The Traka 560: Where to Even Begin?

Was that all a fever dream?

I just finished the Traka 560, and there is a LOT to unpack. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I feel like I say that about every long (10+ hour) race, but I think there’s a reason for that: no matter what happens or how your day(s) go, you’ll make lasting memories that shorter races just cannot provide. The 560 was classed as the “Traka Adventure,” and it lived up to that name and then some.

I’m going to do something a bit different and split my recaps into two or three pieces. I want to start with a general reflection, more to get the many thoughts I have down on paper than for anything else. I’ll also do a full recap of how the race played out, my setup, and what I would change in my approach. I might even do a power analysis. It’s not very remarkable, but I think that’s what also makes these long races so unique. Anyway, enjoy!

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It’s 3:30 PM on Wednesday in Girona, and I stand in a line of eclectic individuals waiting to get their race numbers for the inaugural* Traka 560 (last year’s was canceled due to weather). People are friendly. There’s none of the intensity of the shorter elite races, but every bit as much of the riding chops. I feel wholly inadequate. Every person here is a seasoned veteran of the ultra scene: Badlands, Atlas Mountain Race, and races I have not even heard of. This, for some, will be a walk in the park, it seems. The pointy end of the race is not short of hitters, either. In my race, I’m facing Badlands winners Seb Breuer and Alex Martinez, Atlas Mountain race winner Alex McCormack, and former WorldTour pros Laurens Ten Dam, David Millar, and Juan Antonia Flecha, to name a few. It’s the who’s who of ultra. When I reach the front, I open my bag to find a small number sticker inside with a nondescript timing chip. This isn’t your ordinary race. Around me, bikes lean against the temporary race corral fencing, each displaying the personality and intent of its rider. Some are almost impossible to differentiate from a normal bike you might take on a 100-mile race, and others are loaded to the gills as if for a 6-day bike packing adventure.

At 5:15 the following morning, I roll into the race venue, a bit in a rush until I remember that this is not a 100-mile event where starting position is everything. Sure, we are greeted by singletrack immediately, but 560 km and 10,000 meters of climbing stand between us and the finish.

Harsh floodlights illuminate the area around a tent where a barista makes coffee for the riders. The Bostonian in me is pleased to see SRAM-branded Dunkin Donuts laid out for riders to take. The cold and my nerves combine to send chills through my body, but chatting with the riders around me calms me. An affable Canadian I meet turns out to be writer and photographer Jeff Bartlett. In the ultra space, it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 114,000 Instagram followers: Jeff is just like any other friendly rider.

We set off, and reality sets in. What lies ahead is known yet unknowable. I scoured the course map and profile and marked out the best places to stop for water and food, yet over the next 25-30 hours, I cannot begin to imagine what I will experience.

We start our climb into the Pyrenees, and I have to pinch myself. This is a race, but at least for the time being, it’s at a pace that allows for enjoying the views and the company. I soak this in knowing that the grinding down process has begun. Slowly, this pace will eat deep into me and turn into a relentless death march. It’s funny how physiology does that. One moment, you can feel like something is so easy, and ten hours later, the same pace feels unbearable as your battery runs down.

We climb up over pass after pass and descend through picturesque Pyrenean towns with a stone architecture style so far removed from that of Girona, it feels like a different world. Up high, small refuge huts dot the treeless landscape, while down below, untouched forests carpet the undulating topography.

In the Garroxta province, we wind our way through endless stretches of road with no other signs of human existence. It feels a bit like Appalachia. Sporadic small towns welcome us in with open arms. In Albanyà, I see another racer’s bike leaning against a café entry: a friend. I stop and grab snacks for the road: Oreos and Haribo. Unlike the Unbound XL gas stations, there is no shoving. It’s fitting: the pace of life in Spain, especially up in these mountain hamlets, is much slower than in the US, and this rubs off on the racers.

Village after village, the fairytale slowly darkens. The effort begins to hit me. Out of the Pyrenees we ride, and I can see the coast growing closer as the sun dips below the horizon. Reality hits.

The gentle glow of lights off the white stucco homes of the coastal towns makes my Pyrenean jaunt feel like a lifetime ago. We dip in and out of towns, passing by curious onlookers in bars and open-air restaurants along the piers. During the first 200 miles, I’ve developed a keen set of eyes and wolf-like nose for water and food to fuel my mission. There are telltale signs. The centers of town are the best places to start. I see a few benches. That’s a good place to look for a fountain. I see tables outside. Must be a café. I look at my Hammerhead for the most sought-after symbols on the map: little taps and cups of coffee.

