Changes In The Wind

 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 year 2013 was a pivotal year for this blog in terms of my direction in focus on cycling. This was a time that was about the turning of the page in mountain biking. The "wheel wars" between 26', 27.5", and 29" were about to swing hard toward 29"ers as being the de facto wheel size for MTB. 27.5" had made a big push, but would finally be supplanted by 29"ers in a few years hence. 26 inch was effectively dead by this point, and who would have ever guessed that would have happened even five years prior? 

This all had the effect of making 29"ers mainstream and therefore, not a niche segment relegated to weirdos blogging on the Internet anymore. Now "professional" coverage of the wheel size was dominant, and that meant that what I had been doing for a decade already was now outdated. Once I had been promised a paycheck for doing my 29"er stuff, but in 2013? Heck, our site could hardly scare up decent review stuff anymore and money? Ha! What money?

In 2013 my focus had shifted to gravel cycling. Image from T.I.v10 recon.

The minor addition of a calendar of known gravel events to this blog in 2008 led to a full-fledged blog covering gravel called "Gravel Grinder News". The gravel based content and my involvement in the 29"er scene coexisted for several years but ultimately proved to be too much. All of this combined with Trans Iowa coming fully under my purview as a promoter in late 2011 forced changes. 

I didn't execute my plan for leaving the 29"er site until the last month of 2014, but I started to lay the groundwork for getting out in 2013. That year I also started up "Gravel Grinder News" as its own website with the help of "Grannygear", my friend in SoCal. Another gravel oriented site, "Riding Gravel", popped up about the same time, and that would end up becoming where I went online, but that's another story. 

2013 - My last trip I made to Interbike.

2013 was a beginning and an ending. This blog catapulted me into the realms of cycling reporters and to the industry. 29"ers were the reason why that happened as well. But now that was all fading away, and I was attracted to gravel cycling all along. I had been a fixture of the scene as the director of Trans Iowa since 2005. Gravel was where my heart was really at in those days. 

So, whatever was going to happen with gravel did not matter to me. I was going to follow my heart and get back to things I cared deeply about in terms of cycling. The rest of the world of cycling could go on its merry way, deriding gravel cycling, as they were wont to do often. I cared nothing about that, and I wasn't deterred in my passions for turning this blog's focus toward gravel cycling. I was going to do what I was going to do. 

Of course, we all know now where that took me. But in 2013 that wasn't a thought. I was tired of beating down doors and having promises made with no regard to following up on them. I was done with the traditional cycling media's focus on upper echelon racers and racing gear. I saw gravel as the every-person's cycling scene. But yeah.....

Now gravel has become "that" thing as well. This is why we cannot have nice things.

More soon.....