Friday News And Views

 Gravel Riding Clinics To Be Held In Grinnell:

Several years ago I started up an idea to hold a clinic to help those wondering about Trans Iowa, and gravel riding in general. We held it in Des Moines, and at that time, there was an outcry for information to the extent that I was being asked to YouTube the event for consumption after the event was over. I just did not have the resources or emotional energy for such a project on top of everything else I had going on back in 2013.

I have helped with a gravel clinic series here in Waterloo which we called the Iowa Gravel Expo and Bike Party. N.Y. Roll and I put these series of events on locally from 2018-2020. Again, judging from attendance from all corners of the state I knew that this was a viable idea for the gravel-curious. 

So, it comes as no surprise to me that Grinnell's Prairie Burn 100 event directors and Imagine Grinnell have teamed up to put on the "Burner Gravel Clinics". (Note-Link takes you to the Prairie Burn 100's Face Book page) 

You can see all the pertinent info in my image here, but if you want to know more you can contact Imagine Grinnell through there website here, or head to Prairie Burn 100's Face Book page linked above. 

WTB Debuts The Vulpine 700 X 36mm Tire:

This past Tuesday WTB announced the newest tire for gravel in their range, the Vulpine. I was a bit surprised that this tire was only offered in the one size to start out with, (Hoping that wider sizes come out later), but hey! I am happy too, because I had been pushing for a gravel Vulpine in TCS (tubeless ready) for years. 

So, way back when the Fargo Gen I was introduced, it came with Vulpine 29" X 2.1" tires. The Vulpine back then was not a tubeless tire. It also had a LOT lower tread pattern down the middle as it was a semi-slick XC racing tire to begin with. Those types of tires were falling out of favor in 2008 after about ten years or so of prominence. 

Anyway, I ended up loving the Vulpine on gravel. At the time, tubeless tires were just getting a footing in the MTB market and anything coming out after 2010 for MTB was generally also released as a tubeless ready tire. But WTB was phasing out the older designs they had then, and the Vulpine was shelved. 

So, when WTB introduced the Nano 40 in TCS around 2016, I was on the warpath with WTB to get the Vulpine out again in the TCS format for gravel usage. Their former brand manager, Will Ritchie, knew all too well what I would say anytime talk of new gravel tires came up. "Make the Vulpine again!", I would say, and he'd always graciously reply that he was putting in my requests, but that was all he could really do to make it happen. Ultimately it was up to higher powers at WTB to pull that lever that would release a new Vulpine to the masses. 

Will even sent me the very last Vulpine 29"er tire WTB had in its warehouse. A survivor that had escaped notice until it surfaced one day and Will grabbed it and sent it off to me as a way to say that he had not let my requests fall upon deaf ears. I really and truly appreciated that gesture, and I still do to this day. 

For more on the new Vulpine read my RidingGravel.com post here.

Cannondale's Scalpel HT. Image courtesy of Cannondale.

Cannondale Debuts New Scapel HT XC Racing Bike:

It isn't often that I write about mountain bikes anymore. That is because most mountain bike news these days has been centered around "Enduro" or motorized bikes, or both things together. None of which is relevant to me at all. 

So, when something gets announced that I could see myself riding, I get my ears pricked up. Such was the case Tuesday of this week when Cannondale announced its new, range-topping hard tail XC racing bike, the Scalpel HT. 

It features a pretty slack head angle of 66.5° which is fairly radical when I think back ten years ago or more in terms of hard tail mountain bikes. I remember when anything slacker than 71° for a 29"er was considered "a wheel barrow" in terms of handling. But now? Pfft! Par for the course to have a choppered out front end on a hard tail. 

And seat angles have steepened up to 74° or so on several bikes. That's just super-weird to me, but hey! The kidz love it. What do I know? Maybe this Scalpel would rule on Iowa single track? Maybe...

I've ridden MTB's with pretty slack head angles on our single track and I found that you kind of have to steer them off the back wheel. Older, steeper bikes you could pin the front wheel down on and rail a corner, maybe even drifting the rear end around. It's just a very different way of doing things now with these slacker head angled bikes, in my opinion. One way isn't necessarily better than another. But maybe when it comes to short, steep climbs? Maybe there I prefer the older geometry which doesn't have all that wandering front wheel flop thing going on. Anyway....

An interesting twist to the traditional XC racing hard tail at least. 

