The first event of the Big Sugar Classic was a 100k mountain bike race that left me feeling bludgeoned to a pulp. It was the longest time I’d ever spent on a mountain bike, and featured some of the most technical terrain I’d ridden. I was out of my element and in over my head at that race, crashing twice and damaging my helmet and knee. The second event was a gravel race that was more in my wheelhouse, but I only had 6 days to pull myself together for it.

Waiting patiently for redemption

The night after Little Sugar MTB was spent washing my body and my bike, both of which were covered in a mixture of dust and blood that I was happy to be rid of. I tossed my broken helmet in the trash and went to bed early. My focus for the week was to work remotely and try to recover.

On Monday I set up camp at Third Space Coffee, a cafe and bakery that’s on the ground floor of the Best Friends Pet Resource Center. Best Friends is the most beautiful animal shelter and rescue facility I’ve seen, and was recommended to me by my hosts. Sean & Gabriela have a charming and distinguished rescue dog named Ava, and often foster other young dogs for Best Friends. If you’re struggling to maintain a positive outlook during your workday, I recommend playing with cats and walking a puppy in between meetings. It worked for me.

I spent Tuesday working from a few other coffee shops in town, bouncing between them on my mountain bike and treating myself to an espresso at each one. After work, I unpacked the spare helmet I’d brought and went for a recovery ride with Sean. I learned just how far I was from recovery, and there were only 4 days until Big Sugar Gravel. I tried not to worry.

On Wednesday I worked from Sean & Gabriela’s spare bedroom and puttered around some local mountain bike trails. On Thursday we picked up our event packets and race numbers. My body complained, and my knee protested for the entirety of the short ride back to the house. There were only 2 days left until Big Sugar Gravel. I started to worry.

Friday arrived with a sudden drop in temperature, but I was feeling closer to human again. We put on warmers and vests and rode to The Meteor for a shakeout ride with friends. These low temps were going to stick around for Saturday’s race, so it was helpful to get a feeling for how we wanted to dress. My knee wouldn’t let me forget what I’d done to it the prior weekend, but its grievances were quieter. I was able to tune them out.

The roads were dry, dusty, and loose. It was good to ride them with a small group and get our bearings. There was minimal faffing with bikes and tire pressure, only talk of how tomorrow’s conditions would be. Big Sugar Gravel is usually a pretty challenging course, with a few very loose sections that see crashes every year. The months of drought hadn’t been kind to the gravel roads, and Saturday was going to be messy.

Friday night I settled into my pre-race routine, something that I didn’t have the headspace for prior to the mountain bike race. Once my nutrition was laid out and packed, I spent some time revisiting Big Sugar ride files from prior years. I’ve always loved the race but never had a great day. For some reason I decided to overlook my poor preparation and knee injury: I set a goal to finish it within 7 hours and fell asleep early that night.

Race day #2

I woke up before my alarm on Saturday. It was 43ºF. My kit for the day was laid out neatly from the night before.

Eating breakfast before races like this always feels like a chore. I chewed while I dressed and tried not to second-guess what I’d chosen to wear:

• Light socks

• Nothing for legs or knees

• A Sanremo Speed Suit and Light Arm Sleeves from Castelli

• A pair of Unlimited LF gloves

• A lightweight Castelli Aria Shell to keep me warm before the start

I carried my Kask Elemento to the door, where I slipped on my shoes and clomped my way into the garage.

The garage door opened and our suspicions were confirmed: It was going to be very cold at the start. Between chattering teeth, I reminded myself that I’d be warm after mere minutes of racing. But first, we shuddered alongside 700 other racers in the starting corral. The pros started at 7:30am to the sound of Eminem lamenting the loss of his mother’s spaghetti. I removed my jacket and stuffed it into my hydration pack. We rolled across the line at 8:00am and headed west behind a police escort.

The neutral start felt slower than prior years. I burned fewer matches this time around, but the atmosphere was tense. Most of the field stayed together for the entire neutralized section, with riders all vying for a spot near the front. At mile 5.4 we turned left onto Herbaugh Road. I started feeling around for the gas pedal as soon as the pavement ended.

This section of Big Sugar will tell you a lot about the riders surrounding you. Some are more prepared for the loose terrain than others, and it’s worth putting in an effort during these early off-road miles to work your way into a group that matches your pace and skill level. The course follows a series of 5 right-angle turns, and the fastest lines through those corners aren’t always the most obvious. Conditions were more dry and dusty than usual. Crashes were frequent. Riders lined both sides of the road, scrambling to repair punctured and slashed tires.

