American Competitive Cycling's Future

 What Does It Take To Grow Talent In Cycling Racing And Who Really Cares?

I noted a post on Facebook recently bemoaning the status of American competitive cycling and the lack of "opportunity" for talent to be discovered. The thoughts given were that if more barriers to participation were lowered, the more chances we'd get to see an American compete on the worldwide stage. (UCI Pro road, MTB, or gravel, most likely was the thought there)

That's a nice thought, and for sure lowering barriers to accessing racing for youngsters wouldn't hurt, but there are a few other bigger hurdles, in my opinion, which stand in the way of us seeing any significant discoveries of talent which might make a dent in the Pro levels of cycling. 

First of all, we are speaking of the current "ultimate" levels of the sport which is controlled by the UCI, because what else is there? 

And if this is true, then we need to consider what it takes to get to a level where anyone might get hired by a Pro level team to compete. Because that is an extremely high bar to overcome. Hours, hours, and more hours of dedication to the sport. Money, money, and more money on gear, which kids outgrow and need to replace. Racing fees. Places to actually race. (Rare to find on the roadie side, difficult on MTB side) And let's not forget the most important thing - The person has to want to do this. 

To my way of thinking, this quality in a person is the number one determinant for success in any sport. The "want to" factor can be pretty hard to spot for coaches, parents, team owners, and sponsors, because if this trait was easy to spot, well we'd not have any difficulties finding those who would rise to the top of any given sport. Sometimes it is easy to see in a person. Other times, not so much. 

You may think "talent" is all that is necessary, but I'd caution against putting all your chips on that bet. I personally have seen very talented athletes who did not have the "want to" who were never discovered, or never progressed,  in whatever sport they showed talent. So, to my way of thinking, the number one thing which will determine success for Americans in cycling on a worldwide stage is to find the person who wants to get there. Sure, they need talent, but talent is secondary, to a degree, to the mental side. 

And even then you still have all the financial, social, and opportunity barriers to hurdle after that. I mean, where does one go to even get road racing experience anymore? Especially here in the USA. Fortunately we do have some support on the off-road side, and even gravel has some opportunities for juvenile racers. But when people are getting smoked on road rides in rural areas, how do you think parents would feel about putting their kids out there for training? 

Even the Pros who are currently racing are expressing concerns over the intensity of being on the highest levels of the sport. Expressing concerns for mental and physical well-being, now you have to wonder if it is even a good thing for us to see an American at the top levels of the sport. Maybe we're just being selfish and desire this against the odds of the well-being of the riders?  

A recent post by "The Cycling Week" on social media quotes current road Pro Jonas Vinegegaard as saying, ""As a cyclist, you feel like you're constantly on a diet. You always have to think about your weight, and you're always out training," he said. He described the current demands (by teams) taking a toll on both body and mind". 

Finally, culturally we have no support whatsoever for road, MTB, or gravel racing in the USA.  Conversely, if you want to be a Tik-Tok star we have all kinds of peer support for that. Even traditional stick and ball sports have vastly more cultural relevance here than cycling does. A kid wanting to be a road racer, mountain biker, or gravel cyclist in 2026 is walking into a social and cultural vacuum of sorts. They would be declaring their freak nature simply by wearing Lycra bib shorts and a jersey. That doesn't sound like a winning strategy for being a teenager wanting to smoothly navigate adolescence to me, but I would certainly support such rebellion.  

Anyway, good luck and safe riding to any youngsters willing to tackle that path. I hope they are successful. I just do not feel there is an easy answer to seeing top cycling athletes in the sport coming from the USA. Not that it cannot happen, but it's gonna take a lot more than just lowering barriers to "finding talent". 

Friday News And Views

 

Image courtesy of Gravel Worlds

 

 Gravel Worlds Re-brands:

 On Friday of last week news broke concerning a re-branding of Gravel Worlds. The event held annually in Lincoln, Nebraska, is going on its seventeenth year. The event is generally held around the second or third week of August and the course is a loop in and out of Lincoln. 

