Bryce Davis raced in the Fort Davis Hammerfest and wrote up this race report. Thanks, Bryce!

We arrived in Marfa, about 20 miles outside of Fort Davis, late Friday night. We checked into our hotel, found some great food to eat, and then set the alarm for an early Saturday morning. Saturday came sooner than I wanted, and I packed up the car with the bike and my gear, and then my wife and I began our search for a hot breakfast. Marfa has a population of 2121, and on Saturday morning the only restaurant open at 6:00am was Alice’s Cafe. We stepped inside for basic diner fare and a dash of local culture, thanks to the table of locals.

The ride to the race site was twice as long as necessary thanks to me choosing the wrong Prude Ranch on my BlackBerry. Once we found the site we parked, I checked in, and then spent more time than I should have figuring out what to wear for the first stage, a 16-mile hill climb to the top of Mt. Locke, where the McDonald Observatory is located. We’re around 4800ft elevation in the middle of the desert, so it was hard to judge what the weather would do. I decided to go with a long sleeve jersey and shorts, and I later regretted that, as I was unzipping the jersey and pushing up the sleeves. The weather warmed quickly after our start.

The hill climb was 16 miles, from “downtown” Fort Davis to the McDonald Observatory, which is at 6800 feet above sea level. The first nine miles or so were fairly rolling with 5-6% grades. The pace was fairly casual until we hit the real climbing, and then we were all breathing hard and sizing up the competition. This was a race for the little guys, and I was going to be more than happy if I could just keep the leaders in my sights until the final kilometer. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in the stars. The peloton soon strung out pretty quickly and I was immediately happy I decided to run compact cranks for the weekend.

The climb was nothing like what I’ve experienced in Austin, not even for the Tour das Hugel. Austin’s climbs are short and steep. This was long and sustained. I kept an eye on my heart rate monitor and watched the miles slowly tick away. As we passed the McDonald Observatory visitors’ center the grade suddenly kicked up to 17%, and I was now on familiar territory. This felt like the climbing I was used to in Austin, but that didn’t make it any easier. Riders were popping off left and right as we neared the finish; I crossed the line without any gas left in the tank and was happy to have finished. I later found out I finished 18th out of about 50 starters. I was pretty happy with that, considering we had some damn light mountain goats in the pack.

We headed back to town to wait for the start of the 16-mile time trial, which would begin at 2:30pm with riders leaving every 30 seconds. I’d start at 4:55pm, so we now had plenty of time to kill. We bummed around Fort Davis, checking out the scenery, shops, and found a (very slow) bite to eat. When it was time we staged for my start. The second stage was nearly dead flat and straight. We’d go nine miles straight out, turn around, then ride seven miles back. Unfortunately, the God of Wind hated us that day, and smote us with a 50mph headwind on the outbound leg. Right out of the gate I wished I had a proper time trial bike, or at the very least aero bars. I had neither, and told myself as I grinded away at 11-13mph that this would build character. I passed a couple of people, got passed by several more, and eventually made it to the turnaround. It was the slowest flat seven miles of my life. After the turnaround life was grand. I was cooking back at 35mph with very little effort, my compact cranks spinning out. It was nice to go so fast with not much effort. My dismal performance slipped me from 18th to 24th. Bummer. I fell asleep early that night and slept hard.

On Sunday I awoke and was happy to get back on the bike. It was going to be a very hilly 34-mile race and I was wanting to hammer hard. My legs were tired but not feeling too bad, and once the race started it seemed that everyone wanted the first three miles to warm up, which was fine with me. The weather was cold, about 38F, and it didn’t seem like it was going to warm up as it did on Saturday. We were in for a cold, windy, hilly race. Around mile three the peloton started riding tempo, with Tech Racing setting a pretty fast pace for the next couple of miles. Around mile five there was a breakaway that I was able to get into, but it quickly became bigger and bigger as more riders bridged the gap, and then it seemed we were together again, but now things were serious. At mile 7 my legs started to complain, burning with the steady tempo up the mountain climbs. At mile 7.5 I contemplated turning back, throwing in the towel, and starting the vacation early. Afterall, we had 5 bottles of wine in the hotel room that weren’t going to drink themselves. This was the beginning of the end. At mile 8 I popped and nearly came to a stop as I watched the group leave a gap and disappear around the corner. Just as I was about to turn around and descend back to the car I thought of my performance at Tunis Roubaix. At that race I gave up after waiting for an hour for a spare wheel, and later hated myself for not gutting it out to the finish (60 riders started, 19 finished, so if I had stuck it out I would have at least had a top 20 placing). “Racing is supposed to be hard” I told myself, and I picked up the cadence. I wouldn’t finish with the pack, but I’d finish.

After a while a couple of riders caught up to me and I tried to hang on their wheel and work together, but they didn’t seem interested in cooperating. That was probably in their best interest, because I’m not sure how much benefit I could have given them anyway. Shortly after that, Ken Greene from Violet Crown caught up to me and I finally found someone who would be willing to cooperate for the next 24 miles. I think we were both happy to not have to ride it alone. It was never flat from this point until the final two kilometers, but Ken and I paced each other up the climbs, down the short descent to the turnaround, and then back into the climbs. When we were finally done climbing, we had a nice, long, fast descent (47.2mph top speed for me) to the flats near the finish line. After realizing that Ken and I finished at the same time on the first stage, and guessing that we were pretty close in the time trial, we decided to duke it out for the finish. Surprisingly, Ken then pulled me along until the final 500 meters. With 200 meters to go I kicked as hard as I could up the short steep uphill finish, but it wasn’t enough to hurt Ken, as he finished about 2:30 ahead of me in the time trial. I moved up a couple of places in the GC to 22nd, and Ken finished 21st.

It was a hard three stages that made an honest rider out of you. There’s really no way to cheat the hills on stages 1 and 3, and the brutally windy time trial was equally every rider for themselves. It felt like an epic two days for me, even though Cat 5 raced 34 miles max (comprared to 74 for Cat 4 and up, yikes). The hill climb, time trial, and road race were highly competitive, and this race definitely favored those who could climb well. I can get the climbs done, just not as fast as they needed to be. We stayed in Marfa until Tuesday enjoying the local scene, or lack thereof, and had a great time. I highly recommend this race to anyone looking for a stage race or a race with a vacation destination. I’m already looking forward to next year.