Gravel

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

On Monday June 7th my buddy Dan and I drove over to Cle Elum to preview the new GRiT L course.  The GRiT is a new three course event (GRiT, GRiT L, and GRiT XL) scheduled for July 10, 2022. Dan and I decided to ride the forty-seven-mile GRiT L.  Forty-seven miles might not sound […]

Route Beta: This is a mountain biker’s gravel course: significant climbing on minimally maintained roads.  I suggest 1.9” or wider tires (basically mountain bike tires) and gearing as low as you can go (mountain bike gearing).  The Yeti is old skool with a triple in the front.  I spent a lot of time in the […]