Dirt Tan Bike Club

In 10 years of racing gravel, I’ve never known where to fit Oklahoma.

The Mid South tempted me toward Stillwater each March, but I knew the horror stories. Red mud deep enough for every letter of murder. Chains chewed. Derailleurs gargled and spat. Some springs: hypothermia.

Couldn’t I just believe Oklahoma’s brutal history without sticking my head in its jaws?

Still. Those roads. That community. The hellfire energy running just beneath that Stillwater. They all pulled at me, and I didn’t know what to do.

Turns out, not knowing what to do with Oklahoma is one of the most American problems there is. Oklahoma’s entire history is full of deep ruts and violent contradictions.

A state the shape and attitude of a butcher knife doesn’t fit neatly in America’s silverware drawer. Oklahomans can’t even agree on where they fit. Is Oklahoma the South? The Southwest? The Midwest? Hell yes and hell no. All of it. And none of it at all.

Renaming this race the Mid South in 2019 was about owning Oklahoma’s weird place in the in-betweens. Reality here isn’t a black and white or trustworthy thing. It’s a rusty red smear over just about every straightforward answer. For instance: Do I have any business riding in Oklahoma? My Mid South registration wasn’t a clearcut “yes” so much as a muddy invitation to come figure it out for myself.

***

Marty and I drove south with our bikes on the back, and I kept thinking about my 1980s Husker childhood. I’ll just say: That kid did not like Oklahoma.

I don’t believe our childhoods die, exactly. But as the evil Sooner empire drew closer, I could feel the 7-year-old me turning in his grave—a Nerf football gripped high-and-tight against his little ribcage.

To that kid growing up in sunny Seward County 1984, the apocalypse fit in Oklahoma the same way candy canes fit at the North Pole. That’s just how God made my world. The miles ticked by and the ghost of that kid kept piping up from the backseat: Stop the car! You’re going to hell. You are literally going to hell.

So I didn’t expect what was waiting for me in that red-soiled hellscape: Namely, the warmest reception and kindest weather I’ve ever had the privilege to race a bike in.

We weren’t in Stillwater 15 minutes before we were bumping into friends and acquaintances from all over: Emporia, Fairbury, Lincoln, Omaha, Beatrice, Minneapolis. These friendly greetings would keep coming all weekend. But nothing rivaled the welcome we got from our hosts.

Marty and I were lucky to stay in Stillwater with the family of our teammate, Sam Kiddoo. Sam couldn’t come, but his dad and brother (Scott and Ean) were both racing. Scott and Michelle welcomed us to join them at their VRBO, along with Ean and their good friend, Brian Drahota, who was also racing, and his daughter, Whitney, who helped run support.

Oh my Lord, did they treat us well. Ean qualifies as an elite amateur in my book, and his family knows how to support him ahead of these big races. They make sure he can stay off his feet and sweat as few details as possible. Somehow, Scott and Michelle got in their heads that Marty and I deserved similar treatment. They cleared the owners’ suite and set us up in there so we’d have the biggest bed and a bathroom to ourselves. (Don’t tell anybody, but I’d have been happy to sleep in the hallway with my head on a rolled up dishtowel.)

Then they fed us as if we were the kings of health-conscious countries. Grilled salmon and more salmon marinated to perfect sweetness. Fresh salad, couscous, bread, penne pasta and marinara. I wish I’d have taken pictures of this meal, it was that good.

After that, it was off to the couch for the first half of the Nebraska-Indiana game (GBR). Then straight to bed, where sleep came easy.

Next morning, we parked near the start outside the local taekwondo gym.

And for a guy pushing 50 years old, I was feeling uniquely ready to rumble.

We soft pedaled toward the start, and I recognized as many folks as I might on a ride down my own street. I cannot tell you how many free calories each little shout out gives a guy. All right, Abes! And, Here we go, Lincoln!

Those little boosts protected me against what would’ve otherwise been an alarming sight. Down one street closed to traffic, we saw a long row of rear bike racks resting on their chins. I wish I’d counted, but there were enough of them to fill the parking spots for most of a block.

Marty and I realized what we were seeing: This was the prepositioning of assets for a mass rescue operation. If Oklahoma’s mud hit the fan, this was where teams of jeeps would come to rack up and fetch the DNFs hand over muddy fist.

“It’s a dry year,” Marty said. “These won’t be necessary. But jeez, can you imagine?” Truth is, I hardly could.

