Swain, NY – The Chimps have declared gravel season open by bringing home a podium finish in the first race of the Durty Bikes Gravel series. The Ossian Giant returned as the opening race in the series for the 5th year running. Dave Tate and Jon Cyganik represented the team in the intermediate men’s category. Cyganik’s first gravel race, the two faced a large field with skilled competition and a challenging 44 mile course across backroads with a jagged, sawtooth gradient profile.
The course begins with a two mile slight uphill. With the headwind, we wanted to be near the front before the first steep climb because we anticipated the climb to cause a lot of splits.
David Tate
The high grade opening climb took its toll, fragmenting the field, causing Tate to drop from the lead group and and creating an early mechanical issue for Cyganik.
I think the tension on the gear cable changed a bit, my derailleur was making awful noises.
Jon Cyganik
Once the gradient eased up at the top of the first climb, Tate bridged back to the lead group to team up with Cyganik and work with a small group to attempt chasing down the leader. With about a 15 second gap, the chasers were in hot pursuit over the dusty back roads.
I found my second wind around mile 20. Our group was steadily losing people off the back until it was Jon and myself, and Jim Nicholson from Team 2 Cycling, chasing down Tom Garby from Mello Velo ahead of us.
David Tate
The chasers were making steady progress until even more mechanical misfortune struck the team as Tate suffered a drivetrain failure at mile 30.
There was a fast descent that was very bumpy and somehow my chain broke during it, some sort of failure with the quick link. Bad fortune for me but I’m pretty happy with my fitness and I believe I could have closed the gap to the top step.
David Tate
Now isolated, Cyganik continued for the last 15 miles himself, avoiding any more mechanicals, to secure 2nd place, and wondering what the podium may have looked like had it not been for Tate’s poor luck.
Had that not happened, we would have secured 2 spots on the podium. Honestly, Tate had better legs than I did at that point.
I felt like I was redlining for most of the race, but maybe that’s to be expected in gravel. The last couple of climbs felt like hell, but they made the reprieve of the 2 mile downhill finish so much sweeter. The peanut butter I won for 2nd place will remind me of the consistency of some of those forest roads!
Jon Cyganik
