Friday News And Views

The new Grade Carbon frame set in Camo (Image courtesy of GT Bicycles)

GT Bicycles Announces New Grade Range Of Gravel Bikes:

 Tuesday saw the release of the new GT Bicycles Grade range of gravel bikes. Totally redesigned, this range will feature good tire clearances, a rather different geometry from most gravel bikes, and 30mm of rear "travel". (!!) 

The bikes are offered in aluminum and carbon with SRAM or Shimano components. Obviously missing is any mention of 11 speed GRX in the press release. Wonder why that is..... (HA!) 

The geometry is interesting. 70° head tube angles across the board with 75mm of bottom bracket drop. Nice! 

Comments: Okay....thirty millimeters of rear compliance? Sounds too good to be true, but even if it is only 20mm in reality, that would be really noticeable. The bigger question, to my way of thinking, is how does this design keep the rear wheel from torquing the frame laterally? Look at those long seat stays. Great for "vertical compliance", but not so much for "lateral stiffness". Maybe GT has figured out a "secret sauce" to keep things in alignment. Of course, I don't know right now. 

I do know two other things though. One: There are no 11 speed GRX models offered and there are 10 speed GRX models offered. Hmm..... 12 speed GRX has been spotted in the wild. Could be there are more Grade models in the pipeline that will be sporting 12 speed GRX. I bet so. 

Secondly, that blue camo is HOT! Kinda like a blue version of a Holstein cow. That would be cool to get a hold of. By the way, if that is too much awesome for you, GT offers the Grade in plainer, more vanilla colors that shouldn't offend you. Me? Give me this and some pink anodized components! Ha ha!  

New Guitar Ted Podcast:

Episode #22 is up of The Guitar Ted Podcast here at THIS LINK. In this episode N.Y. Roll and I talk about that new GT above, go over reasons why the cycling industry is pricing itself out of reach of many cyclists, and there is even some talk about corn. Plus, I have a rant at the end that you might find interesting. 

So.... 22 episodes! That's just this year. We're cooking along fairly well, but we will be taking a break later this year and we will put Season 1 of this podcast to bed. My plan is to close up the season in November, take a month off and after the holidays we will see about cranking it all back up again for Season #2.

In the meantime I have an idea or two for people to interview and we will always be on the lookout for news and subject matter related to gravel riding to yak about. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, you can pop those into the comments and I would really appreciate any feedback you might have for us. 

From Twitter

Sending Healing Vibes To Allison:

Wednesday on social media Allison Tetrick revealed that she had been struck by a truck while riding her bike. This happened a couple of weeks ago now. 

Sounds like she is being well taken care of, but it also sounds as if she's pretty busted up. Sending healing vibes! I hope Allison recovers fully and can get back on her bicycles. 

I've been struck by a truck as well, and while my injuries were mild in comparison, it runs deeper than that in terms of the mental stuff you end up dealing with after an event like this. Healing is necessary both physically and mentally. 

Allison was just inducted into the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame this past June. She's a big advocate of gravel riding. I don't know if it is due to those things, or something that connects us because we've both been hit, but I shed a few tears when I heard about this Wednesday. 

Please remind your friends and family to be vigilant and aware when they are operating a motor vehicle. And all my best to Allison. I'll be praying for her....

Special RAGBRAI Edition Shimano Sandal (Image courtesy of Shimano)

The 50th One:

Good luck you RAGBRAI'ers! You're going to need it this year! It's the 50th anniversary of the ride, and I know the vibe is hype this year. Big time hype!

There will be more people on this RAGBRAI than ever. It'll break records. It will also have more biffs, injuries, accidents, crashes, and worse. Hate to say that, but let's face it. When you put tens of thousands of cyclists on one road who are not necessarily adept at riding with tens of thousands of other riders, well you are going to have mishaps. I hope they are to a minimum, but yeah..... If I were a betting man? Right....

Anyway, no...I am not going anywhere near this ride. I've been there, done that, and this won't be anything different than previous RAGBRAI's, it'll just be "more". When you've already had "enough", "more" is not the answer. 

The weather will be its typically hot, humid self for RAGBRAI with a day where they will probably have some thunderstorms as well. Shoulda been here this week. It was perfect weather! Ha ha! But at least it will be weather that is "on-point" for the ride. 

So, again- Good Luck RAGBRAI! I'll read about it all later.... 

That's it for this week! Have a great weekend and get out and ride! Summer is almost over!