There’s a point in every race when everything goes to hell—that bloody moment when the reaper comes a callin’ and the wheat gets flung from the chaff. The two-mile stretch of mud bog outside of Emporia, Kansas, was that moment during last weekend’s Dirty Kanza race.
“Saturday was pretty...bad. The mud was as thick as peanut butter,” recalls Yuri Hauswald, who rode the race for his third time. “As soon as we hit it, people went down everywhere like bowling pins. Bikes plugged up and wouldn’t roll. I saw a couple derailleurs get ripped right off of bikes. The only thing you could do was pick up your bike and run along the edge of the road…your feet just turned into these giant, mud snowshoe things. It was ridiculous. The field just shattered right there.”
To add insult to injury, this all went down a mere eight miles into the race. There were still another 192 miles of mud, swollen creek crossings, flat tires, and pain in store for the brave souls who managed to finish what has been declared the toughest running yet of one of cycling’s toughest races, the Dirty Kanza 200.
THE DIRT ON THE DIRTY
Now in its tenth year of existence, the Dirty Kanza is the mother of all gravel grinders—the race that birthed so many others and, without a doubt, still reigns as the most brutal member of the family. The starter’s pistol fires off at six o’clock in the morning—not because the race organizers are keen for competitors to savor a glorious Kansas sunrise, but because the fastest of the fast will still need more than half a day to haul their carcasses across the 200 miles of dirt-and-rock roads outside the farming town of Emporia. And what happens to the not-so-fast? The stragglers from this year’s race limped across the finish line a full 20 hours after their early-morning start.
The locals love the Dirty Kanza—they come out in droves on their quads and pick-up trucks to cheer on the Lycra-clad riders—but the bulk of the race is spent hunkering alone in a pain cave. Some years, the course bakes riders under an unforgiving sun. Other years, it dumps a blanket of wet and cold on the competitors. Somehow, there always seems to be a headwind, no matter the direction you’re pedaling.
This year’s edition, however, is being billed as the toughest yet…the dirtiest of the Dirty Kanzas. In the weeks leading up to race day, this corner of Kansas was pounded by storms. Race day dawned clear and cool, but the “roads” were still a snarl of mud, ruts, and swollen creek crossings that could easily qualify as “river crossings." Mother Nature had twisted the knob on the pain meter to eleven.
[caption id="attachment_92560" align="alignnone" width="625"] Most of the race is spent alone, hunkered in your personal pain cave.[/caption]
MASOCHISTS UNITED
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Dirty Kanza is that the event remains so popular despite the suffering it exacts. No fewer than 950 racers toed the starting line this year. Online registration maxed out within a day and a half of going live. Some people—a lot of people—have a thing for pain.
Yuri Hauswald is one of those; in fact, he’s a pro when it comes to muscling through pain on the bike. A longtime professional racer who excels at endurance events, Hauswald is also the marketing guy for GU Energy Labs’ cycling products. Despite working a 9-to-5 job, the 44-year-old Hauswald still manages to log insane miles. Part of his training in the weeks leading up to this year’s Kanza? Riding the entire Tour of California course. Hauswald is as hard as nails. But being tough is no guarantee of victory here.
“This was my third time doing the Dirty Kanza and I felt like I could podium,” says Hauswald. “But I definitely wasn’t the fastest or strongest guy out there. A lot of guys I look up to, super strong guys like Barry Wicks and Brian Jensen, last year’s winner, they pulled the plug mid race. It was just a death march out there.”
[caption id="attachment_92561" align="alignnone" width="625"] Hauswald at the finish line. "I left everything out there on the prairie."[/caption]
DIGGING DEEP
The most surprising thing about this year’s race was how it ended—with a neck-and-neck, sprint finish down the final stretch. Thirteen-hour races are simply not supposed to be won by less than a second, yet Hauswald prevailed by that slimmest of margins.
“Man, I would never have predicted anything like that. Ever. No way,” says Hauswald, still stunned and exhausted, days later, from the effort.
No one, frankly, expected a finish like this. At mile 150, Hauswald was an all-but-unbridgeable 22 minutes behind Michael Sencenbaugh, who’d been crushing the field at the front from the get go.
“I realized I was in second place and I was really happy about that—now I just wanted to cement that. I’ve started power training this season, so I’m getting a better handle on how hard I can go without absolutely blowing up. I just kept the needle there and tried to peel away the miles,” said Hauswald.
Just two miles from the finish line, Hauswald spied a rider in the distance. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Hauswald. “There he was.”
What was he thinking at that moment?
“I was thinking,” says Hauswald, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. A sprint? It’s going to come down to a sprint? Oh, this is really, really going to hurt.’"
The Dirty Kanza’s final miles proved a battle, with both riders jockeying for position, testing one another in a last-minute attempt to gauge just how much gas his rival still had left in the tank.
Hauswald tried to drop Sencenbaugh several times, but the rider who’d lead the pack for so long kept reeling him back in.
“I’m not a sprinter,” says Hauswald. “That’s just not my thing, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance, so I just gave it all I had….I left everything out there on the prairie.”
Hauswald’s gambit worked. After 200 miles, 13 hours, 1 minute and 17 seconds, the 2015 Dirty Kanza 200 was won by a mere bike’s length.
What kept Hauswald going all that time? How do you grind your way through something that painful when others are dropping like flies around you?
“I guess that’s my personality. When I’m on the bike, you’d have to kill me to stop me. I’ve always been that kind of guy and I’ve been training hard for this. So there’s that… But there’s also my wife, who battled stage-four colon cancer four years ago. She surprised me and flew out to watch me race. I was riding partially for her. I mean, how can I quit when she endured so much? That motivates me. I also watched my father, who was this really strong and vibrant man, pass away ten years ago from cancer…I watched him wither away... I guess was riding for a lot of things and a lot of people. This race is hard, it’s definitely the pinnacle of my race career so far, but life can be harder. In a way, you’re trying to honor that out there on the bike.”
Photos by Eric Benjamin/Adventure Monkey