Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Five great tips for any distance gravel race...

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5 Tips for a successful Dirty Kanza

Words of Wisdom from The Fit Chick...


The Fit Chick, Selene Yeager, has offered 5 tips for a successful Dirty Kanza. We will be exploring these 5 topics in greater detail over the next 5 weeks from industry experts. To read more from Selene Yeager visit her blog at bicycling.com
1. Practice your nutrition. Nothing will shut you down faster on race day than bonking or just as bad, getting a case of gut rot (where your stomach/GI system shut down and reject anything you try to choke down). Both of these happen far too often because racers fail to practice their nutrition during training. It’s easy to stop at convenience stores or coffee shops during training rides and sit down and eat and roll off again. But that’s not what you’ll be doing race day. Practice carrying exactly what you’ll carry and stock at the aid stations for fuel race day and nail down how many calories you’ll need and how you’ll get them. The standard recommendation is 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour. That’s 120 to 240 calories.
 
2. Take 5 and only 5. If at all possible keep your pitstops to no more than 5 minutes. The longer you stop, the harder it is to get rolling again. Longer stops can easily tack on 45 minutes to an hour to your total time, which is something to keep in mind if you’re trying to make the race cutoff. Pull into the aid station, get what you need, and keep on going.
 
3. Log consistent saddle time. You’ll certainly not get up to 200 miles in your training (nor do you really need to try). But you do need to be very comfortable on your bike for hours and hours (and hours) at a time. Even if you can only manage short rides during the week it will help you acclimate to being in the saddle. If anything bothers you even a little bit on your training rides, address it. Small niggles can blow up to show stoppers at mile 180.
 
4. Care for your contact points. Pay special attention to your butt, feet, and hands. They will be the parts that pipe up as the day goes on. Consider double wrapping your bars; wear shoes that have a bit of compliance (i.e. not super stiff racing shoes), and invest in well padded quality bike shorts.
 
5. Train on the terrain. It might be impossible to simulate the Flint Hills of Kansas, but by all means, take your bike out on rugged, unpaved roads as part of your training. Those gravel roads are slower and more challenging to navigate than pavement or hard packed dirt roads. It’s important to know how to stay smooth when the road is anything but.

Helpful Hints

Helpful hints to help with your journey to Emporia...

 
Each year we receive emails from some of you asking if we can provide you with contact information for other registered entrants in your area.  That way, you could seek out traveling companions for your trek from your home state, to Emporia, Kansas.  While we understand having such information might be helpful, we do not feel it would be appropriate to share contact information without first having permission to do so from each of the persons involved.  So, may we suggest a couple of alternative approaches?  Please feel free to use our Facebook page to reach out to other participants.  You can also go back to our registration page on BikeReg.com, then use the "Who's Registered" button to find other riders from your region.  By searching for those individuals on Facebook, you might be able to contact them.

We also often receive questions about which airport is the best option… Kansas City, MO… or Wichita, KS.  Emporia is just about equal distance from both Kansas City and Wichita.  Flying in to either airport will work just fine.  All three cities are on I-35, so driving to Emporia from either airport is a cinch.

Another common question involves our entry transfer procedure.  You may have noticed our registration page states “No Refunds”.  We also state if you find you cannot attend DK, we will work with you to match you up with someone on our Wait List.  In the past, what that meant was we would put you in contact with the next name on our Wait List.  Then it was up to the two of you to work out any details surrounding payment of the entry.  Once that was settled, we would manually update our event registration records.

However, we’ve recently discovered a new feature that BikeReg.com has made available to us promoters.  Here is a quick description of how this will now work…

We created an actual Wait List on BikeReg.com, then opened up registration for that list.  Based on past history of how many transfers we process on average, we limited that Wait List to 50 names.  If you have registered for Dirty Kanza, and now find you cannot attend, send us an email.  We’ll refund your entry fee, then pull the next name off the Wait List and get them registered.  We’ll follow this process UNTIL all names on the Wait List have been transferred onto the list of active riders.  Once all 50 names on the Wait List have been activated, any additional requests for refund will be denied.  Our published deadline of May 2nd for all transfer requests is still in place.

We feel this is a good balance between us needing to know who and how many to expect, and our need to cover up-front expenses (the reasons for no refunds), and our desire to provide exemplary customer service.  We hope each of you will agree.

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