Groups were established by the time we crossed Route 72 (mile 16). I committed to riding intelligently toward the back of a paceline, silently observing the dynamic among other riders in front of me. As is often the case, a select few seemed committed to taking massive pulls at the front of the bunch. I was not alone in my decision to let them take up this work while I sat in. There were hours of racing ahead of us, and there was an unspoken agreement between myself and a few others around me that we’d wait patiently. At one point I even made light conversation with riders from Wisconsin and Arizona, both of whom asked some very reasonable questions about where one rides a gravel bike in New York City.

At mile 26, on Butler Creek Road in Sulpher Springs, I made my first move of the day. The gravel in front of us began to pitch upward, reaching a 9% grade and bowing to the left. Just around this bend is a sharp and technical right-hand turn onto Rocky Dell Road, which pitches up to 14%. From the back of our group, I moved to the inside of the leftward bend, occasionally glancing at the display on my Garmin to make sure I was riding within my limits. I worked my way up the inside, passing the others in the bunch and making sure I had a clean line into the turn onto Rocky Dell.

The sharp and steep right-hander revealed itself as I rounded the first bend. This corner is always a sandy mess that’s forced me to dismount in prior years, and the drought had made it even worse for 2024. I committed to a line through the left side of the deep sand and pedaled through it, aiming for the far side of the turn onto Rocky Dell. I heard rocks bouncing off my rims and down tube, followed by the sound of other riders unclipping from pedals and dismounting behind me.

I kept my eyes a few bike lengths ahead of me and kept my effort steady, pedaling my way to the end of the sand and onto the base of the steep incline. I stayed on my bike and kept to the left side of the climb and could see another group just up the road. I stretched my effort a bit longer before latching onto the last wheel in that group. The road leveled off. I had a gel to celebrate.

At that point I settled in once again, allowing myself to recover and play observer. I kept a keen eye on the wheels in front of me, but also took these calmer miles as an opportunity to lay plans for the rest of the day. I hadn’t entered this race with much fitness, but so far things were going my way. My body was politely tolerating an aggressive fueling strategy of 120g of carbs per hour, I was riding somewhat intelligently, and I’d completely forgotten about the scabs and sore knee from the mountain bike race just 6 days prior.

Rolling into Pineville, Missouri, at 38.9 miles into the day is always a memorable moment for me. In 2022, I rode across the timing mat and kept chasing through the small town, desperately trying to claw my way back to a group after an early puncture. In 2023, I hung my head and sighed, knowing that I didn’t have anything in my legs and there was so much racing left. This year I had less worry and more gratitude. There’s something special about rolling through one of the few towns of the day, and while I didn’t stop to take any neutral aid, I rode away from it feeling fueled by a few long pulls on my hydration pack and the cheers of spectators that lined the road. We got back to business on Big Sugar Creek Road on the other side of town. I needed to keep at it for another 4.5 hours, and the hardest was yet to come.

There’s only about a mile of pavement after Pineville, and every year we seem to make short work of it. This year I found myself in a small group that couldn’t seem to agree upon a pace. The indecisiveness felt like a waste of time, and I decided to ride away from the bunch in search of a more disciplined outfit up the road. A rider from Flagstaff, Arizona, followed my move and stuck with me. We latched onto another group just as the course turned left and the pavement ended.

All of my plans for the day hinged upon this section of the race going well. When the road pointed up, I got to work.

For the next 14 miles we were subjected to four strong punches from the Ozark Mountains, which led us up loose and rocky climbs that topped out around grades of 12%. The Flagstaff rider and I stuck together, taking turns pulling as we worked our way towards the top of each hill. On flat stretches we’d often catch another group, only to ride away from them once again on either the climb or technical descent that followed. Twice we rode by the aftermaths of crashes, both of which had riders and their friends waiting for ambulances.

At one point a third rider joined us, only to sit on the front and begin pushing the pace. “I can’t hold this,” I muttered to my temporary ally. Just before the two of us could sit up, our new friend promptly self-destructed. He pulled off the front and disappeared behind us. We both shrugged at his ambitious cameo and pressed on.

Looking back on my results from the day, I can’t help but be surprised by what we accomplished over those 14 miles. I’ll never be a climber, but I passed 59 riders on those climbs and descents. I’d later learn that I held most of them off for the remainder of the race, but not without the usual despair and self-loathing along the way.

I made a challenging decision at some point before the checkpoint at mile 75 . The rider I’d been working with was holding a pace that I couldn’t sustain. I sat up and let the wheel go. I was alone for a good amount of time before that checkpoint, during which I realized how much of a toll the dust had taken on my bike and lungs.

I rolled into my only stop of the day at mile 75: the checkpoint at Whistling Springs Brewing Company in Seligman, Missouri.

