STRAAAVVVAAAA
I first heard of the Crusher in the Tushar last year while training in Park City, Utah. Between being totally cracked and having a little difficulty tracking down a transfer entry I didn’t make it down to the small town of Beaver, Utah to see what all the hype was about. With Beaver being the home of the Lupus Racing Team Mechanic and superstar Zack Foley and made sure to plan my altitude camp with a trip to Beaver to take on the Crusher. At 69 miles with 10,000ft of climbing Burke Swindlehurst’s race manages to feel all uphill, well except for that 6 mile cross wind section. Fortunately the backdrop of beautiful gravel roads meandering their way throughout the Tushar Mountains across high-mountain meadows and past alpine lakes make all the pain a lot more bearable.
The big question for the race is what bike you’re going to run. There’s a whole section on the website dedicated to which bike races should run. I had spoken to Zack a ton about the setup but was really only left with a road bike set up tubeless for the occasion. After racing I’m really glad Eddy Merckx stepped in and sent me out one of their Eeklo70 carbon cross bikes with Ultegra Hydro disc brakes. Life saver. The deep gravel and ripping decent on the col de crush would have been a bit much for the road bike. I think if you’re looking for straight speed the cross bike is the way to go but the comfort and gearing of a mountain bike wouldn’t hurt!
My bike showed up on Thursday in Beaver and Zack built it up and dialed in the measurements. A few quick adjustments the night before and some fast rolling tires (Clement LAS) and it was ready to go. Super fortunate to have Zack have my measurements plugged in and dialed so even though my first ride was the race the bike fit like a glove.
The next morning the town was a buzz with cyclists and the Pro men got rolling up the Canyon at 8am sharp. 10 miles of gradual uphill pavement into a beautiful canyon kicked off the race before the true racing began as we turned right onto a dirt road and the steep grade stretched out the field. Before the 5 mile climb was over I found myself in the second group and chasing across the top as it continued to roll uphill past multiple alpine lakes just catching the group as the road tipped slightly downhill.
The valley road leading in to the first dirt section
After grinding for 20 odd miles the race finally got fun as we got in a group and ripped through the pine tree forest and across the meadows with gravel flying and tires skidding through the turns. Eventually we popped out of the high meadow with huge views down to the valley below and the crazy decent began. I went flying into the first switchback and had to readjust multiple times as I skidded through the thick gravel hoping I didn’t slide off the mountain. Our group split a part a bit as guys went flying down the mountain navigating high speed corners around the mountain and tight switchbacks to the valley floor reaching speeds on gravel up to 45mph.
Eventually the gravel ended and pavement took us further down to Junction as the group came together to battle crosswinds before turning off the highway and back onto gravel. As the gravel tilted upward and turned more to sand the group completely separated. I regrouped a little on the rollers before the big climb but never saw the leaders again. I began the ascent back up the descent rode as hard as you can at altitude, which wasn’t very hard for me. I was still able find a groove and catch a couple people before getting to the top and rolling back across the high alpine meadows.
I thought I was feeling pretty good on the rollers until Josh Berry (Jelly Belly) caught me, cheerfully said “hey buddy” and promptly left me in the dust. The remainder looked easy on the profile but was anything but. It was just a long grind in thick freshly laid gravel where even though it looked flat you were still going slow and wondering how in the world you were going to get home. I had 5th place in my sights for the entire race but no matter the effort I couldn’t bring him back. Finally I found pavement again and the last two kickers to the finish. As I turned into the finish at Eagle Point 5th place started coming back to me. I was riding as hard as I could but still finding limited legs and even less oxygen as we topped out at 10,000ft.
Racing at high altitude is such a useless feelings, you just have no gas and in the end I couldn’t catch 5th place before I enjoyed the relief of the finish line. Driscoll was upset I made him push to the end but I had nothing else in the tank except enough to get to the finish. Some great food and relaxing at the top as I waited for Seth and company ended a "nice" day. After rolling back to Beaver we jumped in the creek to cool off and hit the road. A great experience for sure, but an experience that has to wear off before you consider doing it again. I'm sure I'll be back, but I'm not sure I'm over the shell shock yet...