A Guitar Ted Blast From The Past:

I was reminded the other day of an interview I did with "CX Mag" concerning the state of all things gravel. This was conducted in 2018, right at the end of my run with Trans Iowa, so I couldn't let on at the time that 2018's version of the event was my last. Anyway...

Here's the link.

From time to time I think I'll share old stories and tales from other sources where I was interviewed or that I had something to do with. I sometimes forget my own history with all things bicycle related and it maybe would be good for me to remind y'all of those things. Plus, you'll probably enjoy these looks back anyway if you read this blog. 

Okay, so that's a wrap on this week! Got snow coming? It's just around the corner, I think. Get out and ride if you can and have a great weekend.

Friday News And Views

 Gravel Riding Clinics To Be Held In Grinnell:

Several years ago I started up an idea to hold a clinic to help those wondering about Trans Iowa, and gravel riding in general. We held it in Des Moines, and at that time, there was an outcry for information to the extent that I was being asked to YouTube the event for consumption after the event was over. I just did not have the resources or emotional energy for such a project on top of everything else I had going on back in 2013.

I have helped with a gravel clinic series here in Waterloo which we called the Iowa Gravel Expo and Bike Party. N.Y. Roll and I put these series of events on locally from 2018-2020. Again, judging from attendance from all corners of the state I knew that this was a viable idea for the gravel-curious. 

So, it comes as no surprise to me that Grinnell's Prairie Burn 100 event directors and Imagine Grinnell have teamed up to put on the "Burner Gravel Clinics". (Note-Link takes you to the Prairie Burn 100's Face Book page) 

You can see all the pertinent info in my image here, but if you want to know more you can contact Imagine Grinnell through there website here, or head to Prairie Burn 100's Face Book page linked above. 

WTB Debuts The Vulpine 700 X 36mm Tire:

This past Tuesday WTB announced the newest tire for gravel in their range, the Vulpine. I was a bit surprised that this tire was only offered in the one size to start out with, (Hoping that wider sizes come out later), but hey! I am happy too, because I had been pushing for a gravel Vulpine in TCS (tubeless ready) for years. 

So, way back when the Fargo Gen I was introduced, it came with Vulpine 29" X 2.1" tires. The Vulpine back then was not a tubeless tire. It also had a LOT lower tread pattern down the middle as it was a semi-slick XC racing tire to begin with. Those types of tires were falling out of favor in 2008 after about ten years or so of prominence. 

Anyway, I ended up loving the Vulpine on gravel. At the time, tubeless tires were just getting a footing in the MTB market and anything coming out after 2010 for MTB was generally also released as a tubeless ready tire. But WTB was phasing out the older designs they had then, and the Vulpine was shelved. 

So, when WTB introduced the Nano 40 in TCS around 2016, I was on the warpath with WTB to get the Vulpine out again in the TCS format for gravel usage. Their former brand manager, Will Ritchie, knew all too well what I would say anytime talk of new gravel tires came up. "Make the Vulpine again!", I would say, and he'd always graciously reply that he was putting in my requests, but that was all he could really do to make it happen. Ultimately it was up to higher powers at WTB to pull that lever that would release a new Vulpine to the masses. 

Will even sent me the very last Vulpine 29"er tire WTB had in its warehouse. A survivor that had escaped notice until it surfaced one day and Will grabbed it and sent it off to me as a way to say that he had not let my requests fall upon deaf ears. I really and truly appreciated that gesture, and I still do to this day. 

For more on the new Vulpine read my RidingGravel.com post here.

Cannondale's Scalpel HT. Image courtesy of Cannondale.

Cannondale Debuts New Scapel HT XC Racing Bike:

It isn't often that I write about mountain bikes anymore. That is because most mountain bike news these days has been centered around "Enduro" or motorized bikes, or both things together. None of which is relevant to me at all. 

So, when something gets announced that I could see myself riding, I get my ears pricked up. Such was the case Tuesday of this week when Cannondale announced its new, range-topping hard tail XC racing bike, the Scalpel HT. 

It features a pretty slack head angle of 66.5° which is fairly radical when I think back ten years ago or more in terms of hard tail mountain bikes. I remember when anything slacker than 71° for a 29"er was considered "a wheel barrow" in terms of handling. But now? Pfft! Par for the course to have a choppered out front end on a hard tail. 