 Citing Nebraska's status as a top beef producer, the agricultural nature of the Gravel Worlds course, and the fact that the roads Gravel Worlds uses are primarily farm to market roads, the team at Gravel Worlds has designed an iconic logo. A logo which embodies the spirit of these facts. It has also incorporated the name of one of Gravel Worlds sponsors, McGrills, an outdoor grill brand which is manufactured in Beatrice, Nebraska. 

Following is a review of old Gravel Worlds logos, just for kicks..... 

Gravel worlds branding used most through the 2010's

 

Garmin comes on as a sponsor

In 2018 the site header lost the rainbow colors due to a cease and desist from the UCI

 

Celebrating 10 years in 2019

Obviously....

Logo from 2024, the year the founders of the event left and when the current team took over the event.

2025 header/logo

That's a good overview of how this event branded itself for most of its existence. Originally it was just a Pirate Cycling League event and the logo used was the PCL logo, but I did not include those in this mini-review. 

Virtual Ride For Jacob:

I was thinking the other day that there may be a few of you who might want to do a "ride for Jacob" but cannot come to Cedar Falls on the 25th to join me. Well.....what about a virtual Ride For Jacob? 

Here's what you can do. Let me know you've dedicated a ride for my son and tell me a bit about it. I'll send you a "Jacob" sticker. 

Just make sure I get an address to send it to. If you haven't seen one of these stickers they look like the sticker below. 

The story of your ride and why you did it can be sent to me at g.ted.productions@gmail.com.There is no time date stamp, so if you want to do this now, next week, or on the 25th, that is fine with me. I know of one fellow who is doing RAGBRAI who is dedicating a day to this. 

I guess if we want to make this a thing you could also send in a image or two and I'd post your story and images on the blog, much like I do for the Virtual Turkey Burn Ride. 

Or.....you don't have to do anything. Please do not feel obligated to write up anything, or even do a special ride. I'll still send you a sticker if you want one. 

Okay, that's really all I have for this idea. Thanks to "Tim" for the spark which led to this idea.  

Image courtesy of social media post

Wildfires In Northern Minnesota/Canada Affecting Air Quality:

Look, it's wildfire season again! And - of course - we need to be thinking about those losing their homes and livelihoods to these fires. And we need to be thinking about air quality. 

The map here is showing air quality for the Northeastern US for yesterday. Wildfire smoke issues are affecting a wide swath of this part of the nation. 

Whether or not we start seeing this in Iowa will depend on winds and air currents, but as of now we do not have issues here. However; we have had issues in the past and a few years ago, wildfire smoke pretty much shut down outdoor cycling for the month of June. 

Be safe out there! Inhaling smoke-riddled air is no joke, so consider not doing any cycling if your air quality is poor. 

 

Image courtesy of Trek Bikes

Trek Announces E-Fat Bike Models:

Trek announced a new e-Bike range on Thursday.. The new bikes are called "Borrego" and feature fat tires with a hub drive and 80mm suspension forks. 

Two models exist and the price starts at about $2,500.00.  

Comments: This looks a whole lot like the common e-Bike style we've seen from Radpower and other brands sold online. It's fairly obvious Trek is trying to reach those types of consumers here who would otherwise probably not look to Trek for an e-Bike at all.  

The price point may seem a bit steep, compared to the likes of other look-a-like e-Bikes, but here you have a dealer network and ostensibly a dealer network that will actually work on the bike when it inevitably needs work.  Try that with your Amazon sourced e-Fat bike. 

Maybe Trek will make a dent into this market, but it could be also that they are a little too late to jump on this bandwagon. I mean, this bike is totally ten years behind the times, in terms of tech and what is cutting edge now. We shall see how it goes....  

Not much else in the way of news for the week. So, that's a wrap for now. Thanks for reading Guitar Ted Productions! Now get out there and RAGBRAI, or ride however you ride!

Used Fat Bike Market Crash

 Lately I've noted several way undervalued fat bikes for sale on Facebook Marketplace. BBikes with carbon frames for between 1K and 1.5K where any bicycle with a carbon frame these days costs 2K plus just for a frame and fork. 

Aluminum framed fat bikes are even worse. Most I see are well under 1K asking price. This seems weird to me. 

