Event Report: CIRREM

<====Image courtesy of Steve Fuller

CIRREM, the metric century gravel grinder event that kicks off the AGRS gravel road race series in Iowa and Minnesota, took place on Saturday, February 27th under sunny but cold skies. The event is in its second year and attracted a starting field of 64 riders.

The event is done as a loop which begins and ends in the rural Iowa town of Cumming. Gravel Grinder News in race reporter, Steve Fuller, had the following to say about the event before the start:

Typically these events start between 6 and 8 AM. As we were standing around and talking, the little voice in the back of my mind kept saying "You're wasting time. Get out there and ride." The temps were in the mid teens at when arrived, and were slowly climbing every minute that we stood around, making it more and more likely that we were going to end up in some slop along the route.

And ride in the slop they did! (See Steve's Salsa La Cruz above) The gravel unfroze in many places caking onto the riders bicycles, which hindered their progress and caused a few mechanical issues as well. Steve notes his own issues here in the following comments:

I was out of water as of mile 45 and starting to have issues with changing gears. I finally looked down and noticed the thick layer of frozen crud that had built up on my top tube and seized up my deraileur cables. Stopping briefly to chip that off, I managed to reset my odometer. This wasn't a huge deal as I was on relatively familiar roads by now.

Coming out of temperatures at the start that were ranging in the upper teens, the event ended up experiencing temperatures above the freezing mark, but cold metal re-freezes the gravel slurry on contact and even messed with the riders nutritional supplies, with Steve noting that, " The food that I had brought with me was either frozen solid or extremely thick. For anyone wondering, Clif Shot Bloks take 10 minutes to go from frozen to chewable once they are in your mouth."

The winning time was carded by Benjamin Doom, Jerome Rewerts, and Michael Woell who all rolled in at 3 hours 54 minutes for the metric century distance. Despite the difficult conditions, 57 of the 64 riders finished and Steve's time was a respectable 5 hours 15 minutes for 34th on the grid.

Afterward the weary riders all enjoyed food and drink together at the Cumming Tap which played host to the event. For more on the CIRREM results and for more images of the event, see the CIRREM site. Thanks to Steve Fuller for the reporting and the image here. For a detailed look at Steve's race, go to his full report here.