Justin's story: The Gonzo Graveler

BaseCamp athlete Justin Hersom shared his experience at the 2026 Gonzo Graveler bike race in Texas.

It started with my preparation on Friday, and my major change for this race was to add race-specific gravel tires. I got one out of two seated, luckily, I was able to run into my LBS (Trek Bikes - Bee Caves, TX), and they were able to seat the second tire. Thanks, Trek Bikes, for the help.

Leading up to the race, the weather forecast called for rain until Friday, the chance of rain decreased and was calling for .05" of rain (hence my moving from knobby to race-specific gravel tires. I signed up for the 49-mile course, I planned on using this as another training race, my focus continues to be ensuring I eat and drink enough, pacing, and practicing gravel specific skills. I had a poor night sleep, sometimes prior to a race I get excited, and I think I got a little too worried about falling asleep that I created insomnia…

Neutral rollout for the first couple of miles, towards the end of it I looked and realized that the route never loaded to my computer, I stopped to pull out my phone, and it took a couple attempts ( I had already done this prior to the race but there was an error that flashed up on the computer screen that I didn't catch). I got my route loaded and started to race. For the first half of the race, I was pacing well, I noted my tiredness but ignored it and raced on. Around the halfway mark, my body had other ideas, the fatigue had built, luckily, I rolled up to another BaseCamper who also was a bit tired, we rode together the rest of the day, pacing each other, and just visiting. It wasn't the race I wanted, but it was fun, and I met my fueling strategy and skill practice (no crashes in the past 3 races). Next year I plan on riding the entire series too see how I can perform. This race I came in 35th.