Bikes Of The Almanzo

Of course, as a dyed in the wool "bike nerd", I notice the bikes folks are riding at these gravel events. So, I took note of a few rigs and I have some comments to share. Let's take a look at what caught my eye at this year's Almanzo Cherry Grove checkpoint. (NOTE- Obviously there were other cool bikes. Not everyone went by me and some that did never stopped, so it is entirely possible I missed a lot of really cool rigs.)

Okay, this may be the best example of "an Almanzo rig" that there is.......or not.

The Ridley, in my opinion, is the "average" Almanzo rig. A cyclo cross bike with canti brakes. I can't tell you how many bikes like this went by me. It only goes to show you that, at least in the area near the Twin Cities, cyclo cross bikes are gravel bikes. They work fine for that purpose, obviously, and can do a UCI legal cross race, if you are so inclined. But I still say that a bike designed to be super efficient over an hour long event and that has to do what a cross bike needs to do isn't ideal for gravel roads. Been over this a million times here. Maybe someday I'll pin all my posts about that and put a perma-link in the margin or something....

Custom, steel, and different.

I saw this rig underneath Andy Tetmeyer of HED Wheels and I was glad to see him park and dismount so I could get an image of this steel rig. It is the antithesis of the Ridley above. Fender mounts and (nearly) full coverage fenders. Steel, lugged crown fork, disc brakes, and what looked to be a decent amount of bottom bracket drop compared to a cyclo cross rig. Of course, those outrageous HED rims were what most folks noticed, but take note of the non-cross approved frame pump under the top tube. Terrene Elwood 40's (Likely measuring over that), top it off. Andy got a top twenty finish on this rig for the Almanzo 100 category.

Riders were often too tired or couldn't be arsed to park their rigs proper.

This bad image of a fat bike was grabbed on the fly, because I was having my attention drawn elsewhere, but I wanted to get this anyway. It is of the first fat bike we saw Saturday in the event. Note- Steel frame, and drop bars. I thought that warranted inclusion here. Not many folks run fat bikes with drop bars.

Perhaps the perfect drive train for a messy Southern Minnesota gravel ride.

Finally, I saw this Surly with a Rohloff drive train. The massive torque arm on the non-driveside was the giveaway for me. I thought this was a smart rig for a day like Saturday was. Just look at all that limestone crap! You have to imagine that a lot of drive trains died Saturday in the messy conditions. Perhaps this rig suffered a chain replacement, maybe a bottom bracket issue, but the drive train likely is fine otherwise. A lot less expensive to maintain than some of those fancy exposed drive train set ups are. I'm not 100% sure, but this rig was running a chain tensioner and there might be an inner chain ring there......hmmm. 

Of course, I did see a smattering of actual "gravel bikes". There were your Warbirds, Vayas, and Tamlands running out there along with some other gravel rigs from other brands.

Again, not all the bicycles even made it to Cherry Grove. There was the Stiller tandem, which I heard broke down, and likely a lot of other, super cool bicycles, (and people, obviously), that didn't get to Cherry Grove or who just rode on by like Greg Gleason did on his Cutthroat. So, I am not saying this is a definitive listing at all, but it is what I saw.

Thanks again to the Almanzo folks, Penn Cycles, and the Spring Valley Tourism board for letting RidingGravel.com come and be the sponsor of the Cherry Grove stop. We are tentatively scheduled to do it again next year. Let's hope for better weather next time!