If You Know - You Know

 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!

A scene from the start of the 2015 Gravel Worlds

In 2016 I was asked to attend the Iowa Bicycle Summit and their events director's meeting. It was the only time in the 15 years I was organizing gravel events that I had been asked to attend that meeting, which looking back on it now, seems like a gross oversight on the part of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, who organized this event. 

I still remember sitting there and hearing all the "horror stories" concerning how one should put on a cycling event. Of course, I was a very non-traditional promoter, and much of the trappings of "normal cycling events" was not part of what I did or ever wanted to do. 

But the thing that struck me was how big events get bogged down in details that most event attendees never grasp. You will hear people gripe about an event after they have ridden in one, perhaps, and maybe even you have done this, but the "other side" has a LOT of headaches and thankless minutiae to wade through that, frankly, I don't think many of the complainers would ever face up to wading through. 

It's a long story, and I haven't got the time, nor the space, to detail it all out here, but suffice it to say that I have experienced these things and I have heard from other event directors about these things. If you know - you know. It's a really hard thing to express to those who have never put on an event before in the cycling realm. 

That said, if you have read these pages over the years, you probably have somewhat of an idea of what I mean. I'll leave it at that. It is definitely something that has influenced the blog.

The Blackborow DS on Marky-Mark Trail.

I noted also that in 2016 we had some of the best snow we've ever had for fat biking. I thought 2011 was really good, but then for the next four years it was always that "sugar-snow". You know the type - Snow that is granular and will never set up to support flotation by fat bike tires. 

Well, we hadn't really had any snow for fat biking during the Winter of 2015-2016 until the beginning of February. Then we had about two perfect weeks before the weather turned mild and I started going out to ride gravel more and more. We may have had a few weeks here and there since that time where fat biking was decent, but this snow was perfect. 

I feel like fat biking has been so hit and miss around here the last five years or so that the desire for many to try it has waned quite a bit. Many fat bike races see no snow here anymore, and if they do get some, it is wet and muddy along with that. 

It has caused fat biking content here on the blog to be a rare thing, at least on snow, so until that changes, I really think that my fat bikes are kind of a luxury item, and not so much a necessity. Maybe I should convert the Ti Muk into a 29"er full rigid MTB with a Rohloff hub. 

I'd probably get more out of the bike from doing that than I am now!