It turned out to be great weather, high forties for the start, and mostly sunny. The field had mostly chosen mountain bikes for this race, with a whole bunch of people on singlespeeds. I rode the Lynskey Pro Cross, with cantis and only 36mm tires, and as much gearing as I could get with my road crank and 10 speed mtb rear derailleur. Since there was almost no flat on this course I might have been better off on my mountain bike, but I just default to the gravel bike for these types of events. I managed fine, and managed to hold my own on the descents I think, although it's hard to tell because I was alone for 90% of the race. I rode with the front group for a little while, and it got whittled down from 11 to 6 or so and finally after having a dropped chain(chain is too long, from having a bigger chainring on there normally), and getting back up almost, I was going too far into the red on the main climb up Potato Patch to keep up so I tried to go my own pace. It was around this time that I began yo-yoing with a guy on a salsa fargo, and after I went off course briefly, he passed me for the last time and I didn't see him again. The roads were steep and very rocky with huge exposed rocks everywhere so I had to really concentrate on the downhills, and be sure that I had enough traction with the loose gravel in the many turns. The surface was mostly pretty loose with large gravel as well, and this only added to the difficulty. I might have been better suited to being on a mountain bike here as well, as I was bouncing around a lot, even on the uphill. I passed a couple of folks ahead that had flatted, and managed to hold off those behind me and finish in 5th overall. Since there were two singlespeeders ahead of me, that meant I was on the podium for the men's open. I was surprised and thrilled. Had a great time and would love to come back and do it again, just maybe on a bike with bigger tires. I never felt like my cantis were a problem, just my skinny tires. Need a drop bar MTB or a proper gravel bike that can fit big tires.
We stayed in a cabin at Mulberry Gap for the weekend and it was great, can't say enough nice things about that place, just wonderful.