Issue #4: Adventure Is Out There!

Adventure Miles: Breaking Away at the Huffmaster Hopper

By Zach Morvant

“So, what’s the course like? What advice would you give me?”

My canister of coffee is slow to rev up my brain as my friend James pilots the car through the predawn darkness toward Maxwell, California. I’m thinking about how we’re just a couple of new dads — James of a toddler, me of an infant — with full-time jobs, about to go test our legs against some of Northern California’s fastest gravel racers.

Eventually my synapses assemble a coherent response to his question.

“For the first 40 miles, you’ll want to sit in the pack and conserve as much energy as you can before you hit the first big climb,” I say. “Then the race is going to blow apart.” Good job, brain, I think. Pretty smart advice.

What I don’t know is that in a few hours, I’ll regret not following it.

The Huffmaster Hopper — the second event in the 2022 Grasshopper Adventure Series — is billed as “a gravel grinder a la Hopper style.” It starts and ends in the town of Maxwell, Colusa County, one of many agricultural communities just off of Interstate 5.

The 90-mile “long route” traverses flat, mostly paved farm roads for the first 25 miles, punctuated with a few gravel stretches. The road then gradually rises until mile 40, where a roughly three-mile gravel ascent serves as the day’s first big climb, followed by a fast, somewhat technical gravel descent. The back half of the course is a mix of paved and gravel roads, featuring the short but potentially decisive Huffmaster climb and descent (the family for which the course is named). The final 15 miles are a long, mostly flat stretch punctuated by small rollers and some washboard.

Back to the action: We’re only 10 miles into this thing and the attacks have already been slashing through the nearly 50-strong pro group. Flying along 25 miles of flat farm road, mostly into a slight headwind, the gravel sectors are making even this talent-heavy field cagey.

We snake a left from a block of smooth pave and immediately start carving through a stretch of sharp stones. Crosswind and truck-worn gravel lines eventually slice the field into two distinct columns chattering along at 20 mph. I see John Baker, a race favorite, raise his hand to indicate a flat tire and pull off to the side. I hear the hiss of a deflating tire — crap, it’s me, I’m flatting, but after a few seconds that seem like an eternity that will dash my hopes for any result — the leak seals. Don’t think I’ve lost too much pressure. Thanks be for tubeless tire technology and good sealant. Must keep pedaling. Stay with the group.

A right turn and we are back on pavement. There’s the briefest lull as the group snatches a collective breath — and one lone rider, a bigger fellow in a black kit, makes a move.

I recognize this rider trying to break away. It’s Mikal from the Away Message team, and he’s a diesel.

I’m only a handful of wheels behind the front. Nobody is doing anything. Should I? So many doubts. I haven’t felt very strong since becoming a father last summer. There’s so much firepower in this field. There’s still such a long way to go. But the timing seems right. There aren’t really any big teams to organize a chase. Maybe I should just do it.

I surf my way up to the tip of the field and kick off into space, pedaling furiously after Mikal.

The breakaway comes together. Photo: Christopher Keiser p/b Sportful.

I catch him and we quickly settle into a good tempo, trading one-minute pulls. Mikal’s mighty, but he’s also much bigger than me, so I’m able to hide in his draft while he spews watts. It’s not long before we notice two riders bridging up to join us.

“They’re coming up hard,” Mikal spits. “Be ready.”

We turn our effort down a bit on the off chance these two guys want to blow past us. Luckily, they don’t — and now we have a four-man breakaway.

Someone more clever than me once described being in a breakaway as trying to move a couch with a group of strangers, meaning it rarely happens smoothly. Being the type of sucker who loves riding in a breakaway, I know this to often be true.

But this is one of those rare breakaways. Our new friends for the next unknown interval, Brian and RJ, feed our shared engine with strong, supple efforts.

I look back. The field is in sight on this cursed five-mile straightaway, but they don’t appear to be gaining. We just have to keep working.

The work is hard but spirits are high. Photo: Christopher Keiser p/b Sportful.

The miles start to tick by. Maybe 15 miles into this audacious move, a white sedan driven by Brian (Veloworthy) and Allen (Skratch) pulls alongside us, telling us we have a three-minute gap, that the chase effort is sitting up. I’m always skeptical of receiving time gaps while on course — you can never be sure of the accuracy of the information, even from a trusted source — but the news nevertheless swells me with confidence. We can do this, I think. This is going to work.

I envision us 60 miles from now, ragged and salty, me and my breakmates struggling to beat each other across the line in a zombie-shamble of a sprint. We congratulate each other. Take our spots on the podium. Answer questions from people with cameras about what a big upset this was… I snap out of it. These are ridiculous thoughts; I roll them up and pack them away into my brain’s jersey pockets. Delicious mental junk food that’s weighing me down. I need to focus on the effort.

Mile 40, the decisive climb begins. We pedal on, knowing we are now dead men. The leaders are closing and closing fast, with big scary names you see in Velonews articles and on Strava leaderboards, a lot of them conspicuously starting with W — Wertz, Wiebe, Wild. Maybe if my last name was Worvant, I’d have more watts.

Halfway up the climb, our bold breakaway is officially caught. The leaders float past me like I am standing still. What I have left to give is not enough. A chase group forms and I somehow find another gear, digging hard to keep up. Maybe this isn’t over, I think — but after hammering the ensuing descent and losing contact after the first feed zone, I come to begrudgingly admit that, yes, it is.

At least, one phase is over: my quest for a top 10. Unburdening myself of that expectation, I feel lighter. My new goal is simply to ride as hard as my body will allow, to take in the scenery, to look for friendly faces along the journey.

It’s suddenly a whole new day. Even if it’s only been a couple hours.

The back half of the course is beautiful: mostly undulating gravel roads with nary a car to be seen. Wildflowers are blooming and large swaths of the hills are still green from the winter rains. The weather is pleasant, low winds and a temperature straddling the meridian of 60°F that’s neither warm nor cool to me.

It’s a great day to be on a bike.

I surf wheels and put in some work with a couple of different determined chase groups before dropping off and linking up with another lone rider, Nico (Alto Velo), for the last 15 or so miles. He’s a reliable wheel and a perfect partner to share the load with ’til the end, where we have a cheeky sprint to the finish line. It’s not the sprint I’d imagined so many miles ago, but it’s a perfect end to my race — and a perfect prelude to the burritos, beers, and live folk band that follow, as riders in various states of repose lay scattered around a park in the sun, sharing their own epic days with each other.

Some scenery from the Huffmaster Hopper. Photo: Christopher Keiser p/b Sportful.