This won’t be your typical summery Solstice race summary—because this year (spoiler alert), I only made it 10 miles into my favorite 100-mile race. This Solstice 100 was, by all accounts I heard, another gem of a Joe Billesbach dry course—with lots of minimum maintenance roads, plenty of pit-stop options, and an ADHD-friendly absence of … More Solstice 2024: The Way Things Unused to Be
This year’s Solstice 100 had no business hurting like it did. Still, I spent the last third of my seventh Solstice 100 in a bonked bewilderment. And I couldn’t tell you why. Was I falling sick? Did the squishy roads zap more energy than I realized? Did I foul up my food? My pacing? My … More Solstice 100: Your Lucky Bad Day
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
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
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.
(Photo, Hoffman Photography) Joe Billesbach’s Solstice 100 debuted in 2017. And in a single year, it’s made the leap from a nice local gravel event into an essential “This Is What We Do” expression of Nebraska’s cycling community. Most of us are already painfully aware of the bullshit that made this expression of community so … More Love Sloshes at the Solstice 100, 2018
I didn’t write after Dirty Kanza because, well, I didn’t want to linger there. My race started great. My legs felt strong. For 90 minutes, the bike did just what I told. And then it didn’t. In a single downstroke on dry roads, my derailleur jumped ship and buried its humiliated head in my spokes. … More Hats Off to Mr. Chainsaw Man (and other observations from the first-ever Solstice 100)
Dirt Tan Bike Club 