In the miles leading up to this aid station, I’d converted my list of grievances into a checklist that’d have me back to racing as soon as possible. I headed straight to the Shimano tent, where a mechanic started lubing my chain. I refilled my bottles with a high-carb drink mix and accepted an Uncrustable from a friendly volunteer. I remounted my bike when the mechanic was finished and rolled out of the checkpoint. It was an efficient stop, and I was still chewing my Uncrustable while I climbed the 10% grade out of Whistling Springs.

The last 30 miles of Big Sugar always punish me the most. In 2022 the headwinds brought me to my knees. The following year I could barely press the pedals when I had nothing left in the tank. This year I was determined for it to be different, but the exposed nature of those dirt roads meant I needed to find riders to work with. I struggled to do so, often joining a group only to have it fall apart when one of us didn’t have the legs to work.

Soon I became that rider with empty legs. I tried not to curse myself, but my outlook started to sour. My mind tried to bargain with my body, hoping to strike a deal that would carry me the final 90 minutes to the finish, but I was on the precipice of falling apart. My body’s grievances grew louder once I lost the wheels in front of me. I was alone again and my knee was screaming. My lungs, now filled with nearly 6 hours of dust, struggled to inflate in my chest.

I didn’t want to be done. I pleaded with myself for just a few more pedal strokes. I wanted to remember the work I’d put in just a few hours ago, telling myself it couldn’t be for naught. I tried to conjure up some music in my head to convince me to keep going—to remind me of who I was—but I didn’t know any songs anymore. I was hosed.

Eventually I heard another group of riders behind me. A voice shouted at me as they approached, asking me if I had anything left. I laughed, hung my head, and shook it side to side. A second voice called out as I heard them get closer.

“Is that Greg from Brooklyn?!”

I’d been found: rescued by a friendly Wisconsin rider I’d worked with earlier in the day. She’d been racing smart when we’d met hours ago, and now she’d found a disciplined group to work with for those final, painful miles. I had questions, mainly about how someone could be so fresh and friendly at such a time, but I decided to keep my mouth shut and start shoveling coal.

We put in the work, punching our way through dust clouds and hustling by patches of spectators. We ignored the siren song of those offering us Cokes from the side of the course, and calmed our pace only when we approached an intersection. In my mind we looked like disciplined professionals. In reality, I’m certain I looked like an incoherent, filthy mess. I was the most shattered member of our bunch, taking short pulls and sucking down whatever food I could tolerate for the final push into town.

Our group splintered at mile 99, as we hit pavement and turned right onto Price Coffee Road. A few started to dial up the pace. I had to let them go, choosing to work with one other rider who stayed with me. I reached for my last gel. There was one final lump for us to climb over. I wanted to make the most of it.

The climb up Slaughter Pen Road isn’t glamorous, nor is it particularly steep. It’s just late in the day, and I’m not alone in perceiving it as an absolute wall at that hour. By that point our route had converged with the 50-mile course, and we were soon weaving our way through other riders. Our group was growing in size, and I kept my effort steady at the front as we marched toward the overpass at the top of the hill. Once again I hoped to look like I had my shit together, but knew that I looked like a drunken Pigpen struggling to ride tempo.

It’s not lost on me that there’s little glory in turning oneself inside out for a 176th place finish. Nonetheless, I committed to emptying the tank. Our group had grown in size, and a handful of racers were now sitting in behind me. I attacked and saw stars as I rode away from them, determined to distance myself and ride solo to the finish on Main Street.

I didn’t let up, even as I made the final left turn into the finishing chute. I looked down at the screen on my Garmin and almost laughed at what my power meter was telling me. These efforts at the end of a long day feel heroic, but the data always confirms that they’re just the last gasps of a broken man. I didn’t care, because next to that power number on my screen was a timer that showed me I’d beaten my goal by 3 minutes.

I crossed the finish line in search of a curb to sit on.

Gabriela was waiting for me with a cooler full of drinks and cold towels. A diligent volunteer handed me a small pin as a prize for completing both races. We waited for Sean and shouted for him when he rolled in.

I was a mess and no one cared. We’d all had different races but had suffered just the same.

There are always smiles when it’s over. Sometimes they come with tears. Even when it’s not the day that I wanted, it’s one that I hope to remember for as long as I’m around.

And sometimes on days like these, when I’m empty and drenched in filth, I’ll say it was my last time. I’ll say I’ll never be back.

I’ll insist that there’s no sense in hurling time and money at chasing mediocre results away from home. I’ll even promise that there’s more to me than this obsession with suffering.

But I’m not a liar. I don’t think I can change who I am, and I don’t think you should, either.

Buy a shitty car.

Drive across the country to see your friends.

Race your bike somewhere new.

Be vulnerable.

I’ll see you at the start.