Each town feels like an oasis, yet I feel like an alien, an outcast. People go about their business, strolling along the oceanfront as I ghost by, in a wholly separate universe, unable to comprehend the pleasure they are having on this Día del Trabajador, and for them, unable to understand why I am here and the toil I am in the midst of.

Those five tiny bumps on the course profile by the coast, which, in the Pyrenees, looked like an easy jaunt, quickly become steep, harsh reality checks. Rocky singletrack up and down on one leads me to plead with the course designer out loud. “Please, Gerard, ease up on us.” Face-to-face encounters with questioning cows remind me that it doesn’t take a human to know that what I am doing riding in the hills at 2 AM is not normal.

The self-talk only grows as we enter the plains. I cruise under a low blanket of fog. Sitting just above my helmet, this phenomenon is something I’ve never seen. Maybe that’s because it really is a dream.

The cold bites. It’s 50, a temperature that would feel warm during the day, but the seclusion of the nighttime and deep trauma my body is experiencing add to the chill. I add a layer: my last one. All I can think of is my warm bed. STOP, CHRIS. FOCUS.

One hundred miles to go, and it feels like the home stretch. I twist my way through the maze of farm roads and singletrack somewhere in the farming heartland of Catalunya. The turns, narrow roads, and trails are relentless. My mind, already weary from the effort, is ground down to mush by the level of focus required.

With 60 miles to go, I stop for a second and dip my head, resting it on my bars. I close my eyes, willing sleep to come to put me out of this misery. Five seconds of breathing, then I go again. Just when I think the last curveball has been thrown–the last narrow alley, set of stars, or rooty singletrack section, I find another challenge to check off the bingo card: a 1/2 mile long, gradually uphill sandpit. Honestly, it probably would not be rideable during the day when fresh, but deep in the night with a heavy bike after 20 hours of riding? I make a few half-hearted pedal strokes into the sand, then run the rest, falling deeper into despair as a bobbing headlight gets closer and closer. I feel a sense of impending doom, as if a line of riders is slowly catching me. My darkest moment has arrived. I’m torturously close to home, yet still several hours away. I can feel my sense of resolve slipping away.

I snap out of it. Sixty miles is a long way, but it’s also a long runway to make up ground.

Left, right, trails, dirt roads, potholes. I drag myself through to the foot of the last large climb. What felt like an endless, rock-strewn wall in last year’s 360km flies by. I guess that’s what perspective does for you.

I can feel a surge of energy as I begin to sniff the finish line. When I enter the final 10 miles, which overlap with the first few, the sun is rising, and I am flying. I desperately want to keep this spot, and more than anything else, I want nothing more than to be home.

A smile dawns uncrontrollably on my face as I climb the last few feet into the Parc de Les Ribes de Ter. Holy shit. I did it. I fucking did it. I don’t normally yell, but I can’t help myself. The place is empty, in the doldrums between the start of the 360km race and the gradual pickup at the expo leading into the 360km finish later that day. Like at last year’s Gravel Worlds, when I finished just after the start of the 150-mile race, there is no more fitting an end to an epic solo adventure. The co-race director is there to greet me, but for everyone else in town, I’ve just finished a normal morning spin.

I’m 5th. I’m sure of it.

“No. You’re 4th! Christina says to me,”

I’m shivering from the cold, nauseous, and lightheaded, yet I am over the moon. I just finished 4th at a gravel race in Europe against some of the best ultra riders in the world, but more importantly, I finished. I completed that ludicrous route. I did not quit when every bit of my body wanted me to.

This will never get old. 4th or 40th, finishing one of these races is an accomplishment for any rider. They are hard in a way that nothing else can compare to. They attack every mental and physical protective mechanism you have, and sometimes, they win. Today, I won that battle. I ride the 500 meters home to Joe’s apartment, desperate for a warm shower. I’m borderline hypothermic, I almost pass out two times, and I can barely walk.

I hate you, Ultra Racing, but I also love you. Nothing can come close to the emotion of finishing one of these races. Nothing can compare to how racing lets you experience a region in all its dazzling beauty and soul-crushing terrain. Nothing can replace the head full of memories these races plant in you.

I might feel physically empty, but that’s only temporary, and I’m fulfilled in every other way.