Originally Posted by
Marcus_Ti
It was a beastie. The gravel days, lots 2" deep fresh dumped pea gravel. Some folks brought 3-4" class MTBs and just floated over the stuff. Me and my 45mm tires sank into it. Lots of MMR with fine-dust dirt. Oy. The other bike in the Arcadia photo, belonged to a mate who rode DK...he said the surface was way worse than DK this year.
Day 3...pavement in the sandhills with 35MPH surface winds gusting to 40+ for the first 20 miles. Lots of folks left camp in the morning only to abort and turn around and return to Day 3 camp.
DK surfaces were like a super highway this year.
I did Gravel Worlds last year and that pea gravel you folks have up there can be brutal stuff, especially when it's wet. Last year GW was fun but the first 30 miles or so were still pretty soggy from overnight storms and was an intense workout. It dried up as the day went on and was fine, but nasty when it's wet.