and along that route you pick up cards that make up a poker hand. At the end you turn it in and it’s judged against all the other hands. In this event the best AND worst hands “win”, but honestly for this event anyone who comes out is a winner.
While the Gambler isn’t a race anyone who knows cyclists probably knows that there are usually a few competitive folks in the mix. The course is a great mix of pavement, nice smooth gravel, and some more challenging gravel roads. It’s not excessively grueling at any point and most of the roads are really low traffic, so it’s a nice ride. As usual the pace started out from the shop really mellow and the entire group stayed pretty much together. I caught up with a few people, met a couple I didn’t know yet, and just kind of got in the groove.
Once we get over to the first climb up Cascade Lake road things start to get interesting. As expected the pace started to pick up on the lower part of the road. Once we hit the bridge it was on and a few of the guys set a pace I couldn’t match. Not a problem, this has happened the past two year as well, things come back together at the top. We pick up our first card and head on. Most of the group comes back together and we all ride the pavement over to Pinnacle Mountain road together. A quick pace but nothing too hard.
Once we hit Pinnacle, things start to pick up again. Once again I don’t have quite enough to hang on to the first 5-6 riders but find myself repeatedly catching glimpses of them out in front of me, just enough to keep me pushing hard. I wasn’t alone though, Art and Jamie were both in the same boat. After the (much longer than I remember) climb up Pinnacle we hit the descent, this is interesting on a gravel bike with 38c tires. The name of the game here is really just keep the tires inflated. I was pretty happy to hang with Art on this descent as he’s a pretty solid gravel descender and it’s something that I’ve been working on lately.
We passed the gnarly part and looked around and we had lost Jamie. We kept on motoring, a bit more climbing before the actual top. Next time I look back, I see Jamie instead of Art, I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on but I kept on. The next descent was on pavement, a lot of which was still pretty wet, so I backed off a little bit and just kept it steady. Before we started the Cabin Creek descent our little group of 3 came back together. Descending Cabin Creek we had a couple of roadies come by us so we hopped on with them and made a group of 5. I ended up on the ropes a few times heading down but managed to hang on to the group.
At the bottom we hit Green River Rd., said goodbye to our new friends and headed off as our group of 3. I guess we felt like there was work to be done because we had a nice little 3 man rotation for all of Green River road. By the end we could see the lead group up ahead and I was cooked. However, Carlos had set up the 2nd aid station pretty soon after the pavement turned to gravel. Which was a very welcome stop. A few Oreos and some cheese made a big difference and the first group was still there.
We all rolled out together, had a few laughs, and even kept an ok pace for a few minutes. It wasn’t long before someone put in a dig that Art and I just couldn’t match. So we ended up riding together again. I managed to slide away for a while on the gravel. When we hit the pavement though I felt like we’d do better together, so I settled in a little bit. We managed to keep a pretty good pace going all the way back to the first/last stop at the top of Cascade lake. Then he stopped to grab a snack but I was ready to get home, so I kept rolling. I really figured he’d catch me coming down Cascade. However this was the last I’d see anyone. I cruised the rest of the way back to the shop solo.
It was a fun day on the bike riding with friends and pushing myself much harder than I would have on any solo ride. Overall I felt pretty good considering the week and a half I took off for my shin along with the fact that it still isn’t 100%.
After the ride, everyone gathered over at Ecusta Brewing Co. for some food and beer. I ran home to change and grab Lizzie. As it turns out I didn’t have a very good poker hand, but in reality that doesn’t matter, everyone who came out got to pick some sort of prize out and the folks at Sycamore helped out with a food/drink ticket. Talk about getting your money’s worth (did I mention they put this event on for free?).
All three years of this event have been a blast. Looking forward to the next one. Oh and get out and support your local bike shop, it’s pretty cool to see these guys put on events like this. Thanks to everyone at Sycamore for a great day of playing bikes and hanging out.