And seat angles have steepened up to 74° or so on several bikes. That's just super-weird to me, but hey! The kidz love it. What do I know? Maybe this Scalpel would rule on Iowa single track? Maybe...

I've ridden MTB's with pretty slack head angles on our single track and I found that you kind of have to steer them off the back wheel. Older, steeper bikes you could pin the front wheel down on and rail a corner, maybe even drifting the rear end around. It's just a very different way of doing things now with these slacker head angled bikes, in my opinion. One way isn't necessarily better than another. But maybe when it comes to short, steep climbs? Maybe there I prefer the older geometry which doesn't have all that wandering front wheel flop thing going on. Anyway....

An interesting twist to the traditional XC racing hard tail at least. 

A Guitar Ted Blast From The Past:

I was reminded the other day of an interview I did with "CX Mag" concerning the state of all things gravel. This was conducted in 2018, right at the end of my run with Trans Iowa, so I couldn't let on at the time that 2018's version of the event was my last. Anyway...

Here's the link.

From time to time I think I'll share old stories and tales from other sources where I was interviewed or that I had something to do with. I sometimes forget my own history with all things bicycle related and it maybe would be good for me to remind y'all of those things. Plus, you'll probably enjoy these looks back anyway if you read this blog. 

Okay, so that's a wrap on this week! Got snow coming? It's just around the corner, I think. Get out and ride if you can and have a great weekend.

Musings On Media

I heard over the weekend that "Bike" magazine was shuttered by its parent company, reportedly to never see the light of day again. It's another in an ever growing list of niche publication shutdowns. "Dirt Rag" was shuttered last year, now this, and there have been others I am not remembering here. They have been saying 'print is dead" for years, and I suppose things like this latest shut-down are only stoking those thoughts. But like most things in life, it is never as simple as a cliche' and generally is a lot more nuanced than what you'd think. 

To be honest, I feel a bit responsible here. I mean, what I have been doing for the better part of fifteen years is what you normally would have only found in print, for a price, and never for free. You also would have only very limited access to content, since, well.....print takes a long time to produce. The format is akin home cooking- it's almost always better than fast food, but who has the time and the know-how to do it? Plus, we could be eating this now and that later without the hassles.  I have a new post every day. You didn't even get that with newspapers. Magazines? Yeah..... See ya in 28 days. Maybe more.

More is better, or so some think. 24-7 access is cool. Websites clamor to be 'first' with the latest news and reviews. Advertising was cheaper on digital media, (not sure about nowadays), and so brands and marketers went with the least expensive options. Then along came 'influencers' and brands found ways to get the word out about their stuff without fears of negative reviews and without having to pay advertising fees. Suddenly professional writers and photographers were out of jobs. Big corporate holding companies bought up floundering mag titles and liquidated, or outright shutdown everything but the bones of the operations. "Bike" reportedly had four employees at the time of its shutdown. Word was that COVID had something to do with it. Look for that 'excuse' to get well-worn as we approach 2021. 

Andy and I were bouncing ideas off each other regarding monetizing content for RidingGravel.com or on some other platform. I told him it would all hinge on an advertising revenue, or a direct subscription based format, like Patreon, but that it wuld be a hard road since most folks see what I do as being 'free' so why pay? Plus, when there are others in the same space doing everything free, how do you rise above and give value enough to the point that people would be willing to have monthly withdrawals on their credit card to support you? 

And the effort you would have to put in would be immense. That's really what it boils down to. If I am willing to go all in, quit my job, and sacrifice personal and family time, yeah....maybe then it would work. But that's a steep price to pay. In my mind, that's what it would take though. 

Also something else to consider is the unimaginable amount of information overload that is already at our fingertips. Do we really need more? It's kind of like gluttony, or pollution. All this information. Maybe we need to take the nearest exit off the super-highway and find a nice, quiet dirt road. 

But back to the print mags and "Bike" magazine in particular. I recall my friend Will Ritchie telling me that he left WTB to take an opportunity with "Bike" when it came up to him as an option several years ago. He told me it was his 'dream job', (an example of his work can be seen here), and then later corporate cuts left him on the outside looking in, and now the final death blow has seemingly been rendered. I cannot imagine the pain Will must feel over this, not to mention the rest of that crew's feelings. My heart goes out to those folks. 

