That was a very pretty route. I highly recommend it... when it's not so windy!!! I was very worried everyone was going to hammer right from the start but it was actually a very reasonable pace... all the way until the first gravel section when everything immediately went to 11 and our lovely group that had pacelined through the headwinds so well together blew apart! The gravel was really thick and people with narrower tires were squirming around. It felt so sketchy. I yeeted out of there but then I was stuck in the crazy headwinds so I had to put in even more power to get on a wheel. Unfortunately, I dropped Jill but we all came back together once we were off of that section. It was basically like this for each of the gravel sections until we got up to Hwy 126. By then my legs were feeling fried and we'd only done about 20 miles at that point. On Hwy 126, the crosswinds were crazy fierce. By the time we turned off, I was surprisingly tired. At one point I dropped back to get a photo but with the headwinds, I couldn't catch back on and Jill was gone. I rode a lot of the last three quarters of the route by myself. I rode and chatted with a few people here and there. On the climb before the only rest stop, I ran out of water so I made sure to bring the extra bottles for the back half of the course. After eating I felt better but only for about 10 miles and then my legs were back to feeling like crap. That's when I realized that it was probably because the new pedals were making my stance too wide. There really shouldn't have been any reason for my legs to feel so bad after so few miles and so little climbing. The gravel after the rest stop was just so nice and the scenery was just so pretty. Huffmaster Grade was pleasantly short. The descent was pleasantly longer and after it I got a second wind. The tires were working so great in the deep gravel after the descent. I was floating over it and just flying! I would go through phases of feeling great to all of a sudden feeling dead again to getting another second wind and the cycle kept repeating. That is until I got back out on the road. The tires were definitely more suited to gravel than tarmac. And on the final stretch of road, the headwind was brutal! Lucky Ollie's friend Brian/Bryan caught up to me and was so nice to give me a tow between riding side-by-side and chatting. It sure made those final miles go by faster. Number one priority is to sort out the pedals and stance. I thought it was the new shorter cranks but I'm pretty sure that's not the issue since they're not that much shorter than what I had before and those felt fine.