2023 Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego - Wanna/short course

Unfortunately the GoPro Hero 9 Black was acting up again and decided to overheat and kept shutting down, so I missed a bunch of footage. If you're a new rider and wondering what to expect at BWR SD, this should give you a basic idea. The new mountain bike sector they added this year kinda sucked, and they should've used the gravel road above it. As a result, we ended up standing in line to wait to get through some sections. All in all though it wasn't too bad, and Double Peak always blows. Bring your climbing legs, as 4,100 feet in 41 miles is a good amount. My back was really starting to feel it ascending the upper part of Questhaven, so I was trying to soft pedal up Double Peak, at least as much as you can going up 8-16%. My moving time (3 hrs 7 min) would've placed me around 7th, but stopping at the rest stops to pee and get water, plus the trail traffic jams tacked on a ton of time and got 53rd out of 150+. Wasn't really expecting much as I got RSV the middle of March (and still dealing with respiratory issues from it), and my already poor volume of training made things even worse, but my legs felt surprisingly good for the ride. Will I do BWR SD again? Not sure.....but I will definitely go back to BWR Cedar City once I'm back in shape, so probably not this year. The traffic control on the other hand, was awesome.....never had to stop at any major intersections at any time that were staffed with police - waved all the riders through without slowing down/stopping/waiting, which I've never had during the entire event at any gran fondos or other non-road race events I've done.

Strava:   / strava  
BIKE: Merlin Titanium Sandstone
TIRES: Continental Terra Speed 35mm set up tubeless (didn't use any sealant as I'm planning on testing some Tufo Thunderos in 40mm after this ride and didn't want to waste it), 45 psi in the rear, 35 psi in the front - went for more road-oriented pressure, which sucked on the rocky and steep offroad descents. Didn't get any flats. Measured in at 35.3mm on the Winspace wheels.
WHEELS: Winspace gravel wheels, 38mm depth, 32mm external width, around 1400 grams. Probably the best bang for the buck by far in the gravel wheel game.
GROUPSET: Shimano GRX Di2 2x (48/31 and 11-34 gearing), 4iiii powermeter. Would've preferred an 11-36 up Double Peak, but can't really complain too much as the first time I did it in 2018, I had a 50/34 crank and 11-32 cassette. I love GRX Di2, wouldn't trade it for anything.
OTHER STUFF: Enve road stem, Enve seatpost, Selle Italia Max SLR Superflow saddle (Ti rails), Easton EC70 40 cm aero road bars, Shimano XTR pedals. The flared bar fad is lame, and they suck.
ACCESSORIES: Silca gravel pump, Specialized Rib Cage II bottle cages, Outer Shell Rolltop saddlebag, Garmin 1040, Enve/K-Edge Garmin/GoPro mount for Enve road stem, K-Edge chain keeper thing to avoid dropping the chain .

I was debating running my 38mm Rene Herse Barlow Pass file treads, but those would've really sucked on the dirt parts where there was off-camber and steep descents......so I'm glad I didn't use those. Plus the Conti's with knobs are faster on the road and dirt anyway. The Terra Speeds seemed to grip everything without much fuss, but didn't feel all that confidence inspiring....likely due to running near-cyclocross width tires and using more pressure, as I prefer 32 front/35 rear for more "gravel" oriented rides on these tires. These tires do give a surprising amount of grip for such a shallow knob on a relatively narrow tire though. In fact, on the really steep dirt part heading up to the road on the last dirt sector after Double Peak, I stood up to pedal and there was zero tire slippage, even at 45 psi. No slippage on the gravel staircase on Double Peak too, but I think I was mostly seated for that.