Is print dead? Maybe. They said Kindle would kill the bookstores and books would be obsolete, yet the darn things are still being sold at book stores, of all things. Print magazines are also not "dead", but the traditional model isn't working either. In my wildest dreams I don't see magazines going away, but something has to change for the platform to work. And maybe that's going artisanal or bi-yearly, or some form of mixed media like YouTube and print. Hard to say. I do know that I support a guitar based publication called the "Fretboard Journal" by subscribing to their magazine and by listening to their podcasts. I also am a Patreon supporter of one of the podcasts. Maybe this is the way forward for print media. 

I don't have the answers, but one thing is for sure- media and how we consume it will be changing and ten years from now, who knows how it will look? I know that back fifteen years ago it sure looked a whole lot different than it does now. I've got a lot more to say about this subject, but that will have to wait for another day. These are just my jumbled thoughts on the subject as it relates to cycling. 

Thanks for reading.

Musings On Media

I heard over the weekend that "Bike" magazine was shuttered by its parent company, reportedly to never see the light of day again. It's another in an ever growing list of niche publication shutdowns. "Dirt Rag" was shuttered last year, now this, and there have been others I am not remembering here. They have been saying 'print is dead" for years, and I suppose things like this latest shut-down are only stoking those thoughts. But like most things in life, it is never as simple as a cliche' and generally is a lot more nuanced than what you'd think. 

To be honest, I feel a bit responsible here. I mean, what I have been doing for the better part of fifteen years is what you normally would have only found in print, for a price, and never for free. You also would have only very limited access to content, since, well.....print takes a long time to produce. The format is akin home cooking- it's almost always better than fast food, but who has the time and the know-how to do it? Plus, we could be eating this now and that later without the hassles.  I have a new post every day. You didn't even get that with newspapers. Magazines? Yeah..... See ya in 28 days. Maybe more.

More is better, or so some think. 24-7 access is cool. Websites clamor to be 'first' with the latest news and reviews. Advertising was cheaper on digital media, (not sure about nowadays), and so brands and marketers went with the least expensive options. Then along came 'influencers' and brands found ways to get the word out about their stuff without fears of negative reviews and without having to pay advertising fees. Suddenly professional writers and photographers were out of jobs. Big corporate holding companies bought up floundering mag titles and liquidated, or outright shutdown everything but the bones of the operations. "Bike" reportedly had four employees at the time of its shutdown. Word was that COVID had something to do with it. Look for that 'excuse' to get well-worn as we approach 2021. 

Andy and I were bouncing ideas off each other regarding monetizing content for RidingGravel.com or on some other platform. I told him it would all hinge on an advertising revenue, or a direct subscription based format, like Patreon, but that it wuld be a hard road since most folks see what I do as being 'free' so why pay? Plus, when there are others in the same space doing everything free, how do you rise above and give value enough to the point that people would be willing to have monthly withdrawals on their credit card to support you? 

And the effort you would have to put in would be immense. That's really what it boils down to. If I am willing to go all in, quit my job, and sacrifice personal and family time, yeah....maybe then it would work. But that's a steep price to pay. In my mind, that's what it would take though. 

Also something else to consider is the unimaginable amount of information overload that is already at our fingertips. Do we really need more? It's kind of like gluttony, or pollution. All this information. Maybe we need to take the nearest exit off the super-highway and find a nice, quiet dirt road. 

But back to the print mags and "Bike" magazine in particular. I recall my friend Will Ritchie telling me that he left WTB to take an opportunity with "Bike" when it came up to him as an option several years ago. He told me it was his 'dream job', (an example of his work can be seen here), and then later corporate cuts left him on the outside looking in, and now the final death blow has seemingly been rendered. I cannot imagine the pain Will must feel over this, not to mention the rest of that crew's feelings. My heart goes out to those folks. 

Is print dead? Maybe. They said Kindle would kill the bookstores and books would be obsolete, yet the darn things are still being sold at book stores, of all things. Print magazines are also not "dead", but the traditional model isn't working either. In my wildest dreams I don't see magazines going away, but something has to change for the platform to work. And maybe that's going artisanal or bi-yearly, or some form of mixed media like YouTube and print. Hard to say. I do know that I support a guitar based publication called the "Fretboard Journal" by subscribing to their magazine and by listening to their podcasts. I also am a Patreon supporter of one of the podcasts. Maybe this is the way forward for print media. 

