Wild Horse Gravel Race in De Beque Colorado
Sun 18 May 2025
The Wild Horse Gravel Ride
May 17th, 2025 Was supposed to be short course ride to get practice for gravel riding with Grace's new bike and training for me before my Norway Gravel Trip in July. We signed up for the short course of 30 miles in the mountains behind the High Lonesome Ranch in De Beque. Race day change moved the short course from 30 miles to 44 miles. This was due to the original road being too 'washed' out to ride.
We arrived Friday night for free camping at the High Lonesome Ranch, picked up our race packets and went out to the High Lonesome Ranch - about 8 miles out of town. The camping at the ranch was just making their front pasture available for everyone. No services, no water, etc. We drove back into town for a Friday evening hosted by the town. They had a tribute band (Whiskey Sour Band) and a beer garden. Attendance for pretty sparse. The Tacos El Rayo food truck was pretty good. I had a Birria Ramen bowl. We got back to camp and turned in for the ride tomorrow at 8:30am.
Breakfast at the ranch was a food truck with breakfast burritos. A pretty minimal amount of calorie for people doing 65 or 30 miles on gravel backroads. Also, no hot coffee. They had the Stok cold brew coffee, dumped in a water cooler and a gatorade electrolyte blend. Then they announced the published 30 mile loop for the short course was changed to 50% longer at 44 miles. The course was now the same first 40 miles as the 65 mile long course, turning off at the end instead of doing one more big hill.
This is some of the roughest gravel I've ever ridden. I missed a lot of landscape because of having to have full focus on the road in front of me to avoid washboard, potholes and large rock gravel. It might have been the 'shaking', but my seat post failed on my bike. The seat moved forward and backward freely and tilts from front to back every time I shift my weight. Tried a couple of times to tighten it with the allen wrench but it kept working loose under the strain. This started causing extreme cramps in my back and legs.
Additionally, with the late course change, the rest stop/aid station were shared on the two rides. That meant the first stop wasn't until the 25 miles mark for the short course riders. The long course rides started half hour before us. And, with my seat problems, we lagged most of the short course peloton. I ran out of water about the 18 mile mark and was extemely tired by the time I managed the aid station. They had been mostly cleaned out of water and snacks. Ginger ale and chips are not good recovery. I still couldn't tighten the seat enough to trust riding another 19 miles (to finish) or 15 (to next aid stop). I sent Grace on with a few of the back of the pack rider we met and decided to SAG back.
When the sweep truck arrived we found out they had no plan for SAG. They assumed since it's a race, nobody would give up unless it was a medical emergency. The sweep truck couldn't take riders/bikes back because it was the only sweep vehicle and if there were a medical emergency they had be on course. We have 7 riders at the aid station that needed/wanted SAG. The volunteers ended up calling around to get people to help take riders and/or bikes back. The 25 miles by vehicle going back along was I already biked took over 45 minutes to drive; the gravel is that rough.
I rode back with Christie, a volunteer who was working the aid station so that her entry to the Sunday Wild Horse Run would be free. We broke down my bike to put in the back of the SUV with the tables, chairs and trash from aid station and drove back to High Lonesome.
Grace did finish the race. She was 13th in her age group.
Overall, the area is beautiful. The ride would be a bit more fun with better organization. The real issue is that I wanted a Gravel Ride and this is a Gravel Race. Even if the website makes it sound like you don't have to be a speed demon to ride, they are expecting high performance riders. I wasn't prepared to average 15-17 mph on exteme rough gravel and obviously my bike seat wasn't either.
I did get the mechanical guy to take apart my seat and look for any obvious problems and then tightened with a proper torque wrench. We are proceeding on to Fruita for Saturday night and then to Capitol Reef NP in Utah for a few nights of camping and leisure gravel rides in the park. Hopefully, the seat holds now.
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Gravel Ride around Chambers Lake on County Road 103
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Camping in Capitol Reef
