Votec Gravel Fondo 2019
Posted By Gravel Union
On the 25th September 2019
Event Title:
Votec Gravelfondo 2019
Date:
31st August – 1st September 2019
Distance:
90kms for the main event and 60km for the Day 2 recovery ride
Location:
Forsthaus Annweiler forest lodge hotel, Rhineland-Palatinate.
Country:
Germany
Altitude Gain:
Main event 1960m Day 2: 920m
% of Gravel:
Main event 70% Day 2 recovery ride: 70%
Bike Ridden:
Ridley X-Trail (alloy version)
Tyre Width:
WTB Venture 47mm tyres, run at 2bar/30psi
I looked down at the screen of my Wahoo Elemnt computer again and tried to get my eyes to focus on the VAM reading. Don’t go more than 800. Don’t go more than 800. Don’t go more than 800. Don’t go etc etc etc. I knew that I could just about hold a constant climbing rate of 800 VAM, but any more than that and my legs were likely to go pfffft. I also knew that I’d been pushing the pace quite a lot already that morning (I blame the peer pressure of riding with my new boss and trying not making a fool of myself for that one) and I was starting to get tired.
The climb wasn’t super long – around 4km - but the gradient was hovering at the 8-9-10% mark and the combination of hot sunshine beating down on my neck and a lack of sufficiently tough hill climb training before the event meant my legs were starting to feel the strain.
Gravel riding means different things to different people and in the UK it can often mean riding on vehicle width trails through vast areas of forest – fun, but not super technical or challenging. The route that the organisers of the Votec Gravelfondo 2019 had chosen for Day 1 of their event was way more fun (and way more challenging) than I had expected. By the time we reached the 50km mark, we’d had some incredible singletrack (including a steep climb), a fast descent through forest with camouflaged the sections of bedrock peeking out though the loam, steep sections of tarmac climbing through a village so beautiful it looked like it belonged in a Disney film set and some crazy fun “gravel’ descents through local vineyards.
I put “gravel” in inverted commas, because this wasn’t technically gravel (at least not according to the Udden-Wentworth Scale) – this was more like crushed limestone aggregate. I realised this with a slight sinking feeling in my stomach when I heard a distinctive hiss and felt the immediate spray-my-legs-with-tubeless-sealant sensation of a small snake-bite puncture on my front tyre just after the first feed station. Luckily the tyre sealed itself, but I lost quite a bit of pressure (when I later topped it up it was down to 1bar/15psi). I stupidly kept going, rather than returning to the feed station we had just left to use their track pump or topping it up using one of the CO2 cartridges I had stashed in my seatpack.
The route profile showed that the climb levelled out after 4km and the route then headed off-road, back into the beautiful Palatinate forest which covered the vast majority of the area we were riding through. I reached down and grabbed my water bottle. After taking a slurp from the now-slightly-warm contents, I realised with a bit of a shock that I had nearly finished the second bottle. At home in the UK (where it’s normally cooler and damper) I’m known as a bit of a camel and rarely finish two bottles in a ride, but in the first 3 hours of the Votec Gravelfondo I had already got through 4 bottles and slurped down a couple of glasses of delicious fruit juice at the first feed station. I realised that with tiring legs, diminishing water supplies and increasing temperatures, I was at risk of blowing up after running out of energy if I wasn’t careful. I shovelled in a handful of the salty trail mix I carried in a small ziplock bag in my jersey pocket and forced down a cereal bar as well, just in case.
Are those really bowls of radishes glistening in the sunshine? I did a double take and wondered whether I was losing my mental faculties. I’ve been fortunate to have ridden in granfondos and sportives all over the world and this was definitely the first time I had seen radishes laid out as part of the spread put on my organisers for the entrants. Luckily, the range of food available also included small glass ramekins of pasta salad, freshly baked cheese pies and a big tray of sausages/bread rolls, not to mention boxes of energy snacks from sponsor Chimpanzee Energy and plastic tubs of jelly sweets. The real masterstroke though, particularly bearing in mind the high temperature, were crates and crates of cold drinks – water, Coke and local beer. I was just wondering how the organisers had managed to keep all the drinks chilled when I spotted a refrigerated truck parked in the shade near the feed station – the organisers had obviously hired one and then filled it with cold drinks – a simple, yet genius idea and one which gave a real insight into the attention to detail that had gone into making the event so fun.
After borrowing the track-pump they had at the feed station to pump my tyres up to a more sensible pressure, I hopped back on my bike and headed back into the forest for the final 20kms. Fuelled by the perfect combination of sugar, fat, salt and carbohydrate I was flying. Having air in my tyres probably helped too mind you, so I motored happily along until I came to the last obstacle of the day – a reasonably steep climb up through the forest on an old logging track to the final summit. Nothing too hard about that I hear you say? But the organisers had laid on one final challenge for us – a local utilities company were in the middle of installing a large pipe down the centre of the logging road, so had dug a trench a good meter deep and maybe 70cms wide. Normally this would have been one obstacle too much, but either by luck or (more likely) by good planning, they had compacted the earth in the bottom of the trench, and it meant although not easy, it was actually possible to ride up the centre.
A couple of local riders in front of me were cursing in German while pushing their bikes up the hill over all the spoil excavated from the trench. I flew past them, riding up the centre of the trench, grinning widely. When I looked back later, I saw they had realised that riding up the trench was way faster and easier and had joined me on the same route.
The final stretch of the route was a beautiful swoopy descent down through the forest to the Forsthaus Annweiler forest lodge, where the event was based. The organisers had laid on one final sting in the tail though – the trail surface was littered with quite large and sharp crushed rock fragments and there were a couple of riders stood at the side of the trail looking forlornly at their punctured inner tubes – so close to the finish, yet they would be a little while before they could continue. Fortunately, my large volume tyres held up perfectly this time and I rolled safely across the line, to be welcomed enthusiastically by the event team, who instantly handed me a chilled non-alcoholic beer – a great start to the recovery process.
The whole ethos of the event could have been neatly summed up by the scene at the finish line – a friendly team celebrating the arrival of each and every rider (even continuing this for another 3 or 4hours after my mid-afternoon finish time), your name ticked off on a giant A-frame white board by the start/finish line and a rough finish time put next to it. No-one really cared how fast you completed the event – it wasn’t billed as a race after all. This simple decision helped make the event maintain a super friendly, inclusive feel – it wasn’t about speed, but about having fun, enjoying some incredible riding through great scenery with a bunch of good friends.
Later that evening as we sat outside in the warm evening sunshine drinking a cold beer and eating a fantastic BBQ laid on by the organisers (which included the biggest selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes I’ve ever seen at an organised event) I decided the organisers of the Votec Gravelfondo 2019 has set the bar super-high.
All future events would be compared to theirs and I made a mental vow to try and come back for the 2020 edition!
Images @Falk Wenzel/Votec Gravelfondo