Utah, on July 4th, has a traditional group ride up to Francis peak (one of the taller peaks in the Wasatch that you can drive/ ride up to). It's a 12-ish mile climb with 5k feet of climbing. All gravel. The road is in awesome shape and there was probably 150 people up at 6am to go ride bikes. Was a fun time.
I think I ended up with about the 6th fastest time on the day, but rode it all at my own pace, so never really saw any of the guys ahead of me until I was catching / passing them. I've been doing a lot of riding by power (or, in this case hr) recently and my body really likes it in comparison to chasing attacks. Hopefully it plays out and works well in up coming road races.
Happy 4th, y'all.