The following is the unsolicited opinion piece you never knew you needed.
I’ve read various things, both positive and negative, in the past few weeks about gravel riding, gravel racing and gravel bikes [Gravel™]. Because I am a negative person, I tend to dwell on the negative comments rather than the positive. Guitar Ted writes that some folks feel that gravel racing has gotten “too big.” Yeah, a fringe race genre within a fringe sport, that 98% of America hates or doesn’t even know IS a sport has gotten too big. That’s like saying Fugazi got “too big.” For fuck’s sake people!
To my knowledge no one has ever put a gun to anyone’s head to do a gravel road race or any bike race. Of course I can’t rule out that some crazy ass Italian put a gun to someone’s head back in the early days of the Giro, or that more than a couple Keirin racers haven’t had a guns pointed at them by nut jobs with gambling arrears so as to produce desired results. But I digress…
The “marketing” of gravel is also something that gets some grouchy people’s panties in a bunch. This is something that I totally get. And by “totally get,” I mean that I understand BOTH sides on this one. I get that bike manufacturers want to make money; hell, they NEED to make money or there are no bikes, no bike shops or snarky commenters to tell you how last year riding gravel is. I get that when a company’s marketing research team says that more and more folks are opting to venture off of pavement and onto gravel roads, and that they put time and effort into building bikes that make that style of riding more pleasurable for the rider. But I also get that long time gravel riders or those who have worked hard to produce gravel races–both free and paid–feel that something they love has been soiled; sort of like the first time you heard that Jesus and Mary Chain song used in a commercial for Bud Ice.
People have been riding on dirt and gravel roads since the dawn of the bicycle itself, mainly because there weren’t any paved roads. Even now that paved roads have become the norm, roadies in Colorado continue to ride 23c tires over unpaved mountain passes when they run out of pavement, Californians have been riding endless miles of fire roads since the first Californian rode a bike, and even back in Pennsylvania (my former home for 40 of my nearly 44 years) we had miles and miles of gravel roads in the mountains known as “forest roads” to Pennsylvanians.
Anyone that followed The Soiled Chamois v.1 (’05 to ’12, AKA “the years of actually racing”) in the past, surely saw my love of connecting forest roads, two-track and snowmobile trails in the mountains. I didn’t think of it as “gravel” riding at the time, but more as just shit roads in the mountains to explore on my bike… my mountain bike.
Riding gravel (forest roads) circa 2010.
Hell, the first versions of the now legendary Wilderness 101 in central Pennsylvania were done nearly ALL on forest roads, two-track and some pavement. The winner of the very first 101 reportedly won it on a Bridgestone mountain bike with aero bars and 1.5″ tires. Could the 101 have been one of the first modern-day “gravel” races in the country without even knowing it? Did it know it, but did’t have savvy, industry marketing guys to pimp it like some modern-day races? Could they not get the Jesus and Mary Chain to play at the after race kegger? I guess we’ll never really know.
In subsequent years, the Wilderness 101 added more and more rocky, technical, rattlesnake laced singletrack, making it anything but a gravel road race now, but much of the race’s origins–like it or not–still lies within gravel road racing, it just didn’t know that’s what it was.
I’ve done my share of gravel road races in recent years: the Barry Roubaix, The Lowell 50 and what I think is the ultimate in dirt road, gravel road, crap road goodness: The Hilly Billy Roubaix in West Virginia. No, they weren’t the all day endurance races like the Almanzo or Dirty Kanza, and they sure as hell weren’t the mega gravel race knowing as Trans Iowa, but they were gravel races nonetheless.
I didn’t do those races because gravel racing was the “next big thing” in bike racing, I did them because they looked fun and fit with my want to ride crap roads on my mountain (or cross) bike in a slightly less dangerous way than Endurance and XC racing. Not that gravel racing is easy, but since I’ve suffered from multiple blood clots in recent years and I’m on a daily dose of anticoagulants, (probably for life) I find that a gravel race is better suited for someone like myself who’s not looking to enter a downhill rock garden on singletrack with twenty other racers looking for the proper line and dreams of 11th place Expert Vet glory.
The great thing about these races is that they don’t require mad technical skills or that you memorize what surely must be a thousand plus page bible of roadie bylaws and unspoken “rules.” The vibe is usually more laid back like a mountain bike race, and for many the goal is to go from start to finish and see if they can beat their buddy. Race it on your hardtail mountain bike, your cross bike or your fat bike: no one cares.
