A Follow-Up Regarding That Gravel Symposium Thing

My favorite place to have a 'gravel summit'.

Last Saturday I posted a mid-year update on the "State of the Gravel Scene" and given some of the feedback I saw, I wanted to make a few comments.

I saw one commenter say that the term 'gravel summit' made him cringe. Yeah, I get that too, but the reality is that there is a small, very vocal, very influential group of people that will take control of the narrative and drive it to where anyone that has no grounding in the past decade, decade and a half in the gravel riding scene will just flat out believe that narrative at face value. They will hear this narrative and accept it because the 'big influencers and Pros say so'.

And keep in mind, this is the third one of these summits so far this year. Some of the attendants have been at at least two of the three. Yes....they have a complete right to speak out and they have their place. However; the narrative they drive fits such a small piece of the riding pie that it is a misconception to think that all gravel races are like this. And I am 100% sure most all of the so-called 'gravel summit attendees' would agree. But the problem is they are the only ones getting a seat at the loudest table, so ......you know, perceptions will dictate that every gravel event is a Dirty Kanza 200, as a for instance. Or that the coolest event is the SBT-GRVL, or the "Most Premier Thing On Gravel" is whatever race the moderators at the summit say it is.

Well, it isn't, and we all know that, but many folks that are just coming into the scene don't know the history. They will not remember anything, or even know about, what we take for granted (if you've been around a while) and they will need to be reminded, or told, that the gravel scene is what it is because of diversity and abundance of choices. There is no "greatest, most premier gravel event". They all are great in their own way.

And that's why I think it is important to remember that some of the folks really do have their hearts in the right place. Folks like Rebecca Rusch and Bobby Wintle, despite their "big-time" events, they do seem to believe in the virtues of other sorts of pursuits to gravel fun. My beef is really with the folks promoting these so-called 'summits' and how the info gets disseminated. It seems a bit much like, well........marketing. Maybe that's because two of the three summits I am aware of have been put on by media marketing firms. I didn't realize how out of touch these folks could be until I watched the last summit on video.

Some nice flowers to off set the nonsense today. Enjoy!

You see, there was a bit during that summit where the moderator, who happened to be the owner of the marketing firm putting on the summit, or symposium, or whatever, where he asked if there were any media questions. Dead silence. Of course, we don't really know if any media were or were not online, because no one was recognized from the media while all the panelists were recognized up front. So, there is that question. This made me raise my eyebrows a bit. But then with ten minutes left, the moderator turned to the Pro and semi-Pro riders online and wanted to know what event made them suffer the most and what their power numbers were.

Excuse me! What does that have to do with anything that might affect the gravel scene? Well, of course, you know it has zero affect on the future of the gravel scene, but the moderator thought it was important enough to waste fully 1/6th of the time we had on the subject. Take away the blah-blah time in the introductions and you had maybe 40 minutes of content. No wonder media questions weren't entertained.

And what about the tone-deafness to what was already going on socially at the time of the symposium? I thought that was an oversight, and very much like "business as usual" when it comes to some of the elite cycling folk in charge of many brands and media marketing firms these days.

Getting back to some comments on my post. I was heartened to see many agree that it is high time to look for ways to improve diversity in the gravel scene. I did see where some were saying,"Well, where I live we have some folks from ________ communities." I don't see where diversity is an issue." This made me sad, because 'some diversity' doesn't let you off the hook. And diversity in one area doesn't mean it is everywhere. That's the sort of comment that is a bit short-sighted. But by and large I was glad to see the reactions were mostly positive.

Now, let's not let up. Actions speak louder than words. And I am in need of the kick in the pants as much as anyone.