2023 Belgian Waffle Ride: North Carolina

Check out my team's Fondo this July 22nd. Come ride with us! www.bikereg.com/the-middle-fo...
Watch the full uncut footage with an extra hour of video here: • 2023 BWR Extended Footage
Much harder course than last year. Was pretty chaotic early. Pushed hard to make it to the first pinch point in the lead group. Had a dropped chain when having to dismount up that climb. Went behind the chain catcher somehow so took a min to force it back out. Then mile 20 or so on Pinnacle Road had a puncture. Used a plug on it which lasted about 10 minutes before getting soft and gave it another CO2 but went flat again. Bit the bullet and stopped to put a tube in it. On the super steep climb right after that went down when I lost traction on loose rocks. But then all smooth sailing after that. Mostly lonely riding with those tech sections spitting everyone up but met a few people out there. Had a second wind around mile 80 that carried me to finally falling apart completely at mile 110, just in time for Jeter. Overall really proud with how I did today. Kept calm and didn't lose too much time with earlier incidents to impact my results much. 60th out of several hundred and a stacked field.
0:00 Neutral roll out
1:21 Race is on
3:19 REEB Ranch
10:33 Pinnacle Mountain Road and Green River Road descent
12:26 "Maybinberg" segment
16:30 Pinnacle Mountain Road climb to summit
17:29 Pinnacle Mountain Road and Mt Olivet Road descent
19:33 Lake Summit North
20:04 Pot Shoals, Old Howard Gap, and 176
21:26 Pearson Falls Road and Saluda
22:21 Lake Summit South
23:35 Greenville Watershed
24:16 Falling Creek Camp
27:53 Green River Road
28:06 Pinnacle Mountain Road singletrack
29:40 Sky Valley Road
30:26 REEB Ranch 2
33:49 Cascade Lake Road
35:19 Merrill Lane and Jeter
35:38 Patterson Road
36:02 Race finish

[@FantaconeBoxWorks]

Nice editing, great ride. The best thing about your video is NO annoying music.

[@ryantreadway4142]

Great ride, great video and great result. Kudos on dealing with the adversity like a champ 💪 #TEMPOCYCLISME

[@peterhelbers9169]

Like your video, well done. Am 60+ and bought me just recently a Canyon Grail:ON CF 7 electric gravel bike for these type of tracks. Now I can keep up again with the youngsters. Greeting from Gent, Belgium.

[@brendanshortt4103]

Bad luck WAS CHASING YOU ALL THE WAY 🚴💯 🧘🙏

[@SvenfromKiel]

fantastic video...made my day here in home office. Thanks a lot!

[@scottzenoni8796]

Great Video and ride ! Helped me re-live the day ! Excellent job !

[@luiscortegano-dd5wc]

🙏Fantastic

[@MichaelCruzCPP]

Thanks for posting this, l look forward to your next video

[@gabebikes]

Thanks for posting! I’ve not done the NC BWR yet 🎉

[@eduardoespinoza4824]

Grande amigo

[@wwelsh100]

great video and race. I watched your video last year and did the race. Not this year. Still looks like a really hard course. Thanks for sharing. slowing. hA

[@tedtharin4374]

Hey thanks for video! I am in it at the start. We were together for a while. I was right at the crash but I think I entered the single track before you. There was crash last year in about the spot. Thanks

[@saddleweary2777]

That's great riding, there was some single track a rabbit would have 2nd thought's going down

[@yicketee]

Wish organizers would cut back on the single track in mass start gravel events. Especially in the first 10 miles. At least let the field split apart a bit to reduce traffic

[@keithnewton1966]

There needs to be a hard climb at least before the bottle neck

[@michaelhoward6752]

When I got there the line to start the single track was running out to the road. Ended up walking up the complete climb. Real cluster!!!

[@leoturgenov7440]

Yup I had to walk pretty much that whole climb as well.. At least I got to have a nice chat with the riders around me on the way up

[@michaelvaughn1807]

Same. Lost so much time stuck behind walkers.

[@stevevarga8621]

All well designed gravel races have a big separator early in the event so there is no mixing of people with different abilities. Fast guys need to ride with fast guys. When the stooges get in the mix many more accidents happen and of course traffic jams into single track are dramatically reduced also when groups are further apart.

[@shopinthebasement4262]

Great video! What tires did you run?

[@darrenoconnor4061]

Did the 80 mile and it was fun! btw, how do you sync your stats on the video so well? Biggest pain for me is the syncing...

[@rgmediaconsultant2358]

Wow... Amazing videos. Bro... How can you add the cycle computer into the video? Thanks

[@TyTy22_]

I have to know what happened to the guy at 0:50 that caused him to crash out

[@leoturgenov7440]

It looks like the guy overlaps his wheel with the rider in front just as the bunch is slowing. The front rider responds to the slowing by shifting right and chops the guy’s front wheel, that’s my best guess at least!

[@dsp002]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qoKonH9pqcmDmqc This video is about 60 yds behind the crash. Time 2:53 in the video. One man crash and you can see him getting up.

[@mogulmayhem]

I hate to say it, but the total lack of a yellow line rule is insanely dangerous.

[@abdielflores4147]

You can see that the roads have been closed off for the event. 2:36 is an example of seeing an officer clearly blocking the road.

[@mogulmayhem]

@@abdielflores4147 good to know; I've see racing like this on open dirt roads and its kind of terrifying