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| My number plate from the 2006 Dirty Kanza 200 |
Twenty years ago I signed up for an event in Kansas being put on by two men most folks had never heard of before. Joel Dyke and Jim Cummins were two guys brought together by their mutual love of two-wheeled, off-road fun, and challenging rides.
Jim came from the moto world and was into mountain biking. Joel was more into whatever cycling hi-jinx he could find, and if he couldn't find it, he created it. Between the two they had forged an interest in a silly gravel road based event in Iowa called Trans Iowa.
Joel and Jim had been in contact concerning Trans Iowa with Jeff Kerkove. Jeff was the "point man" of Trans Iowa those first few years. Mostly because Jeff was a well-known solo 24hr endurance racer who had a very popular blog at the time. While I was more of an assistant in those days, it meant I wasn't a big part of the communications going back and forth between we Trans Iowa organizers and the organizers of the DK200. I was verbally kept abreast of all of this though since I worked in close proximity to Jeff. Both literally and figuratively!
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| An image I pulled off an online source on the Flint Hills back in 2006 |
Joel came up and rode in the first two editions of Trans Iowa and took many ideas back to Kansas for he and Jim to mull over as they were going to put on a similar event in Kansas. They settled on the Flint Hills for this ride which, originally wasn't called "Dirty Kanza", but nearer to their inaugural running of the event, it took on that name.
It was kind of an unspoken thing back in the very early days of gravel that if you put on an event and another event organizer came to ride in your event, you went and rode in their event as well. It was a sign of solidarity amongst the early gravel event promoters. So, when Jim and Joel announced registration was open for the 2006 Dirty Kanza 200, I signed up.
While I could have plied questions and received knowledge from the event organizers, due to the circumstances I was in at the time, I did not do this. Being in a gravel event was a completely new idea back in 2006. Everything you were going to do was pulled from other cycling disciplines and when it came to big decisions, like what bicycle to use, it was an unknown to a degree. Mostly because I, and others coming to the first Dirty Kansas, had no idea what the Flint Hills of Kansas was like.
I was researching online, looking at pictures, reading stories about the grasslands, and getting to know some of the history of the area including the history of earlier peoples who called the Flint Hills home. Especially the history behind the Kanza people. I actually learned a lot just because I signed up for an event, so it was a good thing besides the cycling bits.
I eventually decided on riding my then new On One Inbred as a single speed. It would be my first bicycle race in ten years and it would be 200 miles long! (Look....no one said it was a smart decision!) So, you can see why I was a bit concerned and why I was doing a bunch of research. There were chats online in the Endurance Forum of MTBR.com, there were blog posts from fellow cyclists, and I did actually pick Jeff's mind about nutrition and such, since he was a Pro at it.
It was an exciting time. There were a lot of unknowns, and decisions made were weightier and harder to make back then. In my next post on this, coming up in a week or two, I'll discuss more about what this event meant in terms of the overall nascent gravel scene
4 comments:
There is a line in your blog about registering for a 200 miles and competition expectation. That is a point of discussion for the podcast, if we want to go into the "Spirit of Gravel" it was more of a walk about of the mind and discovery. But today people in the industry who would not even train for or register to do an event like that, will be little those who fall short of finishing.
When I see or hear of someone signing up or doing something that on paper they have no business doing, I often think their goal is not event, but the event is a tool or means making another discovery a reality.
This was such a beautiful time in the sport... We were already a part of something we didn't fully understand, or see the potential of. We were just riding and having fun... it was such a different feel from our typical mountain bike scene that it drew us all in. Though I wasn't yet ready to call gravel a discipline unto itself in 2006, in hindsight I realize we were further along that path than I thought we were.
Heady times indeed...
@N.Y. Roll - Definitely a point there. Finishing was the "goal", but was just one of many stated and unstated goals. And I would submit the unstated goals was where the "magic" of the early events on gravel was at.
@MG - Well said. The feel thing is imminently important and - as you stated - why gravel as a discipline was so attractive.
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