I know. I wondered if the whole fat biking thing was over a while back and wrote about it HERE.  This latest observation of mine concerning used prices seems to reinforce this feeling I have concerning fat bikes. 

As one commenter on that linked post wrote, "Fat bies are for nerds..." and most of us have our fat bikes. They do not go out of style and there hasn't been any real innovations in fat bikes for years. So, maybe the market isn't "dead" as much as it is stagnant. Of course, either way, both would lead to these smoking deals on fat bikes I am seeing now. 

I don't see much analogous to the fat bike used market with the possible exception of used plus bikes. Everything else seems about right in terms of pricing. And maybe all this devaluing of fat bikes just shows that it isn't what the frame and fork are made out of or even what group is on the bike. It's more about what the bike can do for the rider, or maybe more precisely- What the rider thinks the bike can do for them. 

I don't know, but I've seen some alarmingly low prices on some really nice fat bikes. That much I do know!  

Review: Aeron TPU Tubes Update #4

Last week I posted Update #3 of the Aeron TPU Tube Review. Click that link in case you missed it. The main theme of that update was to see if and how an Aeron TPU tube could be transferred from one tire to another. 

My test involved going from a bigger tire to a slightly less bigger tire. I was asked in the comments if the Aeron tube, which is rated for anything from a 700 X 32mm to a 700 X 52mm tire would actually work in something even less wide than I tried. This update will cover that use case. 

This particular Aeron TPU tube was previously installed in a 700 X 47mm Teravail Cannonball tire. I decided to try the Aeron tube in a 700c X 40mm tire I had laying around. It was an ancient 700 X 40mm Donnelly MSO tire. (Remember those?) 

So, following is a pictorial showing how things worked out. I'll have a bit more to say at the end, so check out the images and descriptions and look for further comments below.

This is the Aeron TPU tube with a minimal amount of air. Just enough to give it some shape. 

Aeron recommends a very minimal amount of air be inflated into the TPU tube to give the tube shape. You do not want to insert a TPU tube with no air in it! Damage could occur rendering the tube worthless or cause a flat while in use. 

You can see the residual talcum powder I put on the Cannonball tire's inner casing to allow the TPU and rubber casing to more easily move against each other while installing the tube and inflating it. You can also barely make out the reinforcement around the base of the very long valve stem. I was happy to see this as I've experienced failure of a TPU tube due to the valve stem coming off which wasn't reinforced at its junction with the TPU tube like this one is. 

Here you get some context for how wide the TPU tube from AERON is after being in a 700 X 47mm tire. 

 

The 700 x 40mm Donnelly MSO and the Aeron TPU tube installed inside of it. 

Here you see the side view of the Aeron TPU tube in the Donnelly tire

The one nit I have regarding these Aeron TPU tubes is that they are trying to be a solution for too many variances in tire size. As an example, you can see above how the TPU is peeking out of the left side of the Donnelly tire. This is due to Aeron's making this tube to be compatible with 650B diameter tires. 

That's all well and good, but it makes getting this tube inside a 700c wheel and tire a chore. It also puts the user at risk of pinching the TPU material in a place where a patch probably wouldn't work well. Just make these 700c diameter and IF you feel you are missing sales because 650B exists, make some in that diameter. As far as I am aware, Aeron is the only TPU tube available which does things this way and I feel it is misguided and may cause unwanted issues. 

It should be noted that I did not want to use a 40mm tire with this tube so I ended up putting it in the matching Rene Herse tire mentioned in the previous update. I'll be running those wheels and tires as an alternate set for my Salsa Cycles Fargo Gen I. I will also be pitting these against the previously reviewed Rene Herse TPU tubes. 

Stay tuned for future updates to this review.  

The Problem Can Be Seen In The Mirror

From KCCI's social media

 NOTE: Large doses of "my opinion" will be handed out in gloppy dollops today. You've been forewarned.....

Years ago, maybe around 2008 or so, a representative from a company called Day 6 Bicycles showed up at the shop. He had an example of a 'foot-forward' electrified bicycle. The idea was the bike could provide an extremely comfortable ride position along with electric motor assist which would make the bike easy to ride. 

