Traka 360: Play by Play
strap in, it's a lengthy one
Starting is hard, always has been. I mean racing, or maybe I mean writing. It took me years to learn how to hold a wheel and still, I tend to concede when elbowed by bigger more reckless individuals. When you spend months, days, hours building for a race, it’s not easy to risk it all in the first 10k. So I don’t. I start at the front and know I can slip back some twenty or forty-odd places and still hopefully be in contention, accepting there will always be a handful of girls up there with more confidence and enough experience to end up in a faster group. But it’s easier, mentally, to chase. It’s dark out at 6am and we’re diving gravel corners and I’m yelling at people to make up for my lack of physical assertion. I’ve ridden this section 7 times in 4 weeks but here, now, it seems foreign. The road twists upwards around the bend and the lights of everyone ahead of me snake around it and disappear. I’m a little behind where I hoped to be. Calm down, I tell myself, it’s a long race.
Selections crystallize and I start to recognize the same kits, helmets, forearm tattoos. The same men that surge on the climbs are reeled in on the descents, and we emerge from the forest a group of 11 or so. There’s another girl and she’s got two headphones in and I want to say something petty about how we’re supposed to talk to each other it’s a gravel race for crying out loud but I don’t say anything, except to rally everyone to work. At this point I’m aware the gaps between groups are probably less than a minute or two and I’m finally convincing my legs to turn over. Everyone seems more reluctant that I’m used to. Maybe they’re worried about the distance, the day (and night) ahead. But a couple are willing to push it with me and we forge onwards. Before I know it the other girl is gone. It’s me and my four guys and we’re bringing people back. Calm down it’s a long race! But I can’t help thinking there’s maybe 8 or so women up the road. I’ve always been convinced that while I may be just as strong, Europeans are better racers. Smarter at least.
Somehow an hour goes by. Or close to an hour, I don’t really know; I keep my computer on the map screen. We come around a loose doubletrack corner and I recognize the kit up ahead. It’s Sarah Sturm and that means my start can’t have been all that bad. We say some cheerful hellos. I ask if she knows what the race situation is and she says she thinks we’re at the front. I don’t want to tell her but I’m pretty sure we’re not. I don’t know why. Just a feeling I guess. We’re nearing the first aid station and I ask if she’d like to pee together. Not a weird question in a women’s race. She says she doesn’t need to but she’ll wait for me if I do. I nod in agreement. We fly around town corners into the checkpoint and it’s so nice to see some familiar faces. Freddie is there and he’s amped. I throw my Camelbak on the ground near him and run into a driveway, not exactly hidden but I couldn’t care less. Stretch my sweat-crusted jersey back on and grab two extra tall bottles, only to find the back one can’t fit. Shit. shitshitshit. I grab a spare small one and my half-filled reservoir and hop back on. Sarah is there and so are most of the boys we arrived with. I yell at some people, “how many women are ahead of us??”
“Nobody, it’s just you.”
This is funny to me. “I don’t know how to be in front this early” I tell Sarah and she tells me to chill. I’ve never led a race at the first checkpoint, not ever. I’m hyped but the pressure feels like a weight. We arrive at a section I rode the week before and the climbs start to lengthen. I surge up them and Sarah tells me to chill. It’s early. It’s a long race. She’s right. The men surge uphill and leave us, and we catch them within seconds on the descents, time after time. We scold some of them for getting in our way. We laugh about how bad they are at going downhill. I’m having more fun than I think I’m supposed to; Sarah is ripping around corners and I’m not sure there’s a single wheel out there I trust more. A few hours pass in this fashion, light banter, each of us trying to discern how the other is feeling, me: overexcited, Sarah, levelheaded, steady. She takes the lead going into the singletrack and I don’t fight her for it. Near the end I lose a little focus and feel my front rim ping. Maybe 31 psi is too little. Again, ping. Shit. I’m losing some nerve now too and hop off. The tire feels ok but I’m second guessing now and run down the remaining turns. It’s brushy and I can’t see Sarah anymore. Calm down long race.
If there is one thing I have confidence in it’s my ability to rip down a service road and I catch Sarah and a guy or two by the end of the next. We make our way through coastal villages, apprehended by camera crews and confused locals. I slam a gel, knowing it’s about to get hard. Like, really hard.
Clouds burn off, sun reverberates off white-bright dirt. Gradients steepen. I’m doing ok. Legs are turning over. The separation happened innocuously enough, the drama in the retelling belying the slow, dull nature of any development in a race this long— the wind tearing at us both from the side, pushing us off the good lines, asking so much for a single meter of forward progress. I’m severely under-geared and barely turning over the pedals. Sarah says she’s out of water about halfway up the steeps and I tell her I’m nearly out too, but can give her some mix if she needs. Says she’ll let me know. The wind is all I can hear and it’s hot, hair dryer on max. No vegetation, no shade, road ahead littered with people pushing their bikes up the next wall, heads down in defeat. I think about all those days last summer, crossing back over the Golden Gate in the afternoon, wind so extreme you’re throwing all of your weight sideways to stay upright. I’m suddenly grateful for it. I check back once after something I say goes unanswered and Sarah is several paces behind me, walking. I nearly lose my balance and resolve to not look back again.
