At the beginning of the tour this year I had the honor of hosting the first of our Facebook livestreams out to our ACE participants as well as potential riders! We wanted to connect with people at home. It was really fun!
Here they are for posterity. Each are about a half hour long:
In August I flew out to Colorado for Steamboat Gravel (STBT GRVL) and it was amazing! Eli Campbell handle all the logistics for the California Coast Classic ride in recent years and his company does logistics for other rides too. STBT GRVL is another one of his events. Back in December 2021 Eli invited Darren and I to come and sign up with an “early-bird” code. Darren is another rider who has done the California Coast Classic many times. Actually, he’s done all of them!
STBT GRVL is famous for its 140 mile “black” gravel course with over 10,000 feet of elevation gain… at elevation! When I signed up I wasn’t confident I could pull that off. There were 3 routes to choose from so I took the middle lane and opted for 100 miles on the “blue” route. I’ve done 100 mile rides before, but never that far on gravel, and never that far at elevation where the air is thinner. I learned back in June when I was in Idaho that riding uphill is much more challenging when your body isn’t getting the same amount of oxygen it’s used to.
Gravel courses are basically the kinds of dirt backroads that you might take out car camping with Cub Scouts. These roads don’t require 4x4 vehicles, but they will certainly get your minivan dirty. Gravel bikes are basically overbuilt road bikes specifically designed for these kinds of terrain. They can handle quite a lot of different types of off-road adventuring.
I was really worried I wasn’t going to be able to finish this ride. Steamboat Springs is at elevation of 6700 feet and off-road riding is so much more demanding than road riding. Originally I was going to bring my gravel bike out, but between packing it up to be safe on an airplane and the logistics of getting that to and from my lodgings I thought it would be significantly easier to just rent a bike out there. I’m so glad I did. That was certainly the best way to go.
I got in on Thursday which gave me a couple of days to get acclimated and settled before the big ride on Sunday. Eli invited Darren and I to come hang out with him at a dinner that SRAM was hosting. It was our main opportunity to spend any time with Eli. He gets super busy at these events being pulled in all directions. We had a great time! I don’t get to see these guys too often so I appreciate every chance I get. We got to try out some demo bikes at one of the booths.
First thing Friday morning I walked a few miles into town to pick up my rental bike and spent the early afternoon tinkering with the setup, making small adjustments to the fit, and playing with the arrangement of the tools and water bottles. To test everything out I rode into town to the exhibition area where a bunch of vendors had their wares set up amid the excitement of the weekend’s race. I met up with Darren and his wife Mary to tour the displays and grab some dinner, then called it a night.
Saturday morning saw a number of training rides hosted by a bunch of different groups, and Darren found a 20 miler that looked reasonable. He invited me along, which presented a great opportunity to put the rental rig to the test and check my set-up. I’m very glad I did because on a rather rough descent my lower water bottle shot out of it’s cage. I don’t usually carry a third water bottle on the outside of the downtube, but I learned why they are frequently strapped on! Fortunately this ride was short enough to where I didn’t need a third bottle, but now I know that if I want that third bottle it needs to be tied down. Good to know!
Sunday morning. Race day! I made it to the event on time, but was delayed to due an emergency bathroom incident. Nothing like nerves to get your system fired up in the morning! The rest of the blue course participants had already left by the time I was ready. I lined up with the red group (the shortest ~60 mile route). I was told to just mention that I was with the blue group and that I would be free to go, but the closer I got to the front of the group the thicker the crowd became. I figured we would leave soon and that a half hour wouldn’t be the difference between me finishing and not finishing, so I just waited with the red riders. Maybe if I thought I had a chance of winning this thing I would have done it differently, but given the situation…
As a fun bonus, Valterri Bottas (the famous Formula One driver) was on this ride and leading this group of red riders out, so I got to be in his group! I don’t know much about F1 other than people are very passionate about it. That should make for a fun story later right?
What follows is 100 miles, over 70 of which are off-road, with approx 6,000 feet of climbing at elevation ranging from 6500-8000 feet above sea level. By the numbers, this is the most difficult day of cycling I’ve ever had. But it was absolutely beautiful!
I was able to keep a pretty steady pace and caught up with the back of the main group of blue course riders by the time the day was done. Around 2:00 I was a few miles from the rest stop at mile 70 and the dark clouds rolled in. It poured rain for about a half hour. Most of that I was fortunately at the rest stop for and under some cover, but we were all soaked. But having reached mile 70 by 2:30 I knew I would be able to finish with plenty of time until they closed the course at sunset. I checked in with Darren through Mary and found that he was still a ways out from finishing, so I rolled out of the mile 70 rest stop setting my legs to “economy” mode. Time to preserve whatever I have left.
I crossed the finish line after 9 hours, 45 minutes. Victorious! I was really concerned I wasn’t going to be able to finish this thing, but I did it! When the going gets tough, you gotta just keep pedaling. One more adventure in the name of the Arthritis Foundation in the books!
In June I tried bikepacking for the first time. What an adventure!
I’ve known Ryan since high school and he’s the one that really got me into cycling to begin with. He moved out to Idaho a few years ago, so I don’t get to see him much. He loves bikepacking and has tried to get me to do it for a while now. Bikepacking is pretty much what it sounds like: backpacking on a bike! Instead of strapping your sleeping back, tent, food, etc to a pack on your back, you figure out ways to strap it to your bike. You ride out, hopefully with a specific campsite in mind, maybe take the long way out to it, camp that night, then keep going the next day. It takes the term “self-supported riding” to a whole new level!
Ryan runs a bike shop in Idaho Falls, so we can usually make arrangements to find something that will fit me when I’m out there. This time it was a fat bike. “Fat bikes” have huge, 5 or 6 inch diameter tires that absorb the bumps in the trail where shock absorbers might serve on a mountain bike. I’ve never ridden a fat bike before, but they’re very common in the midwest because they’re great for riding in snow. Those giant tires provide a ton of grip and traction. They also work well bikepacking because one main objective is keeping things simple. Big tires are easier to maintain and fix out in the middle of nowhere than sophisticated modern suspension.
Ryan and I met up with two of his friends, Joe and Stephen, on a Saturday after the shop closed and headed out to the trail. We started in Kelly Canyon and rode out to Moody Creek, taking as many single track offshoot trails as we could on the way out. The fat bike was a kick! Modern mountain bike suspension absorbs and dampens bumps. The big tires of a fat bike absorb a little, but mostly bounce. I felt like I was riding two big bouncing balls down all of the trails! It was really fun.
I wore a helmet but felt like an outlier. I was riding a new bike, plus it was a fat bike which I’ve never ridden, plus it was under load that I’m not used to… I’m pretty convinced I’m going to crash pretty spectacularly at least once on this ride. Turns out I didn’t!
I wasn’t the first up the climbs (these guys were really strong!) but they eventually decided that I should go first on the downhills. At the bottom of one decent one of them told me he’d never seen anyone “shred on a fat bike like that”. Awesome! I will certainly take that compliment!
I’ll certainly have to do this again someday soon!
