Gravel Race: Vermont’s Rasputitsa Celebrates Cycling, Community, Charity … And Mud – Cyclocross Magazine

Northeast Vermont is a lovely place. Northeast Vermont in late April is a lovely, often muddy place.

When friends Heidi Myers and Anthony Moccia decided to start a gravel race in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in 2014, they knew exactly where the inspiration for the name would come from.

“Rasputitsa is Russian for ‘mud season,’” Myers said. “It was a time that was talked about a lot during World War II. When they were trying to move tanks and stuff on the battlefields.”

The 2019 edition of Rasputitsa lived up to its name. 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race, Vermont. © Nolan Myers

During its now six-year run, Rasputitsa the gravel race has lived up to its Russian name, with mud, snow and cold rain often being as much a part of the event as the festive after-party.

This year? It was no different.

“Officially, it was in the upper 30s, low 40s,” Myers said. “There was hail at the start. There was snow on the course. There was a downpour of rain. Pretty much all the shit you could possibly imagine. We don’t have a rain day. You get what you get.”

That Russia circa the 1940s carried through in how Myers described the conditions last Saturday. “If you were at the race this past weekend, the course pretty much felt like a battlefield. We probably had a little under 200 racers who did not finish, and we were picking them up at feed zones. They were cold and hypothermic. We had eight vehicles on course just picking up riders.”

The Three Cs

So, a mud march, possibly cold, possibly wet, probably both in late April sounds like a blast, doesn’t it?

Conditions aside—or perhaps because of the conditions—Rasputitsa and the team behind it are doing something right. The race started with a hair over 300 participants 6 years ago, and this year, registrations topped out at over 1,500.

As of mid-week, 600 people were already signed up for next year, even after, as we will see, a particularly brutal edition of the Vermont race.

Since its inception, Moccia and Myers have been guided by three principles they call the 3Cs: Cycling, Community and Charity.

Cycling is the easiest, and we will get to that in a bit.

Community is something you have to work to build. The sense of community that gravel fosters is an essential part of the discipline’s meteoric growth, but as we saw with another successful grassroots race in the Land Run 100, building and maintaining the sense of community takes a concerted effort.

In the case of Rasputitsa, it starts with the two founders and an impressive commitment to the race participants.

“Honestly, we have made a really big effort to know our racers by name,” Myers said. “I know this sounds ludicrous, but I’d say we can walk up to about half the people who attend and say ‘Hey Jen.’ We get to know them and get to know what they have going on in their lives.”

Another big part of growing the Rasputitsa community has been in encouraging the participation of women. If you scroll through the results of any of the gravel races we have covered, women’s participation is usually maybe 10-15% of the total number of participants.

Rasputitsa started that way but has grown since. “Over the past 6 years, we’ve grown our Women’s field from 10 percent to 21 percent this year. That we’ve done through pure encouragement,” Myers said.

Part of that encouragement is a non-race event called Bittersweet. “We run this little women’s event called Bittersweet, which combines pros and amateurs in a non-competitive way,” Myers described.

“Sometimes we make the pros do things out of their comfort levels. Like we have a Bittersweet event where there was skiing. You might be a professional cyclist, but you’ve never done Nordic skiing. We try to put everyone on the same level to make it encouraging. Those women’s events, it’s no rider left behind, and there’s a focus other than racing.”

Encouraging women’s participation is an essential part of Rasputitsa. 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race, Vermont. © Nolan Myers

Then there is charity. All of the money raised by Rasputitsa goes toward giving young women more opportunities to ride bikes via the Little Bellas organization.

Last year, the race donated $19,000 to Little Bellas. This year, organizers are hoping to do $21,000, in part via a raffle that is still open for entry.

A Northeast Kingdom Challenge

This year, Rasputitsa drew over 1,500 avid gravel enthusiasts as well as an impressive cast of professional racers from across the disciplines. One of those professionals summed up her experience rather succinctly.

“Lea Davison came across the finish line and was like, ‘That was the second hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The only thing harder was La Ruta [in Costa Rica],’” Myers recounted.

At first glance, Davison’s feelings might be a bit unexpected. Rasputitsa checked in at only 41 miles this year, which is quite a bit shorter than the usual 100 km or 100 miles we see as a starting distance for challenging events.

