Zero To Sixty

 In celebration of the twentieth year of this blog, I have a few tales to tell. This post is one of them. This series will occur off and on throughout this anniversary year, I hope to illuminate some behind-the-scenes stories and highlights from the blog during this time. Enjoy!

The original header for this blog

 Zero To Sixty:

As I ponder where I've been in life over the past twenty years I have to point to this blog as being a big influence on the rudder of my ship. Where I went over these last two decades was heavily influenced by who read the blog and what that helped me to accomplish in life. 

Becoming a part of this group started 20 years ago.

The biggest change in my life, overall, stemming from this blog writing, was two-fold and both things started at the same time. One was obviously gravel related and the other was 29"er wheels for mountain biking. 

In 2024, both of these concepts for cycling are regarded as "normal". Nothing could have been further from the truth twenty years ago. 

Take twentynine inch wheels for mountain biking. They were weird, regarded as a lot less capable than the then entrenched 26 inch wheels, and at best, these wheels were a fad. 

However; a grassroots on-line community believed in the wheels, this spurring on custom bicycle builders, and that garnered enough sales attention to perk up the ears of some marketing folks. Then in 2005 The Rig changed everything. 

Gary Fisher - the man and the bicycle company, had introduced 29"ers as a bike shop available bike in their brand line up as early as 2001. However; it wasn't going well, to say the least, and Trek, the parent company of Gary Fisher Bicycles, was getting impatient. Talk was bubbling up that Trek was going to axe the 29"er line and move on. But then the hybrid "Dual Sport" bikes gave 29"ers some life support with brisk sales. Following that Gary Fisher made a masterstroke decision to unleash a single speed 29"er with a "legitimate fork" in the Rock Shox Reba. They sold like hotcakes and this spurred on the 29"er revolution. (Along with many other folks. I generalize here, of course!)

But going into this blog while that was all going on, and ballyhooing 29"ers like I was, didn't make sense from a "popularity" standpoint. Most folks thought I was a nutcase, ill-informed, and they even labeled me as a "religious zealot" for the big wheels. But I persisted onward and, of course, we all know where 26 inch wheels are now. That said, who'd have thunk it in 2005? Even I am amazed at where we are at today with 29"ers. 

(L-R) Mike Curiak, Dave Kerkove, GT with his back to the camera, T.I.V1

The other thing I became noted for, "Gravel", also started off back in 2005 with my involvement with Trans Iowa. 

Gravel racing? What?!! No one had ever heard about such a thing back in 2005. Well, some folks think that they had heard about it. Some had actually done events on gravel. 

There was the Flint Hills Death Ride, the Colesburg 40, Iron Cross, and other "monster-cross" events. There was a gravel series on MTB's in the late 1980's and early 1990's up in the Decorah area. These were mostly associated with mountain biking, and in the case of monster-cross, with cyclo-cross racing, because there was no other context for this. 

Somehow Trans Iowa, even though Jeff Kerkove, my co-founder of Trans Iowa, tried to frame this as a mountain bike event, wasn't seen in that light. Maybe it was the battle online previous to the first Trans Iowa regarding folks wanting to use any bicycle they wished. (Originally we were going to limit this to MTB's), maybe it was all that gravel. Three hundred-plus miles of it. Maybe it was the point-to-point nature of the first Trans Iowa. 

Whatever "it" was, the difference between what came before Trans Iowa and Trans Iowa, and what came afterward, was the perception of the event. Amongst those who knew about Trans Iowa and other  gravel events which came afterward, it was more about "something else" and not MTB. This became even more entrenched in 2006 at the second Trans Iowa. The whole "MTB" thing wasn't a thing anymore, unlike what had occurred previously, which were events primarily perceived of as MTB events by their contemporaries, but held on gravel or unpaved roads. As an example, there was a time when it was "an MTB event held on gravel", but after Trans Iowa it was "people using MTB's at Gravel events".

There is a reason events like the Flint Hills Death Ride, Iron Cross, and the Colesburg Back Forty are considered "gravel events" today, and that is because perceptions changed, and that all started with Trans Iowa. That first Trans Iowa event influenced a lot of other events that called themselves 'gravel' events, and that in turn started another revolution in cycling. Here we are today, with "Gravel" racing being at, arguably, the pinnacle of bicycle racing in North America now. Again - who'd have thunk it in 2005? 

So, this blog has taken me from a nobody bicycle mechanic in a Mid-Western town, to a Hall of Fame and recognition I never thought I would get, nor did I seek out, when I started the blog. It all went to a speed in 2005 that I found shocking.  

Trans Iowa v1 start. I'm leading out the racers in the van. A start to a journey I am still on today.

Of course, Trans Iowa happened a half a month ahead of the start of this blog, but I was already guest-posting on Jeff's blog by the end of 2004. So, I count that bit as well when it comes to my journey so far. I guess if you really wanted to be picky about things, I already have completed most of my 20th year of blogging at this point. But I draw the line at the beginning of this blog for timing.

The speed at which all this happened I attribute to the online blogging community in 2005 and to various online sites for 29"ers, but primarily mtbr.com, which for all intents and purposes was the clearing house for online cycling chatting back in the day. Had I started this blog even a year or two later than I did, I think I wouldn't be where I am at today at all. So, it was the timing, and the speed at which this happened on the blog that really mattered to where I am today. 

That's it for this look back. I'll have more in the coming weeks and months to check back on regarding the 20th Anniversary of this blog. Thanks for reading!