First gravel race. Super fun and fast. Green course - P6.
I was looking forward this for quite some time. Finally the day has come and I woke up early to have another big portion of rice, cocoa and honey. I picked up Anže in Ljubljana and quite soon we made it to this nice camping spot Plana near Postojna/Prestranek.
The Human Fish Gravel event got 3 route options: Red - 270km / +5000m ??? (they started at 6am), Green - 118km / 1900m (we signed up for this one!) and Blue - 68km / 950m. There was about 70 riders on the start for the green course and we somehow found ourself in the first line. After the first hour of high paced ride me and Anže splitted. I got an oportunity to close up the gap with one really fast racer so I went after him and got to the first group. The route was very nice, with one main climb, but also quite a few short and demanding ones around KM-100 with a bit loosy gravel.
We formed a group with like 10 riders before the main climb and rode together, but it really felt like a race. For me it was ok since the event name has a word "Race" in it. But I think we should do this one again with a bit slower pace, enjoy the views and have a good time in a different way.
I still had a lot of fun, the legs were in great shape so I pushed when I could. At the end, I even found out that I got second on the feed zone KM-70, but there I waited for the group and we continued together. About 15 KM's before the finish line the group splitted again and I ended up with the same fast racer from the begining. We finished together and I was a bit surprised that we were that close to the podium places. At the finish line we got 5th and 6th.
The fun fact is that when we were getting to the event in the morning, both Anže and me agreed to make this one easy and just enjoy the time on the bike. Haha, yes, of course... I must say for myself that I really went hard on this one but overall it was a really nice experience.
Big thumbs up goes to the organizers at Human Fish Gravel to make this possible. Looking forward for next year stages race...
Yep, they will organize a Gravel Stages Race in 2022!
