April Fools Metric Century Gravelfest!

Want to ride a metric century gravel grinder that takes in two states? Then the "Fool's Ride" is right up your alley. Taking place near Yankton, South Dakota, the route will cross over the border and should be about "90% gravel with some grass thrown in for good measure."

For more on this March 31st ride, see here.

Frostbike 2012 Report

Another year, another Frostbike! Only this year, it wasn't so frosty, as in wintery weather, but actually, it did frost rather heavily on Sunday......but I digress.

Point is, this year up in "Min-no snow-ta" the gravel aficionado would have seen quite a bit to get excited about. Let's dig in...

Meet the "Macho Man"

 All City Bikes "Macho Man"

All City Bikes unveiled a new model again this year at Frostbike. This time it was essentially a geared Nature Boy, but the name it was christened with was "Macho Man" in keeping with the Pro Wrestling theme. 

The Macho Man gets similar geometry and tire clearances that the Nature Boy has, and even the paint looks somewhat the same, with the lemony-greenish hue not far off the Nature Boy's greenish-yellow color.


The Space Horse, shown last year at Interbike, will finally become available this March, so look for those to be hitting the gravel scene near you soon.

The first Space Horse selections will be in completes and frames should follow soon after. While not specifically a gravel bike, this one of All City's choices seems best suited to all around gravel pursuits. The Macho Man and Nature Boy, while capable, don't have the bigger tire clearances, or braze ons like the Space Horse does.

Tasty Gravel Tires!

Clement Tires: If you are into vintage road bike stuff, or have a long reaching memory, you most likely have heard of Clement Tires. Well, they are wanting to make an impact on the gravel road racing and riding scene.

The tire on the right here is the LAS Clincher. (All new Clement tires use airport codes for model names, by the way.) This tire was found to be fast on gravel, but a tad fragile, so Clement has introduced two newer models. The center tire is the USH Clincher which has a bit more robust casing and tread. Right now this one will be coming in a 35mm width. The far left tire is so new, this is the very first time it was shown. The X'plor MSO Clincher will debut in a full, 50mm casing width. The USH and MSO will eventually both be offered in a couple more widths. Gravel Grinder News hopes to get some of these for testing and review soon. Stay tuned!

That's a wrap on Frostbike 2012. Stay tuned to Gravel Grinder News for more racing, riding, and gear related news.

Red River Riot News

The Red River Riot marches on towards its April 7th date with a few sponsors lined up, event permits done, and other details.

Routes are 120 miles and 60 miles for this Texan challenge. Check out their web site here for more on the event.

San Ysidro Dirty Century.

The San Ysidro Dirty Century is set to begin in March on the 24th. A pre-ride of the course is also being offered which will happen this weekend on the 25th of February. Check out their site for details here.

Gravel Grinder Spring Classic

Register HERE

Vermont will see the fifth running of the Gravel Grinder Spring Classic on April 22nd of this year. This is put on by Bike29 and by all accounts is a pretty fun event.

Here is a little description from the Bike 29 blog about the course;

"New folks will want to know that you can expect be on your bike between 1.5-4 hours depending on how quick/fit you are. Or 2-5 depending on the course I set. A lot of that has to do with the weather and snowmelt, but at this rate, adventure is a word you should be prepared to deal with. The course has traditionally been around 30 miles with 3000ft of elevation gain."

So there you go- adventure! I like adventure. If you do to, click on the link under the image and go register now. 

Gravel Grinder Gear: Retroshift

Retroshift levers/mounts

There is a new way to set up your gravel grinder for shifting duty now. It comes via the cyclo-cross realm and is an adaptation of bar end/down tube shifters to the brake lever.

Called Retroshift, the mounts come installed on their own brake levers, (a Tektro model brought back to life for this project), and you provide your own levers, (must be Shimano or friction shifters. No mounts for SRAM or Campy at the moment), which you mount to the levers.

Gravel Grinder News will be reporting on these since I feel the shifters may be an advantage in gritty, wetter rides, and will save the expensive STI levers for the cleaner road riding, which they were intended for.

Stay tuned as I begin to ride these. For now, you can read about the installation and first impressions on Retroshift lever/mounts here.

Freeze/Thaw Gravel Grinding Video

Hey folks! Something a little different than the same ol' race announcement posts we get here. (Not that those are a bad thing!)

This comes to us from the intrepid gravel aficionados who ride in Southeastern Michigan. Have a look and crank up the sound for a good ol' country tune about gravel travel!

 

Rampart Rumble Gravel Grovel (R2G2) Announced!

The Colorado Endurance Series is kicking out some cool sounding gravel grinders this year. Here we get word of another coming on September 22nd, 2012. It is dubbed the Rampart Rumble Gravel Grovel, or R2G2 for short.

This will be a 170m route with 12K of climbing and all self supported in remote areas. Bring your "A Game" to this one if you should decide to go. Oh yeah.....and bring good lights too, because some of this one will be at night. See all the details and follow along for more news at their site here.

Chucky's Challenge Postponed!

Just received word today that Chucky's Challenge, originally scheduled for tomorrow, February 4th, has been postponed due to poor weather conditions. Here is the word I got:

"(Due to) the 1.5 inches of rain we are getting today into tomorrow and 18 mph winds from the east, we are postponing Chucky's Challenge to next Saturday-Feb. 11th."


So there ya have it. The ride is now on February 11th!