My memory of that Saturday evening last year is pretty sketchy. But within an hour or so of finishing Gravel Worlds’ inaugural Long Voyage 300, I’m pretty sure I promised my daughter we’d tackle the 50k Buccaneer together in 2022. Sydney liked that idea. So did my wife. And you bet your butt I accepted … More Gravel Worlds Grows a New Mindset
There are two things I’ll go to hell for in a bike race: A good friend, and a good story. At the 2022 Pine Island Gravel Odyssey, I got to go to hell for both. Marty and I drove to Spearfish, S.D., to climb Pine Island’s tallest tree: the 210-mile Lodgepole Voyage (formerly known as … More The Pointy End at Spearfish
My oldest daughter let me know she wouldn’t be at the start of the Pirate Cycling League’s first Long Voyage 300. (She had cross country practice after school.) But she said she knew what she’d be missing. “That’s a lot of mental illness in one place,” she said. I refused to agree with her, but … More Long Voyage 300: At Least We’re Highly Functional
The drive to the fifth running of the Solstice 100 looked far different from the first. Back in 2017, just a few motley cars made the hop mostly unnoticed from Lincoln to nearby Pleasant Dale. We parked in the shade outside Big V’s Bar and Grill. By 2021, the start line had marched south to … More Solstice 100: Chart Your Course
I sat down in the dust with a kingsnake and hit my low point in June 2019. At least, it’s what passed for a low point then. Heat dazed, I’d just watched a racer flop his right turn on V Avenue some four miles east of Council Grove, Kan. He dashed his head against the … More Unbound Gravel and the Same Old Serpent
A professional mentor of mine said every article he ever wrote started with the same sentence: I just learned the damnedest thing. The late Brian Doyle never published that sentence. I don’t figure he even bothered to write it out most times he started a story. But for him, just thinking it, just stepping his … More Solstice 2020: The Damnedest Thing
Of course it would be 2020—gravel racing’s lost year—that the Lincoln Abes would find a racer like Clark Jackson. “You gotta meet him,” Mike told me. “He’s young—only started riding this year. But he’s all in. And he’s good.” Mike put his friend on a trainer and watched him tap out watts normal cyclists spend … More A Race of Mistaken Identity
I’d been looking forward to Iowa City Gravel all fall. After a summer of race meltdowns, I was ready for a chilly October race in new country. Then Jason at Method went and inflated my excitement north of 120 psi. He had a demo bike fit for a tall guy, and he wondered what I … More Gravel Confidence: Combine comfort and speed racing Donnelly’s new G//C.
“What’s It Worth to You?” (WIWY) is a question just about every bike racer asks just about every race. For me, the WIWYs typically come about two-thirds in, when the pain turns stale and stuff gets weird. I want to show you a little of the weird that uncurled for me from last weekend’s 10th … More Gravel Worlds 2019: What’s It Worth to You?
To appreciate how much this year’s Solstice 100 meant to me, it helps to understand first how my 2019 Dirty Kanza came to matter so little. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted that DK finish something fierce. But May had unfolded for me in such a way as to make bike racing feel a little … More The Solstice 100: Riding through life’s longest days.
Dirt Tan Bike Club 