I don't have the answers, but one thing is for sure- media and how we consume it will be changing and ten years from now, who knows how it will look? I know that back fifteen years ago it sure looked a whole lot different than it does now. I've got a lot more to say about this subject, but that will have to wait for another day. These are just my jumbled thoughts on the subject as it relates to cycling. 

Thanks for reading.

Trans Iowa Stories: A Tool For Marketing

Part of a trade show booth put together by Salsa Cycles in 2014.

 "Trans Iowa Stories" is an every Sunday post which helps tell the stories behind the event. You can check out other posts about this subject by going back to earlier Sunday posts on this blog. Thanks and enjoy!

By 2012 or so, the gravel riding scene had generated enough interest from participants that bicycling related companies started to take notice. Salsa Cycles being perhaps the first to do so by introducing a purpose built gravel bike in the Warbird. Although it could be argued that the Titanium La Cruz was really the first effort they made to get into the gravel scene.

Of course, when you make a new category of bicycle you are going to need tires to work with it. There were basically none up until Salsa Cycles convinced Donn Kellogg, then running a tire brand called Clement, to produce some. The MSO became that tire, and then with the introduction of the Raleigh Tamland series, it was on from that point. Then, when that happened, well the marketing was sure to follow, and it did big time.

As it related to Trans Iowa, that all could have happened a lot sooner than it did. Jeff Kerkove, who was a big name in solo 24hr racing at the time we started Trans Iowa, had many connections stemming from the endurance mountain bike racing community. One of those relationships was with Red Bull, who sponsored mountain biking events and several athletes in mountain biking. Red Bull agreed to sponsor the first Trans Iowa. It wasn't some token effort either.

This 40ft tent was only one facet of the Red Bull sponsorship of T.I.v1 (Image by D. Kerkove)

Red Bull made a plan to activate their sponsorship across the entire route of the point-to-point event. Remember- that's over 300 miles of Iowa! Their plan was to send out 40 foot tents to the mid-point mandated time cut point and to the finish. We kind of dissuaded them a bit on the tent deal, but they ended up doing the Algona checkpoint nonetheless. Another facet of the sponsorship was to provide event participants with Red Bull energy drink.

That plan was not well thought out, and with all Jeff and I had going on, Red Bull's efforts got lost in the haze. Not many people know this, but two young employees of Red Bull actually traipsed across Iowa handing out Red Bull product to confused Iowans along what these two young people thought was the route. They didn't quite understand we were out on gravel roads, and yet it didn't seem to matter to these two folks. I heard vague reports of them standing along the main drags of Forest City and Cresco handing people cans of Red Bull and yakking about some crazy race called "Trans Iowa" and would it be coming through here?

People must have thought they were aliens.

But the Red Bull thing could have been huge had we pursued that angle. I know they didn't understand what they had gotten themselves into, and if we knew what we had gotten ourselves into, we could have sold that to Red Bull easily. How do I know this? Well, Red Bull was a long time sponsor of the DK200, that's how I know. But it wasn't to be, and maybe that's a good thing.

Of course, the Salsa Cycles thing kind of snuck in there when they started offering prizing to Trans Iowa event participants and then started testing product at the event. By Trans Iowa v9, they had the Warbird officially released. To market the bike, they concocted a plan to get riders on Warbirds into Trans Iowa and the DK200. At that time, these were considered to be the two plumbs of the gravel cycling world's pie.  If the Warbird could be shown to be able to compliment a rider's efforts through these long endurance grinders, then it would be good enough for anybody.

Raw camera imagery from Jason Boucher from T.I.v9

So, I knew that Salsa wanted to get certain riders in for Trans Iowa v9, and a soft request was made to see if I might be amenable to ushering through a few guys in the registration, but you know where that went, I'm sure! Regardless, they pretty much ended up with the guys they wanted, mainly Tim Ek, then a sponsored Salsa Cycles athlete, and a guy by the name of Paul Errington, of the U.K.

Prizing and arrangements to have Jason Boucher, former head of Salsa Cycles but still with the parent company, QBP, along to take imagery, were set. But at the last minute, (two weeks or so out), a request was made to allow another QBP photographer access to the event. His name was Scott Haraldson. This was not what I had envisioned, but after a few tersely stated emails from me wanting specifics, it pretty much came out that Scott was there from a QBP/Salsa marketing standpoint only.

