tag
I think we can all say that we might as well cancel all bike racing in 2020. People need to STAY HOME, wear masks when they leave their house, and ride in small groups until this pandemic subsides. Remember, bike racing during a pandemic is not socially conscious. Check out the press-release on why Grinduro California is postponed until September 18, 2021. Bike racing can wait…
Matt and Brad have been riding together for years, on increasingly difficult rides and races. This is unexpected for Matt, as he was told “no bikes for the rest of your life” by his doctor after an injury, only to take on Ireland’s Transatlantic Way, a 2500k route along the west coast of Ireland years later… Matt and Brad finished in 7 days, 15hours, and 43 minutes, finishing first place out of seven teams!
Thereabouts – Gus and Lachlan Morton – recently interviewed Sarah Swallow, one of the founding members of the WTF Bikexplorers and organizer of the Ruta del Jefe in Arizona, about life and the pursuit of all things rad. Check it out here and head to Thereabouts for their excellent write up about Sarah!
As the only media outlet to cover every single Grinduro California race, I’d say it’s safe to say we’re the official Grinduro coverage website! The proof is in the pudding. With that said, we’re stoked to announce that the 2020 registration for the Mt. Shasta event on September 12th is open tonight at 7pm PDT, with 210 registration spots saved for FTW (femme, trans, women) riders. We can’t wait to provide our exceptional coverage this year, yet again! Especially with this recent announcement. Read the entire press release below…
This news comes as a huge bummer but I guess it’s expected at this point. Read the Sierra Buttes‘ press release below…
Check out the full-length video from today’s Reportage here.
A film by Ryan Le Garrec Produced by Ryan Le Garrec and Lander Deldime. Made with the support of The Race Around Rwanda, Visit Rwanda, and Hunt Bike Wheels.
On February 2020, 65 people lined up at the starting line of what was to become an extraordinary adventure, a challenge through thunderstorms, muddy roads, and never-ending hills, rewarded with stunning views, thousands of cheers and everlasting memories. Each and every participant of this 1.000 km bikepacking race has an amazing story to tell, Tugende shows you some of these stories, from the very first person over the finish line, to the last one to reach Kigali.
I arrived in Rwanda on the 26th of January and was greeted by a spooky line of doctors and nurses wearing masks, they were filtering us before border control, asking us to remain about two meters away from them while they would conduct a short interview.
The world was barely aware of the virus outbreak at that time, Corona was still a light Mexican beer, flying was no biggie and I was just happy I had managed to sneak in business class and have two dinners, champagne, and a screen to watch films.
My only concern was finding the next race I could cover. I hadn’t started enjoying that one and I was already thinking of the void after it.
The Reverse Side of the Road is a Russian gravel race, put on by Alekxandr Bochkov and as you can tell by this video, looks quite adventurous!
Tugende is a film about the race around Rwanda, made by Ryan Le Garrec, produced by Ryan Le Garrec and Lander Deldime. Check back here on the 22nd of April for the full feature and photos.
To begin, it is important to say that I am not a doctor, a data analyst, or an economist. Am I an expert regarding the growing pandemic that is becoming one of the defining events of our lives? No, I am not. I am a bike mechanic who likes to take photos. There are smarter people out there who could (or should) be writing about this, but as it is, you have me. And I find it extremely difficult—even inappropriate—to talk about this year’s Mid South without acknowledging the massive elephant in the room. For some of you, these images or just the thought of a large group gathering may be upsetting. You would be right to feel that way, and I get it. If this were any other year, it would have been a widely celebrated event, filled with love and excitement from the greater cycling community. In a lot of ways, it still was. But given that upside-down is the new normal, here we are.
Join Ally Mabry, bikepacker extraordinaire, for an AMA on Adventure Cycling’s Instagram Stories.
All you’ve gotta do to join in on the fun is send a DM to Adventure Cycling with your questions to their Instagram, then join Ally Friday, April 10, 1 pm Mountain time.
