Sarah Sturm returned to Oregon for a bit of redemption last week. She earned it in style.
The 31-year-old professional cyclist from Durango crashed and had to withdraw from the 2019 Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder but knew she wanted to go back. When it was time to return for the 2021 edition, she was ready to complete five days of racing.
Through a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, Sturm would beat the 100 degree temperatures and the 45-rider field to win two stages and the overall women’s title.
“I’ve been looking forward to this event since I crashed out of it a couple of years ago,” Sturm said. “It’s probably one of the hardest events nobody is talking about, to be honest. Five days of racing, 350 miles and 30,000 feet of climbing pretty much all on wagon roads, and it is pretty gnarly.”
Sturm said she thrived in the environment after driving her new mini bus along with her mother, Margie Weinstein. The atmosphere was loose and fun without the hardcore seriousness of other big gravel events such as UNBOUND Gravel in Kansas.
“This event kept the spirits in the right place, what I would call a traveling circus where we camped in a different place every night and had long, difficult days on the bike every day,” she said.
Sturm’s five-day total time was 20 hours, 38 minutes, 18 seconds. That had her 5:09 in front of Serena Gordon of Bend, Oregon. Flávia Oliveira, a 2016 Olympian from Brazil, was third, 19:57 behind Sturm.
The men’s championship went to former pro road racer turned gravel star Peter Stetina, who had a finishing time of 17:15:22 to beat pro road racer Edward Anderson by 12:03. Canadian mountain biker Geoff Kabush was third, 22:31 behind Stetina.
After winning the second and third stages, Sturm was in good standing going into the final day. But she knew it was going to take work to hold onto her overall lead. Sturm was able to finish second on the final stage only 23 seconds behind Gordon to keep her lead.
“Going into the fifth stage, I knew it was another real climby, long day. And it was the hottest day,” Sturm said. “I was feeling pretty fatigued. I had put in a big effort on Stage 4 and was pretty much alone most of the time. Not getting any drafting, I knew I would be tired and that (Gordon) would want to try to make that five minutes up. I knew if I played it safe and smart sitting on her wheel, I didn’t think she could get five minutes on me. If there had been more descending, I would have been a bit more nervous.”
Sturm admitted sitting back and staying patient isn’t her favorite thing to do in a bike race. But she knew most of the work had already been done to get the overall win.
She had finished third on the opening stage, 10:40 behind Gordon, who won in 4:15:41. But Sturm made up time on Stage 2 when she won in 2:49:43, which was 7:35 ahead of Hilary Haskett and Oliveria, while Gordon was 9:54 back.
Sturm took the overall lead when she won Stage 3, 56 seconds in front of Gordon with a winning time of 2:51:01.
The big effort on the fourth day paid off when Sturm was second to Oliveria on the longest day of the race. Oliveria won in 6:11:00, and Sturm was only 44 seconds behind her to extend her advantage on Gordon to more than five minutes.
“I went into the race feeling pretty good coming off a second place at the Iron Horse to Erin Huck,” Sturm said, referencing her second-place finish five seconds behind Huck in the road race at the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic in May. Huck was named to the USA Cycling team for mountain biking at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday. “That had been a good test of my climbing legs, and I knew I had better power this year from the flat road race I did in Fruita.”
Sturm rode a custom painted Specialized gravel bike for the event, a bike she had never ridden before the race started. She knew she wanted to hammer away on the climbs to be able to hang on during long, narrow gravel descents.
“Sustained descending is not something we get to practice in Colorado a ton,” she said. “I wasn’t surprised to win because I knew I was on good form, but there was so much talent in this women’s race with Becca Fahringer, who won this race last time and was second at cyclo-cross nationals a couple years ago. Flavia was coming off Kanza, and luckily she wasn’t really in the (general classification) contention, but her and Serena were close enough where I knew they wanted to hammer all the way through the final day. It made me change tactics a bit, and sitting in and being patient is not what I’m good at.”
Sturm now will look ahead to The Rift, a 125-mile off-road race across lava fields through the highlands of Iceland. That race is July 24. Then, she will return to Colorado for the Telluride 100 to prepare for the Leadville 100 and SBT GRVL on Aug. 14 and 15, respectively.
Sturm was second at Leadville in 2019 behind only Rose Grant. A week later, she was third in the inaugural SBT GRVL race in Steamboat Springs. This year, those events fall on back-to-back days for a grueling challenge for those who choose to accept.
“When I come back to the U.S., I am going to suffer instantly to put my climbing legs back on at Telluride,” Sturm said. “I am excited for Leadville. I don’t know if I will go hard tail or full suspension there this year, but I am going to go with a dropper post this time. I didn’t have it last time, and I feel like I lost some time on the descents. I know Katerina Nash is going to be there, so there is going to be some fast competition and I’ll need all the time I can get.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