That headache was eventually navigated and to be honest, I don't think I even saw Scott at anytime out on the course. Come to find out he basically shadowed Ek and Errington only. This rubbed me a bit the wrong way, as it could have been "outside support" from the standpoint of cheer leading/outside encouragement. I don't know that this actually happened, but I wasn't about to have that situation potentially happen again in a Trans Iowa. Fortunately, Trans Iowa fell way down on the lists of marketing folks to target for their products and requests like that of QBP were not endured after T.I.v9. Only WTB really used Trans Iowa as a marketing tool after this, and they did it in a very organic, sincere way.

When WTB came a-knockin', it was by way of sponsoring the event with tires. When I say tires, I mean cases of tires. They sent Nano 40's one year, which many folks got their hands on. For T.I.v11, they sent about ten cases of Nano 40 TCS tires that, due to the situation of T.I.v11, I had to hand out in a bar in Grinnell, and the left overs were used for sponsor prizing the following year. Then there was the way WTB used Trans Iowa in marketing.

Will Ritchie, then of WTB, in T.I.v12. Image by Wally Kilburg

WTB had a gravel cycling, and more specifically, a Trans Iowa advocate, in Will Ritchie. Will, believed in what Trans Iowa was all about so much that he pretty much went full immersion and not only asked for, and got, tires made for gravel racing/riding, but attended and rode in Trans Iowa. He basically lavished Trans Iowa with sponsorship unheard of before or since.

Trans Iowa got rare pre-production tires for the winners of V-12. Trans Iowa got a piece of a shipment of tires meant for OEM's to test ahead of them being for sale. Trans Iowa got tires from the first batch of tubeless gravel tires ever made for sale and which were so much in demand that I was receiving calls from bike shops begging me to sell them tires from the prizing stash.

Will and WTB got valuable exposure, testing time, and came up with at least two designs directly coming out of their Trans Iowa experiences. Those tires being the Riddler and the Resolute. The Riddler, a variant on a theme first released as a mountain bike tire, is a perennial spec on many gravel bikes while the Resolute, a purely Trans Iowa derived design, has gone on to become my favorite tire for gravel. It is criminally underrated in my opinion.

But getting back to the marketing- WTB never really overtly called out T.I. in their marketing, nor did they overtly use Trans Iowa in their imagery. Not a big deal to me. I suspect that was mostly done out of respect stemming from Will Ritchie's deep feelings toward the event itself. Will penned a couple of heartfelt blog posts once on the WTB blog. You can see those here and here. I don't know how many folks actually read blog posts on brand websites, so those may have been mostly under the radar for many cyclists, but they are well worth reading. Will has a way with words, and they are good reads. But the point is, you can see the deep respect that Will had for Trans Iowa, and it seeped into the way WTB went about doing gravel specific tires and in their marketing.

A view of the Trans Iowa inspired panel in the Salsa Cycles' booth from Frostbike.

Salsa, on the other hand, actually put images and words about Trans Iowa into one of their catalogs and into their trade show booth appearance for a couple of seasons. I got to experience the trade show booth at Frostbike and it was impressive. I cannot say that ether Salsa's or WTB's way of marketing T.I. was right or wrong. It was good. It was good for gravel grinding in general. It didn't do anything for Trans Iowa because I was not doing the event in such a manner that capitalizing on the attention would make sense.

 So, it was flattering, for sure, and I was grateful for the momentary spotlight, but in terms of bringing more prestige, glory, and probably most importantly and obviously, monetary benefits? Nah.... not so much. I wasn't geared toward making coin off Trans Iowa, and that wasn't what it was about. So all the marketing and whatnot was a tool for the brands that participated in Trans Iowa with me. And that is okay. In the end, what they did with Trans Iowa benefited gravel riding overall, and to me, that was the most important thing. Bringing this style of cycling to more rider's attention. In that, the marketing done out of Trans Iowa was somewhat successful, I hope. 

Next: Let's get on with the show.......

Trans Iowa Stories: A Tool For Marketing

Part of a trade show booth put together by Salsa Cycles in 2014.

 "Trans Iowa Stories" is an every Sunday post which helps tell the stories behind the event. You can check out other posts about this subject by going back to earlier Sunday posts on this blog. Thanks and enjoy!

By 2012 or so, the gravel riding scene had generated enough interest from participants that bicycling related companies started to take notice. Salsa Cycles being perhaps the first to do so by introducing a purpose built gravel bike in the Warbird. Although it could be argued that the Titanium La Cruz was really the first effort they made to get into the gravel scene.