My boss at the shop took the front wheel motor e-Bike out for a spin in the parking lot. I watched as he zoomed back and forth. I would estimate he was going well over 20mph and without pedaling. I was alarmed. 

Why? It looked like a ton of fun. The bike put the rider in a really easy to use position. Powered riding would get more folks outdoors, out of cars, and maybe into pedaling more. 

Maybe.... Pedaling. Yeah, that means working, and if you don't have to work? Well, why would you? This is what alarmed me. That and the immediate acceleration to top speed. Unskilled or inexperienced riders on a heavy-ish two wheeled electrified bicycle? I saw trouble ahead. 

The future of e-micromobility is murky at best

Just this past weekend I was waiting for my wife in the car as she picked up an item at a big-box store in town here. I noted movement in my right side field of vision and then noted three youth riding electrified two-wheeled contraptions. One was a mini-bike kind of thing and the other two were scooters. They were in perfect formation, the scooters flanking the mini-bike thing and flying across the parking lot at near 20mph. No helmets. No adults near by. No regard for parking lot traffic. 

Ooof!

 Municipalities in Iowa are currently wrestling with coming up with ordinances and laws to regulate these devices and differentiate them from bicycles which have electric assistance. I posted about this recently here. 

Most agree that education, parental involvement, and some knowledge amongst law enforcement about the differences between what are bicycles and what are not bicycles will help. Certainly, this makes sense. 

But you are speaking about humans, right? We cannot even expect humans to follow the rules when it comes to current usage of any of the vehicles we use.  So why can we feel safe with regard to any ordinance, law, or public education measures when it comes to electrified two-wheeled vehicles like e-Motos, e-Scooters, and the like? 

The problem probably cannot be rectified with enforcement of law and ordinance. You'll catch a few, but you won't stop them all. Getting any kind of stoppage of sales of these things would be great, but if people are making money off sales of these things, you'll have a hard time stopping the in-flow of the devices used to create these issues. And, of course, there are a lot of these things already here.

The final line of defense is relying on "people to do the right thing". This is the vibe I'm getting so far from these discussions. Sorry, but I cannot buy into this line of thinking. The problem with e-device abuse is what you see in the mirror. And to regulate that? 

I don't see the good solution yet.  

Update On The Ride For Jacob

GT's Ride For Jacob, Saturday, July 25th, 2026:

Where: North Parking Lot of Big Woods Lake, Cedar Falls, Iowa.. For detailed directions to the parking lot see the July 10th entry HERE

When: 8:00am

What: A no-drop gravel road ride of 46.3 miles which will pass through the towns of Janesville, Iowa, Shell Rock, Iowa, and New Hartford, Iowa. 

Why: A Ride to honor my son, Jacob Stevenson who died on August 2nd, 2025 at the age of 22 years. 

Expectations: Casual pace. Riders can resupply in Janesville, Shell Rock, and New Hartford. No-drop means we may stop at various times to gather up stragglers. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU! There is NO SAG SUPPORT. If you have to bail, quit, or cannot go on for some reason, then you will have to self-extract, or have a back-up plan in place. No one associated with me is going to come and pick you up. THIS RIDE IS FREE. No entry fees, and therefore there should be no expectations for anything other than for you to bring a good attitude, a capability to ride 40 miles of gravel and pavement, and to have tools, water, nutrition, and a way to communicate to the outside world, (smart phone usually...or you can choose smoke signals. You do you.), and have all this on a competent bike in good condition. 

IF you join me you assume all personal responsibility and will be held accountable for any and all actions you take, actions of others on the ride which may negatively affect you, or for any circumstances related to weather, traffic, and road conditions which may cause personal harm, injury, or death. In other words, I am not responsible for anything that happens to you if you come on this ride. IF you decide to ride with me, you assume all responsibility for YOURSELF. 

Okay.................with all this understood, here are the finer details.......