However, those 41 miles included 4,900 feet of climbing and roads that were at times impassible by bike. With temperatures staying in the 30s with rain and sleet coming down, Rasputitsa’s 41 miles were more than challenging enough.

“The challenge is the road conditions,” Myers said. “The washboard back roads are exhausting on your upper body this time of year. Mentally, just having to deal with the weather, I saw people out there who just broke down mentally.”

The conditions can be quite rough as Rasputitsa. 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race, Vermont. © Nolan Myers

The seasonal carnage is particularly focused in one section of road aptly named Cyberia. Myers described that particular corner of gravel cycling hell:

“Those roads are not maintained at all. They’re not plowed, they don’t lay sand, they’re not salted. They are unmaintained roads. There is extensive snow cover in there. If you look at the pictures, you can see people literally walking their bikes through. They’re unrideable.”

Cyberia was again unrideable in spots this year. 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race, Vermont. © Nolan Myers

Although we recently saw neutral support at a gravel race, gravel is by and large for those are self-supported and not faint at heart. Getting the right gear, being prepared and persevering are all part of the experience. Snow? Sleet? Hail? It’s all in the game.

The way Rasputitsa team sees it, all of that is part of the fun. Type 2 fun, probably, but still fun.

“A lot of calls cannot be made until the last minute,” Myers explained. “That adds fun and is a popular topic of conversation up until race day. What are people riding for tires? What bike choice? Am I going to bring my fat bike? Should I bring my cyclocross bike?”

If you are still not sold on traveling to northeast Vermont for a 40-mile gravel race, the event does come with a money back guarantee. Not hard enough for you? Rasputitsa will return your entry fee.

Thus far, everyone has gone home happy. “I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘Oh, I wish it was harder,’” Myers demurred.

“I wish it was harder” is not something you hear at Rasputitsa. 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race, Vermont. © Nolan Myers

The 2019 Race

With its location in New England, Rasputitsa is within driving distance for the talented roster of racers based in the region. Not surprisingly, it brings out some big names from across cyclocross, mountain biking, road and gravel. There were national champions of all levels from the U.S. and Canada, and, this year, even a world champion.

The week before the race, word dropped that Lars Boom would be racing Rasputitsa as his first-ever gravel race. Boom approached the organizers, and together, they worked out a way to get the 2008 cyclocross world champion to the start line.

However, before Boom came, Rasputitsa called some friends.

“We’re always a bit leery of having pros come because of the community feel, but we’re good friends with Tim Johnson and Jeremy Powers. We reached out to them and asked, ‘What do you think about this Lars Boom character?’ and they were like, ‘He’s a class act.’ And he truly truly was,” Myers said.

Lars Boom was a special guest at this year’s race. 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race, Vermont. © Nolan Myers

While Boom chipped in his rainbow-clad stature, other pros chipped in in other ways. Like many gravel races, Rasputitsa does not offer prize money—that goes to the Little Bellas—so Maghalie Rochette offered up her woodworking skills and built trophies for the top three women and men’s finishers.

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About a month ago, I got a pretty cool opportunity. I was given « carte blanche » to create trophies for a cycling event. It was a chance to mix two of my passions; woodworking and cycling! I decided to create a wall-mounted beer opener in the shape of Vermont (home state of the event). I thought Everyone loves a cold beer after a big ride on dirt roads, right?! 🍻 • I had a blast creating these, and now I can’t wait to race the @rasputitsagravel event for myself, and hand deliver these trophies to the winners of the event! Thanks for the opportunity @rasputitsagravel and see you guys in Vermont at the end of the month 🤘🏼😎

The other thing on the line? Bragging rights. Alison Tetrick and Kevin Bouchard-Hall returned to defend their respective titles. Plenty of champions, including Boom, Rochette and many others, were ready to knock them off.

The Women’s win went to one of the youngest riders in the field in Canada’s Magdeleine Vallieres. Rochette finished second and Tetrick third. Tyler Cohen and Ellen Tarquinio rounded out the wide-angle podium.

For the Men, Raphel Auclair made it a Quebec sweep. Magnus Sheffield finished second and Bruno Langlois third, with Marc-Andre Fortier and Bouchard-Hall rounding out the wide-angle podium.

Top 100 results for the Women and Men’s races are below.

Women Top 100: 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race

Men Top 100: 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race