About Ally:
Since 2014, Ally has slowly worked her way through the many disciplines cycling has to offer: commuter, social cruiser, weekend roadie, road racer, bikepacker, mountain biker, cyclocross racer, ultra-endurance gravel racer, community organizer, print media professional, and beyond.
Some of her favorite bike experiences have included riding the Baja Divide as part of the 2017 grand depart; riding the Oregon Outback twice on two different bikes; riding and then racing the first Arkansas High Country Race (and winning!); leading weekly “Intro to Bikecamping” overnights in Austin; co-founding Pedal Missoula, a “bike fun” advocacy org; racing Dirty Kanza 200; and joining her sister, a first-timer, on Adventure Cycling’s Puerto Rico tour in December.
“Bikes became many things for me: an athletic outlet, a form of meditation, a way to combat heartbreak, my primary mode of transportation, an opportunity to see the world, and entry into a multi-dimensional community.”
Take happy hour early, head on over to Instagram Friday afternoon, and ask Ally all your questions about routes, gear, community organizing, racing silly long distances, and more.
It has been a little more than 2 weeks since the start of The Atlas Mountain Race.
The proverbial dust has begun to settle and my friend Stefan Haehnel’s 35mm exposures have been developed.
The idea for a WTF Bikexplorers Gravel Program sprouted in 2019 as I spun back into the gravel race scene. I saw the same deficit in diversity that bike-touring had (and still has) when five friends and I decided to organize the first WTF Bikexplorers Summit in 2018. Despite gravel racing as a rapidly growing sport within cycling, it is still very grassroots. It is not controlled by the UCI – yet – or any other sanctioning bodies and therefore it has the opportunity to mold and change to be the way we want it to be.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese jaguar, harsh and exciting
Over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.
-(modified) Mary Oliver “Wild Geese”
The weather matched the event in challenging the assumptions of what a desert landscape or a gravel race should be for most of the riders of the Ruta Del Jefe this year which was hosted at the Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch in Elgin, AZ. The imagination of a desert as a dry and sunny landscape dotted with saguaros, prickly pears, and cholla was expanded for those who held that thinking. Home to the Madrean Sky Islands ecoregion that includes the Santa Ritas, Whetstone, and many other mountain ranges, this area is a treasure trove for those who eat gravel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sky Islands refers to the unique interplay between the low lying desert grasslands and the dramatic wooded mountains that become islands in the sky for their residents. Natt Dodge introduced this concept as “mountain island in a desert sea” back in 1948 which was then cemented by Weldon Heald’s book Sky Island in 1967. In the lowlands, this area is home to many unique varieties of grasses who abundantly glow their sunshine and straw colors to her visitors.
For the latest webisode, Bikes with Cheech and Nam take it to southern Arizona for the Ruta Del Jefe! Check out our coverage from the event later this week!
Before I go into the story of Single Speed Arizona 2020, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nate. I’m from Tucson, Arizona and I own a bike shop called Blue Dog Bicycles. I eat, sleep, breathe, shit, and fart mountain biking. I’ve been making unique and challenging routes around Southern Arizona for 11 years and heading out with my friends to try to push ourselves. I host 10-15 bike events a year around Southern Arizona. Everything from taco scavenger hunts to 400-mile gravel epics. Bicycling and the Southern Arizona cycling community are almost all that I care about at this moment in my life.
Antonin Michaud-Soret’s film ‘Onboard the Transcontinental Race’ is now available for VOD purchase via Vimeo. This video looks at the beauty and the struggle of one of the hardest ultra-endurance races, the TCR.
“To ride the TCR is to explore who you become at the side of a road in the Alps or the Balkans, low on sleep, lucidity, hygiene and any notion of comfort: in the saddle, rolling over rough tarmac sixteen or eighteen hours a day; finding what exists beyond fatigue and exhaustion.”
Can you beat the excitement of a muddy and fast ‘cross race? In this episode of Wahoo Disciplines, we follow Tom Pidcock and the Trinity Racing Team at the British National Cyclocross Championships. This will be a three-episode series with a final long-form film at the end…