I did some tweaking of the original route. Here are some details on what to look for. First, we will be leaving going North on the bike path to Lone Tree Road, then continuing North to Dunkerton Road and going Right to get us across HWY 218/27. Then we will head North again on Symons Road. These three miles plus a little are all pavement. We should be single file, aware of our surroundings, and looking out for traffic until we reach the "T" intersection with Mount Vernon Road. 

Gravel starts here. I decided to take a Left and head up Leversee Road instead of what the original Ride For Jacob did which was to go North out of Waterloo up Burton Avenue. The start in Cedar Falls dictated this because it would make for an easier place to start, park vehicles, and return to. More so than almost any place in Waterloo would have for a start of a North route out of town. 

I also tweaked the route coming out of Shell Rock. Instead of going West I decided to go South out of there to cut off a big loop I did last year which wasn't all that interesting. We will cross that old gabled bridge over the West Fork of the Cedar River though. And we will still be taking the short bit of pavement from the North into New Hartford to go by the convenience store there. 

Finally, I did not like how I used a bit of Union Road last year and coming in on a great bike path on West First Street which dwindles down to crappy sidewalk seemed like a poor idea for a group of cyclists. So I rerouted out in the country to bring the ride back in on West 12th, then hitting that bike path to Hudson Road, and then continuing down 12th to State Street after the round-a-bout so we can go through downtown. 

IF the group feels the itch to stop at, oh say....Second State Brewing Co., or something along those lines, we could do that. Then it is a short jaunt from there via bike path to the end where we started. 

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ROUTE.  

The route is on Ride With GPS. Please download the file into your device if you are planning to come, or even if you are not coming, this would make a fun route to ride out of Cedar Falls and back again. 

NOTE: I have not reconned this route yet and I plan on doing this before the 25th. IF there are any route changes I will announce this after recon. I do not anticipate there being anything different though.  

Questions? Hit me up at g.ted.productions@gmail.com or here in the comments.  

XLBird Review

The swap to the XL sized Peregrine Mk4 frame was covered earlier HERE and HERE. Then I posted a quick take on the build HERE. This post will cover everything I've learned since then and will suffice as the final update on the switch from the Large size frame to the XL sized one. 

My original reasoning for getting this bike was to satisfy my craving for a "classic" looking gravel bike which had up to date tire clearances. My previous choice, the Twin Six Standard Rando, is, at this time, not capable of having any tire much wider than a 43mm gravel tire in the back. I loved the look of the T-6, and it rode fine, but I wanted wider tires, so..... 

The size Large was, on paper, the right size for me, but in reality the bike felt cramped when I rode it, and I had a nagging feeling the frame wasn't quite "right" in reality. This led to - thanks to Matt Gersib and Sam Alison - to getting the size XL instead. 

Now with everything set up as I like it, I have to say this size feels a LOT better when I'm riding it. I feel more in between the wheels instead of on top of them. The Luxy Bars, ironically inspired by Sam Alison of Singular's input, is perfect for this bike. I'm so glad I had Luxy Bars in silver ano for this build. Riding in the drops is really good and the hoods are hand savers. They may look weird to a traditionalist, but when I am riding gravel these handle bars are so nice. I really wish someone could make these again. 

Which makes one wonder: Would the size Large have been okay with Luxy Bars? The bike would have been better, no doubt, but still not "right". Luxy Bars wouldn't have fixed the slight cramped feel the size Large had. 

I wanted this bike to become the one I'd pull out most often, and I think this will be the case going forward. Now, I have some other nice bikes as well, and I will be riding those also, but my hope is the Peregrine will become a bicycle which won't grow stale and be a steady, easy to ride bike now and in the future. I do think it handles very well. It feels smoother than the T-6 ever did and it is better than the size Large Peregrine was.  

So far it has been a very successful move. I do not feel any of the old niggles I had with the size Large and for this I am very grateful. Mk4's are gone now, but if you are interested in a Peregrine Mk5, I would highly recommend one, but do pay attention to the sizing chart. Be aware this is a classically inspired design, which means "not much exposed seat post" for you, in all likelihood. The new Peregrine is also a Maxway factory made frame and fork. In my opinion, the Maxway factory is a superior place to have frames and forks in steel made. So, that is a good thing.