GRASSHOPPER ADVENTURE SERIES HUFFMASTER
05.28.21 | Words by Andrew Jackson | Images by Dain Zaffke and Jeff Vander Stucken Photography
The Grasshopper Adventure Series Huffmaster was my first real bike race.
Normal fashion I had a ton going on. I’m working on a film project about the LA bikelife scene. My boy hit me up that he had a connect at the Nickerson Garden Projects. If you know LA, you don’t get to go there, forget bringing cameras. The problem was the only window was the night before the race which was a 7 hour drive from my house.
So I shot till 8pm, came home to say goodbye and put my son to bed, started driving at 11pm, pulled into a motel and slept a couple of hours from about 1:30am to 3:30am, then drove straight there and got to the start line with 45 mins to go sign up, drop off bottles, and try to load the course into my @wahoofitnessofficial Elemnt. Then straight to my first race in Pro men to ride 90 miles as hard as I could off 2 hours sleep and a gas station sandwich.
My plan was to learn. This is what I want to be doing. Through my other sports I know you don’t get better sitting at home practicing by yourself. Riding Pro was a stretch since long gravel races aren’t my usual target but if I’m racing I want to race against the best. I stuck to my plan. I stayed with the front group as long as I could to see how it worked. It was really cool watching how they’d use the wind and gravel sections to break up the race and how fast we were going. Then I backed it off so that I could actually finish.
Settled into a separate small group, we were working super well together (first time for me also, I was just copying what I learned watching the Tour de France on TV). Caught Dain Zaffke somewhere along the way and we worked together till about halfway when I started cramping and completely coming apart from no sleep or nutrition probably but I wouldn’t let myself think about that. Then Dain sacrificed himself for me and just let me sit on while he pedaled his ass off for the next 30-40 miles.
We finally got a technical gravel descent at around mile 80. I started feeling really good and was able to pass a bunch of people and ride hard all the way to the finish. I was even able to help Dain and Kathy Pruitt which I’m most proud of. Overall it was a really great day and I learned a ton. Mostly that my body could handle that haha.
