It was with 10 miles or so to go, heading downhill across beautiful country in a small but solid group of guys working pretty well together, speed slowly building and legs holding up, being waved through another intersection as cars are made to wait, nearer the front than I had ever been before, under clear a blue sky that it dawned on me - in a very long sentence - just how good a day I was having.
Despite a couple of small stings in the tail in the final miles, the Tour of the Battenkill Gran Fondo is up there with the best days I have ever had on a bike. It was that good.
The arrows on the road, signs and marshals (part of a team 400 strong) at every intersection meant that there was no chance of getting lost.
I had heard The Tour of the Battenkill was a great event and the reality matched the hype. After 11 years, Anthem has it nailed down.
Battenkill started in 2005 with about 250 cyclists taking part in Battenkill Roubaix. Today's Tour is two days of racing with no fewer than 24 field-limited races on Saturday, including nine CAT 5 starts. Sunday is less hectic with eight starts, including the 105 mile Men's Pro/1 race and the mass start Gran Fondo, which does not require a racing license.
In all, around 1,800 cyclists tackled the gravel over the two days, according to the results.
The Gran Fondo was introduced in 2013 when the long-running UCI pro race was dropped, the casualty of waning sponsor interest. For 2015, 247 riders rolled out for the 68-mile Gran Fondo with its 12 miles of gravel in eight sections and just over 4,000 feet of climbing. Another 68 tackled the 23-mile version.
To no one's surprise, the first gravel section at Meeting House Road at around 10 miles broke things up for good and the ebb and flow of the day was established.
Form a group, work together taking turns to pull and collect a few loners in front of you. Then hit the next steep climb, split apart and once over the top start looking to get the band back together.
The quote of the day was heard on the gravel of Juniper Swamp Road: "300 watts and 4 miles per hour ..."
That was more down to the slope than the surface. The gravel sections were for the most part pretty benign and in the parallel paths swept clear of gravel by car wheels the hard-packed earth was not much different to asphalt. The squeak-inducing moments that there were came when you had to shift sides to avoid potholes or turning on and off the sections across the loose stuff.
The track pumps carried by the escorting Motorbikes saw little use. I didn't see anyone with a flat.
I had my longest spells on my own between the feed stations at 28 and 49 miles, but, thanks to a French Canadian in an Alpe D'Huez jersey, even then for most of the time I was working with at least one other rider.
After the big climb on Joe Bean Road just after Feed Station 2 the faces familiar from the previous 40 miles were dotted about and after the unexpected gravel climb on Riddle Road we came back together over the last 10 miles.
Inside the last couple of miles, it was my turn to pull when my new Quebecois pal jumped past and waved for me to follow. I have to think he went because the group had eased off as we caught two riders, but, of course, they knew something that he and I didn't. The sting in the tail was we still had to climb the gravel of old Schuylerville Road.
Inevitably, I was on the front, running out of puff, when we saw the waving flags sending us up the grade. My glorious drive for the line slowed to a crawl and four of the trailing group sailed past to finish between two and nine seconds ahead of me.
It was in the last mile head down trying to catch those four that I noticed the red on my legs and realized in a moment of clarity that I hadn't put any suntan cream on them. I have tan lines of fire - more sting.
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