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It's a Kross Esker 4.0. Yes, it has a steel frame, yes it's heavy. It's my first gravel bike and I like it. Since March I've driven on it around 1700km. Maybe in October / November I will find some time to make it to 2000km in a year. It's not much, but still it's double what I rode last year, so there's an improvement.
This year I took part in 2 bike races. In early April on distance of 80km and in mid August on distance of 150km. Both with my fren Krop. In highsight, During both we could've done so much better.
First race was... sketchy. Neither of us was really prepared for this distance. Still waking up from winter slumber, god awful nutrition plan and general "it can't go wrong" attitude. Thing that wrecked us the most was general muscule pain. Neck, shoulders, lower back, wrists. I'm sure it was avoidable, but we spent whole winter playing vidya and in march it felt like we're starting from scratch. I'm glad that we finished it. First participation trophy on my shelf and a lot of experience about nutrition and pacing. In short. We wrongly spaced out nutrition and ended up with a situation where we ate our second energy bar few minutes before arriving at the nutrition point. We went with nutrition at 20-40-42km, it should've been something more like 14-28-42km. It's not like we got to this nutrition point fresh. I was right after "hitting a wall", so I just ended up munching bananas and drinking as much isotonic drink as I could get away with. During second half we slowed down because neck pain became a serious issue. We kinda forgot about the race and just casually drove back. Without hurrying, with breaks to stretch our necks. It reflected in our finish position. Not last, but in last 10 from around 150-180 participants.
Second race was a 150 km gravel race. we decided to ride it mostly solo. Plan for me was to start later and catch up to Krop down the road. I started 25 minutes later and my math said that I will catch up to him around 50-60km mark. From there we will just chill and drive to the finish. I caught up to him at 110km mark, only because he waited for me at the nutrition point. I seriously overestimated my pace and... my knee started to hurt 40 minutes in. 40 MINUTES INTO 150KM RACE !? That felt amazing. I had only one painkiller with me. I decided to ride along and see. I kept in mind that there's a store around 75km mark, a potential pit stop for me. I made it to the shop after 4 hours. Bought even more painkillers and continued on my way. I lowkey wanted to ride for long alone, IG I got what I asked for. I finished the race with a time of 9:11 (hehe) which was good enough for 228/380 place. Not a spectacular performance, but again, a lot of knowledge and experience. I don't want to daydream a lot about my result. If my knee didn't hurt I would just catch up to Krop sooner and finish 15 minutes earlier (that's how long he waited for me). That would put me on 209/380 place. Still not in top 200, so I don't mind. I knew that my left knee is my weak point, but I didn't expect for it to give up so early. More about it, in my failed goal...
As a prep for that august gravel race i thought I will try to finish a 200km route on tarmac. I failed to finish it, but I learned a lot. I made it halfway when my left knee began to hurt. I drove for 2 more hours, just to see what will happen. As expected, it only got stronger. Since it was just a leizure sunday ride, I decided to spare myself and I went home by train. When I got home I wasn't tired. My neck and back were fine, only that left knee was killing me. Pain stopped next day and tbh I felt like I could attempt it again, but it was monday... Maybe next year I will manage it. Or I will up the stakes and try to ride 250km in one day. Will let you know.
Yeeee, of course I want some.
There are some that are a must and some that are a want
Must list is quite short: Tires. There's not much tread left, that's it. I'm thinking about going for some 36mm wide Tufo. Most likely their thundero tire. I'm mostly driving on tarmac, so I don't need tires with a big, brick like tread.
Now to the want list:
TPU inner tubes, front crank, narrower handlebars, new brake lines
Why ? Mostly because weight reduction and better gearing. I don't plan on increasing my mileage in forests, so narrower tires are a nobrainer. I'm not running out of gears yet, but my current crank is known for having plenty of resistance, and in general being meh. I'm not sure which one yet. I need to read into different options and see what speeds I can achieve. I'm leaning towards a crank with a lighter low gear, so it's easier on steep climbs and I can just pedal my way through sand / mud. For sure it will be something from shimano. Either Tiagra (to make my bike 100% tiagra) or GRX 600 for that sweet 30 tooth low gear. Pic below with the difference. Look at lower speeds. Lower the speed, the easier it is for me to ride in sand and ride uphill.