But enough about racing, racing is awesome, but you don’t have to do it, hell, I haven’t done it in over a year and hardly miss it at all. No one is making, or can make you race if you don’t want to. So I’m gonna close this part of the post now and move on to Michigan.
Michigan (or midwestern state of your choice)
As many of you know, I moved to central Michigan in 2010 when my wife got a new job that required us to relocate. I was NOT happy about the move but soon found myself in love with once again living in a small town with access to miles and miles of low traffic pavement and yes, gravel roads. Or as I should say–dirt roads, for no one that I have ever come across here in Michigan has referred to our unpaved roads as “gravel roads,” even when many of them are gravel. To almost all Michiganders, a gravel road is a dirt road and we have plenty of them here!
Pretty, isn’t it? (not really)
Like so many other midwestern cyclists (or just a person riding a bike in the midwest), no one thinks too much about riding on dirt (or gravel) roads. For so many of us, it’s just the road we’re riding on. I love to ride on the dirt roads because it’s easier than driving to a mountain bike trailhead to escape, it’s extremely peaceful and there is WAY less traffic. In fact, during my last dirt road ride I think I rode a stretch of ten or more miles without coming in contact with a single vehicle. Fewer vehicles means there is way less chance of being smashed by a texting goof, run off the road, or having a recently drained bottle of Popov thrown at me.
Michiganderburgh’s vodka of choice.
In my nearly five years here in Michigan I have ridden dirt roads on my mountain bike, my cross bike and my fat bike. If you want to ride it on a “gravel” bike, go ahead, I’m sure it will rock. I mostly use my Trek Boone 5 Disc cross bike for my dirt road/gravel riding. Oddly enough, that bike is marketed to cross racers, yet I find it absolutely perfect for my style of multi-surface: I like to ride fast, or at least as fast a twenty pounds overweight former, crap amateur endurance mountain bike racer can, and get as many miles in my legs as quickly as possible. Having said that I also do plenty of dirt roads rides on my Farley fat bike and my hardtail mountain bike. All bikes not “marketed” for grave road riding but used plenty by me.
The Boone taking a rest posing for some film photos.
That’s not to say that I have the problem with “gravel” bikes; I don’t. There are many, MANY lust worthy rigs out there. The funny thing is, when a customer comes in the shop I work, if they say that they want to do gravel road races or ride dirt roads fast, we of course point them towards a cross bike or “gravel” bike. But so many of our customers just happen to live on a dirt roads. They don’t want to race, out sprint their buddies on a group ride or any such thing, they just want a bike that can handle the dirt roads, get them into town or to the local rail trail. For that we just guide them to some of the more than capable bikes that we have in stock that are often hundreds or thousands of dollars less. Bikes that aren’t “gravel bikes,” but bikes you can ride on gravel/dirt.
In fact, I recently sold a Trek hardtail 29er mountain bike to a young farmer that was looking to ride the dirt roads with his lady friend and occasionally ride the two-track that criss crosses his nearly 5,000 acres of farm land when he wants to check on the crops. It wasn’t a top of the line 29er by any means but it was a quality bike and I think it will serve his needs well. Now I am thinking: are farm bikes going to be the next big thing? I anxiously await to see my name in the next issue of BRAIN. I won’t hold my breath, but if it happens, you read it here first!! Farm Bikes©
Even my fatty likes the gravel on occasion.
In closing
I gotta say, I lost track of what any of this was even supposed to mean. If you read this far, you have my sympathy. I guess I just find it funny that some people don’t like the idea of paid gravel races, some think the free ones are too big and some think that a few events should be rerouted when there is bad weather (it’s a gravel road not a IMBA manicured trail, unless the road is flooded, sack it up). Some hate the idea of companies making money off of Gravel™ and some think they deserve credit for starting it. Like I said earlier, gravel riding and racing is a niche category in an already niche sport (by American standards), why do people bitch, moan and complain about something that at the end of the day has people riding and racing bikes? Isn’t that the whole freaking point?
Just ride. Ride pavement, dirt roads, gravel roads, fire roads, forest roads, farm roads, lime stone trails, and singletrack. Ride it all and do it on whatever bike you believe will be the most comfortable and efficient for the task at hand. And if you find that you want to see if you can go faster than the next person, start racing… or don’t. Just don’t be a dick and go ride your bike.