[Editor’s Note: We recently got this note from our Angel Investor, Jeff Linder]
“I just finished Rebecca Rusch’s first annual “Rebecca’s Private Idaho Gravel Grinder.”
“It’s a 100-miler on unimproved back mountain roads. I have never been so “jack-hammered” in all my life.
“The memory of Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix are too blunted by time to make a substantive comparison, but I’m thinking this might have been the most gruelling century of my career.
“I can’t begin to tell you how many people, all with sincere motives and concerns, tried to talk me out of doing it on a Bike Friday.
“I don’t think I saw but one or two bikes out of the 230 or so that weren’t either ‘cross bikes, mountain bikes or a smattering of Roubaix’s with disc brakes and ‘cross wheels.
“My concession to the course was to drop my gearing to a compact crankset with the standard Capreo hub (9-26) and a 1 3/8 BMX tire on the front and an 1 1/8 BMX tire on the back.
“I heard more than one tale of woe centered on five flats. Even the SRAM service car got two flats out on the course.
“I haven’t seen my official time, but my running time according to my Garmin was 7:58 hours. So I’m guessing that my pedalling was under 7.5 by a fair amount.
AND no flats! Â Praise the Lord and pass the ammo.”
Jeff