A lot of gravel races make it clear that if you need to pull out for whatever reason, you’re on your own for a ride back to town. But the Mid South is a different animal.

In a wet spring, much of the course would be utterly inaccessible to two-wheel-drive vehicles, and treacherous even for 4x4s with inexperienced drivers. Should riders begin tapping out, either because of breakdowns or an unwillingness to hike-a-bike for miles, stuck riders would quickly be joined by their stuck drivers. Roads would choke; problems would compound; and my 7-year-old ghost would be right. It’d be hell.

Instead: Professionals were standing by. And Marty and I entered the chute relieved to be part of a well-organized machine.

Then I shit you not, a full brass band fired up and marched straight through the chute, front to back. All 1,200 riders split a tuba’s width as King Cabbage shuffled past to reach a stage on our left. And those guys gave it a hefty blow.  

That King Cabbage mini-concert was Oklahoma itself: Southern as fried okra; Midwestern as three straight fullback dives; Southwestern as the blister on your heel. It was gravel as hell, and I wanted all of it with extra cornbread.

By the time Bobby Wintle got the mic, I was ready to chew the tape off my handlebars. As much as folks love Bobby’s white-hot enthusiasm, I respect him for the regard he shows Oklahoma’s history.

When a friend taught him a few years back about the Land Run—his race’s original namesake—and told him the real story beyond the yee-haw! pioneer myth our culture celebrates, Bobby had the guts to pump the brakes. He talked about his new understanding, then he renamed his race. Gosh, I respect that.

That’s why I weirdly expected Bobby to squeeze a history lesson into his pre-race pep talk. I wanted him, in those last 30 seconds before the gun, to somehow wipe away all of Oklahoma’s muddy ambiguity. Make it all clear to me. He didn’t do that. He didn’t talk about Oklahoma’s past at all. Instead, he urged us to spend the next hundred miles riding in the here and now—to race out there and take in the gift of the present.

The countdown counted clear down from there, and we tore out of town like kids after school.

My first line skirted the chute’s right edge, bringing me almost cheek to cheek with the party going on across the barrier—all cowbells and shouts. A woman I could not see screamed, “LINK UUUUUUUUN!”

A second later, I spotted Jason Strohbehn in full crouch, arms flexed. “GO GET IT, ABES!” I soaked up all the energy on offer—support I’d neither expected to find here nor done anything to deserve.

Up each climb, I repeated Bobby’s invitation to keep it in the here and now. Enjoy this part right here for the joyful part that it is.

Maybe that’s when it soaked in for me: That I didn’t need anybody’s OK to be happy riding in this complicated state. That honesty about the past doesn’t disqualify any of us from the joy we find in the present.

So much criticism of “woke” history comes from this wrongful sense that honesty about America’s messy past only “teaches kids to hate their country.” That’s bullshit. Nobody becomes a history teacher hoping to make kids feel shame or hate. They do it to protect and empower and embolden our kids with the truth.

Riding gravel puts us in that right relationship with the truth. It keeps us hungry for the whole story, in all its roughness. We learn to want the full course.

We can ride our bikes outside Stillwater, Oklahoma, fully awake to the fact that so many American trails of tears converge here. We can ride knowing that America’s story, in its every chapter and verse, carries the full run of human possibility—from the creative to the craven. We can cross this whole complicated country—ride even to the darkest markers of our history—and we will never find the spot where human kindness and resilience and mercy quit mattering.

That’s what riding gives us. It’s where we learn to marvel at the durability of joy.

***

Marty and I hit our halfway mark at the 50-mile checkpoint in Perry, and again found ourselves surrounded by amazing support.

Michelle and Whitney were ready for us there. They refilled our bottles. A white towel across my face came back an alarming orange. Michelle held open for me a bag full of gels I did not buy. The sentence I want to write next is: I helped myself. But let’s be honest. They helped myself.

And the Oklahoma question that had made me anxious all week—Do I even deserve to be here?—now just made me laugh. Because: How could anybody deserve this much?

There’s this macho idea that a gravel race gifts nothing to anyone—that you have to pedal every inch of it yourself. That you do it all on your own power. (See also: The pioneer myth. The rugged individualist. The American cowboy.)

I think that’s cute. In Perry, Oklahoma, I realized: This whole thing is a gift.

I reached in that bag Michelle held open for me and took a fistful of gels thinking: None of this is mine. Not even the meal in my belly is mine. It’s given. Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.

Go, Michelle told us.

What can you do with all that you’re given except say thank you, mean it, and pedal as hard as you can?

***