Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Sunday September 8, 2024, 4:07am
I've been torn out of a deep sleep by what sounds like a giant bear ripping my Tahoe Cabin apart plank by plank. There's pounding and grunting and it takes me a couple of minutes to remember I'm in an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, and all the racket is coming from the soon-to-be-crowned USA Cycling National Gravel Champion. I now recognize these sounds. They tell me that I need to get up.
I wander into the kitchen, drawn by the delightful smells of fresh blueberry pancakes. Brennan is scurrying about. He's not only pinned his number on, pulled on his skinsuit, prepared his bottles and ice packs and loaded his Mosaic in the rental SUV, but he's prepared a ginormous pile of cakes.
"Sorry," he grunts at me. "Those are mine; I left you some batter."
No food for Jim is a theme in our relationship. Meal time comes with a side of one of the following three phrases: Are you done with that?, Do you think you want to eat any more of that?, and, I think we should order/get/prepare a little more.
I vividly remember one of the first times we went out to breakfast. Flush with pre-food glee, I foolishly declared that I would buy breakfast. Brennan didn’t think this was a great idea.
We sat down at a little breakfast spot, again in the middle of nowhere, and I ordered a whole mess of eggs and cakes. Then Brennan proceeded to read the entire menu to the waitress. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.
By some unknown scientific phenomenon, he consumed every morsel and even grabbed a pastry on his way out the door. Ever since that day, I have never once questioned Brennan's ability to consume calories.
But I digress.
It's 5 am on race morning, a time which would normally find Brennan amped and stewing with enthusiasm. But this morning, his normal positive attitude has a slight dent in it. He's still recovering from a round of COVID; his shakeout ride did not bring much optimism, and up until maybe 72 hours before we got on our flight, we weren't even sure we were coming to this race.
He tells me to make sure I have my phone handy because if things go sideways, he's going to drop out of this 130-mile ripper. This is very unusual. Brennan is notoriously optimistic and never needs a pep talk on race day, so I'm worried.
Motivation aside, the course has Brennan’s name all over it: flat, windy, fast, and lacking any real climbs. The weather is similarly perfect this morning, with a bell-clear sky above and a warmth that leaves the puffy in the car. I gaze into the distance and reflect on Brennan's journey so far. He's learned so much about himself, his nutrition, his bike setup, and how to race gravel. It has been amazing to watch.
And I've also learned much about Brennan the man over the last year and a half. He grew up without a television, which means he misses almost all of my jokes involving cultural references. So, basically, all of my jokes. I have to explain to him anything related to television, movies, music or internet memes. What do two grown adults sharing a house in the middle of nowhere do if they can't talk about movies? Well, on this trip, I decided to make him watch television. So I turned on the giant television at our Airbnb and we sat down and watched both Jack Reacher movies and started to watch the television series.
"And that's Tom Cruise?," asked Brennan in all seriousness. "Yes," I replied, "Tom Cruise."
As one would imagine, Brennan took to Alan Ritchson playing the character much more than Tom Cruise. It seemed the giant actor resonated more with Brennan's actual life. Watching someone watching television with such fresh eyes was such a kick. I'm not sure I did the world a service by introducing this form of "entertainment" into his life, but I would like to think somewhere deep in Brennan's psyche, the Jack Reacher character had something to do with what was to play out on race day. Probably not, but one can dream.
Back at the start line, most of the hitters are riding mountain bike tires with the knobs shaved down, but Brennan is running his Rene Herse slicks and a giant pie plate of a chainring. I didn't check everyone's bikes, but I'm sure he's the only rider at the Elite start line running a titanium frame.
The race rolls out right on time, and I have to say that USA Cycling runs an impressive event—plenty of support vehicles, great communication and everything according to schedule. We find the group about mile 32, and there are six riders off the front in a break, Brennan and two other riders in a chase a couple of minutes back, and then the giant bunch not far behind them.
We find them again near mile 60, and the break is smaller but still up the road. I get a little panicked because I don't see Brennan. Usually, he would be with the front three or four wheels, but then I spot him. He's sitting near the back, tucked in as snug as a bug in a rug. One of the only riders behind him is last year's winner, Keegan Swenson, who is also enjoying the draft of the big group.
We blow past the big paved climb and out to mile marker 90(ish) and there is still one rider off the front with the final selection in the pocket. The lead group is now down to about a dozen riders and I spot Brennan sitting 7th wheel. We make brief eye contact and I get the distinct feeling he’s miserable. He told me later that it took everything he had not to pull over and get in the van with us.
We put downtown Gering in the GPS and head for the finish.
Brennan and I had done recon the last couple of days, and he had shown me where last year's early crash had happened, where Keegan had attacked in the final kilometers to go away solo for victory and how he had duked it out in the sprint with Alexy Vermeulen for third.
Brennan doesn't leave much to chance. He studies the course and the weather. He pre-rides as much of each course as possible. His ability to remember turns, climbs, and finishes is uncanny. I sometimes wonder if all this leads to overthinking, overanalyzing, and over-preparing.
If you’ve been following along with Brennan’s racing career, you’ll know that Brennan has won, or almost won, a whole bunch of gravel races, big and small. However, as strange as it sounds, I’ve never been at a race where he crossed the line first. He calls me his bad luck charm. And at 12:19 pm on September 08, 2024, knowing what I know about his less-than-stellar last four weeks, I'm positive that will not change today.
The announcer tells the waiting crowd Keegan has taken a flyer in the same spot as last year and dropped the rest of the group. It's over. So predictable. So annoying. Then the announcer pipes up that the group has fended off the attack, but two riders have been distanced. There's going to be a bunch sprint. But is Brennan there, or did he get dropped? Now there's one off the front. The announcer has no idea who, but he shouts that there is one rider rounding the last corner alone. What the hell, who is it? The rider emerges, but it's all backlit and far away. I'm trying to figure out who it is while trying to remember how to operate my camera. It looks like a giant dude dressed in purple. It can't be. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Could it be? Wait. Focus the damn camera. It might be. Holy shit. It's Big Brennan Wertz.
He'd gotten gapped in the final wash coming into town, sure he'd missed his opportunity to contest the sprint. But the group was attacking each other and then sitting up. Attacking and sitting up. So he waited until they were looking at each other, whipped up the watts and went flying past them like a freight train with his giant gear and slick tires and they never knew what hit them.
As he rails the final corner coming into town he takes a peak over his shoulder. It worked. He sits up in celebration. The look of pure joy is almost too much for me to take. He's the 2024 Gravel National Champion. He's first across the line. He's done it.
And in that briefest of moments, when he sticks his big ol' blueberry pancake hoggin' finger out at me, it all makes sense. It’s all been worth it. This is what he has been chasing. This is why he spent all those hours training, plotting, planning, traveling, and fretting. This is what it is all about. In this fraction of a second all the what ifs, might have beens and almosts are left in the dirt behind his blazing wheels. He won.
I cried.
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