Checkpoint 2 arrives and I feel guilty— Sarah is not with me and earlier I told her this time, I’d wait for her to pee. I stand there long enough to fill the Camelbak again and chat with my crew and she’s still not arrived and my crew is yelling at me to go!!!!! and I know I have to go so I go. It’s still windy so I chase hard until I catch a nice German man. I ask if he wants to work and he says he is cracked but will try. He’s a solid wheel but I can tell he’s fading. I start taking more turns, he’s giving it everything. A lone rider up the road gets bigger with every turn. Suddenly my German is gone. Go!! he says. Shit. I need the company. I’m useless on these flat roads in the wind. I chase with everything; I’m burning more matches than I want to but I have no choice. My only relief is in trying to attach myself to the wheel ahead and he’s still probably a minute up. I imagine Sarah peeling out of aid 2 with a pack of men. The fear gives me another match or two and I burn them, reckless. I make the catch.
It’s a couple weeks later now and I don’t remember his name anymore. He didn’t speak much English and even after some weeks there I only know how to say bon dia, merci. We get our names across anyways and settle into a rotation. He’s much bigger, and he’s riding well. I do as much as I can for him too but he comes around before I’m ready every time. I always feel a bit silly in these situations— he’s fine without me and I need him. He sits up a bit to eat and I take that as my opportunity to help some more. We’ve been together an hour or so at this point, mostly in silence but he feels like my friend. I’m eating, drinking, feeling better and better, as I’ve come to expect around hour 7 and beyond. Suddenly he’s gone too. All this time I thought we were a match, it turns out he’d been riding past his limits to help me. Go on!! he waves me forward. I plead with him but he’s sat up completely. Many more k’s to go before the solace of more climbs, and so begins the inner dialogue, can you go harder? how much harder? how many k’s left? use more and find someone? use less, sit up, wait for some help? I forge on, toeing the line of hard, but not overly so.
Somewhere between km 320 and 325 I have officially ridden farther than I ever have but I’m having such a nice time I don’t notice. I’m eating and drinking and feel better than I ever have in a race situation. Everyone I encounter is a shell; I say some formalities and leave them behind. In memory, few things stand out. A hot rocky climb, a ripper descent after. An interminable uphill sandpit I wasted minutes running. The mountains and forest give way to farmland, and a moto tucks in behind me with some 80k to go. The high-pitched whine of the motor plants itself deep in between my ears and I nearly tell him to fuck off, thinking it’s some third party photog trying to milk content from the race. I stay quiet. For a brief moment I attach myself to three incredibly strong men who spent longer in the checkpoint than I. One is Jannik, we’re friends, PAS teammates. He starts mashing and I know my time with them is limited. I’m far enough in the front now that everyone is racing racing; it’s every man for himself, and I’m just another person to beat.
Then the worst happens, or maybe not the worst, but beyond say, physical injury or total mechanical failure, it’s pretty bad. I look down at my head unit and the course says 58km to go or something, seems about right. The solid line marking where I’ve been creeps along. Then, around the next bend, the little finish symbol appears. Must be a screen glitch or something, I think, and then I pass the spot and the route ends. My heart drops out the bottom of my ribs. I quickly shuffle through the screens, load route, Traka 360. Route to Start? No. No route still. I slam on the brakes, the moto stops with me, a few beats away. I open the app, the course is there, the line complete to the finish in Girona. I re-sync, re-load. No route. I’m panicking and see that the moto has a phone mounted on his bars. Can I have your phone? He says no. Shocking, lol. Can you tell me when the turns come then? He says he’s on 6% battery but he’ll try. We scoot forward in this manner, but anticipate the timing differently and it’s slow. Left, he says, but there are three lefts and I hesitate. I hear a frantic conversation in Catalan behind me, and he pulls alongside. Turns out he’s the livestream, he’s spoken to race control, and he’s strictly not allowed to interfere. I pull over again. Fuck. fuckfuckfuckfuck. I vent to him. I can’t race, I have to quit! How?! He says, sorry. I choke up. Quit the app, restart it, nothing. Can you send me the file you’re using? Sure. We exchange numbers, I get a komoot link on WhatsApp. I don’t have the app, can’t see it, can’t load it on my shitty Spanish data plan. One last idea occurs to me— I go into the files I’ve downloaded from my browser, find the gpx still there. I import it to the app again, name it Traka 360 2023!!!!!!!!!!!! to differentiate. Wait for the import to complete. Resync it to the unit. Start route. It’s there. I take a deep breath. Who knows if it’ll quit in 5k, but it’s here now. I clip back in and start fucking hauling.
A storm is brewing. Lightning in my periphery. Rain smell wafting over the hills, air thick. We summit a soft rise, the moto and I having reached an understanding. “We are so lucky to be here,” he says, and the hair on my arms stands up. So lucky. Fat drops of rain hit, slow at first, then torrential. As much water coming up from the dirt as from the sky, glasses on and it’s too dark to see, glasses off and my eyes fill with mud. I squint them half closed and pray my contacts stay attached. I’ve never ridden so hard and so reckless, the roadside troubleshooting having felt like an eternity despite likely only being a few minutes. The last gap I’d heard was 12, not enough. I can’t lose this way, couldn’t handle it. I’m fucking tearing, two motos on me now, none of this seems real. Use it. Everything. The outskirts of town make themselves known, scored with memories of the last few weeks. I want to believe the win is mine but I don’t dare. Not till the final two turns, moto friend says, enjoy it, and I’m here and it’s crazy and I thought I would cry but I have nothing, nothing left. One hand on my heart and one towards the sky. Eyes burning with champagne, relief, or something akin to it, and a blur of all the faces I have come to love, screaming, laughing, hollering. I collapse.
This was an outstanding read, thanks!
Closest I’d ever come to riding with you. Well written, Amity!