Over the past three weeks I’ve struggled a bit with this Unbound XL goal. I know that rando folks ride more than twice this distance in a single sitting and then get up the next day and go to work, but for me, at this stage in my life, three hundred and fifty miles on […]
Author: MikeMcGuffin
Stressing Over the Numbers

Back in the day I taught class on expedition mountaineering. I emphasized that extended trips into remote mountain ranges are as much (if not more so) mental as they are physical and technical. I stressed the need to find “some kind of peace.” If you’re continually fighting your gear, the weather, the mountain, your partners […]
93 Miles 1 Gear

UnBound XL T Minus 166 Days Whether it’s doing the Festive 500 in under 40 hours or riding 160 miles to visit every Taco Time in Western Washington, I think it’s important to keep cycling interesting by dreaming up and doing challenging stuff. It was in this spirit – doing pointless challenging stuff – that […]
Unbound XL T-170 Days
Be careful what you wish for seems to be a common refrain in my adult life. A month or so ago I put my name into the lottery for the Unbound XL, a 350-mile gravel bike race that loops through the remote Flint Hills of central Kansas. Well I got in. The first question I […]
Lyngen Alps Norway – Sjufellet (1086m)

3/31/24 Well it had taken me three days of constant travel but I’d made it – the Lyngen Alps of Northern Norway. It was Easter Sunday and I was 69 degrees north of the equator – nearly 500 km above the arctic circle – and Heikki, Mika, Kari, Aaro and I were about to go […]
The Rift Race

I realized recently that I’d forgotten to post a recap of my trip to Iceland to participate in the Rift Gravel Race. First of all a bit of gratitude; I’m grateful to have the fitness, the finances and the time required to pull off a 200K bike race across the lava fields of Iceland. So […]
Stagecoach 400

This story begins with a noisy bike chain. I was doing some winter riding down and around Palm Springs when my chain started a creaking. A stop in at the local bike shop resulted, as it often does, in a discussion with the local cycling guru who mentioned the Stagecoach 400. A minimal amount of […]
Unbound 2023

Oh goodness where to begin the story of Unbound. I’ve been trying to gain entry into Unbound before it was Unbound: back in the Dirty Kanza days. Well 2023 was my lucky year, and way back in January I was notified that I had indeed been given entry into the event. Be careful what you […]
Keep on Keeping On – SIR 400K

Currently I’m like the dog who caught the car. I signed up for Mid South, Unbound, Rift and SBT GRVL, and guess what: I got into ‘em all. That’s six hundred miles of gravel racing. The Mid South is already water under the bridge, and suffice it to say I didn’t finish as well as […]
Palm Desert-Joshua Tree-Salvation Mountain-Salton Sea Bikepacking

Monday Dec 19th 2022 Palm Desert to Cottonwood Springs Campground Joshua Tree National Park After eating all the breakfast food that we could find at Lori’s house we finalized our packing and were posing for a departure shot at 10:30. This felt a bit late to be starting a bicycling adventure, but we only had […]