Of course, when you make a new category of bicycle you are going to need tires to work with it. There were basically none up until Salsa Cycles convinced Donn Kellogg, then running a tire brand called Clement, to produce some. The MSO became that tire, and then with the introduction of the Raleigh Tamland series, it was on from that point. Then, when that happened, well the marketing was sure to follow, and it did big time.

As it related to Trans Iowa, that all could have happened a lot sooner than it did. Jeff Kerkove, who was a big name in solo 24hr racing at the time we started Trans Iowa, had many connections stemming from the endurance mountain bike racing community. One of those relationships was with Red Bull, who sponsored mountain biking events and several athletes in mountain biking. Red Bull agreed to sponsor the first Trans Iowa. It wasn't some token effort either.

This 40ft tent was only one facet of the Red Bull sponsorship of T.I.v1 (Image by D. Kerkove)

Red Bull made a plan to activate their sponsorship across the entire route of the point-to-point event. Remember- that's over 300 miles of Iowa! Their plan was to send out 40 foot tents to the mid-point mandated time cut point and to the finish. We kind of dissuaded them a bit on the tent deal, but they ended up doing the Algona checkpoint nonetheless. Another facet of the sponsorship was to provide event participants with Red Bull energy drink.

That plan was not well thought out, and with all Jeff and I had going on, Red Bull's efforts got lost in the haze. Not many people know this, but two young employees of Red Bull actually traipsed across Iowa handing out Red Bull product to confused Iowans along what these two young people thought was the route. They didn't quite understand we were out on gravel roads, and yet it didn't seem to matter to these two folks. I heard vague reports of them standing along the main drags of Forest City and Cresco handing people cans of Red Bull and yakking about some crazy race called "Trans Iowa" and would it be coming through here?

People must have thought they were aliens.

But the Red Bull thing could have been huge had we pursued that angle. I know they didn't understand what they had gotten themselves into, and if we knew what we had gotten ourselves into, we could have sold that to Red Bull easily. How do I know this? Well, Red Bull was a long time sponsor of the DK200, that's how I know. But it wasn't to be, and maybe that's a good thing.

Of course, the Salsa Cycles thing kind of snuck in there when they started offering prizing to Trans Iowa event participants and then started testing product at the event. By Trans Iowa v9, they had the Warbird officially released. To market the bike, they concocted a plan to get riders on Warbirds into Trans Iowa and the DK200. At that time, these were considered to be the two plumbs of the gravel cycling world's pie.  If the Warbird could be shown to be able to compliment a rider's efforts through these long endurance grinders, then it would be good enough for anybody.

Raw camera imagery from Jason Boucher from T.I.v9

So, I knew that Salsa wanted to get certain riders in for Trans Iowa v9, and a soft request was made to see if I might be amenable to ushering through a few guys in the registration, but you know where that went, I'm sure! Regardless, they pretty much ended up with the guys they wanted, mainly Tim Ek, then a sponsored Salsa Cycles athlete, and a guy by the name of Paul Errington, of the U.K.

Prizing and arrangements to have Jason Boucher, former head of Salsa Cycles but still with the parent company, QBP, along to take imagery, were set. But at the last minute, (two weeks or so out), a request was made to allow another QBP photographer access to the event. His name was Scott Haraldson. This was not what I had envisioned, but after a few tersely stated emails from me wanting specifics, it pretty much came out that Scott was there from a QBP/Salsa marketing standpoint only.

That headache was eventually navigated and to be honest, I don't think I even saw Scott at anytime out on the course. Come to find out he basically shadowed Ek and Errington only. This rubbed me a bit the wrong way, as it could have been "outside support" from the standpoint of cheer leading/outside encouragement. I don't know that this actually happened, but I wasn't about to have that situation potentially happen again in a Trans Iowa. Fortunately, Trans Iowa fell way down on the lists of marketing folks to target for their products and requests like that of QBP were not endured after T.I.v9. Only WTB really used Trans Iowa as a marketing tool after this, and they did it in a very organic, sincere way.

When WTB came a-knockin', it was by way of sponsoring the event with tires. When I say tires, I mean cases of tires. They sent Nano 40's one year, which many folks got their hands on. For T.I.v11, they sent about ten cases of Nano 40 TCS tires that, due to the situation of T.I.v11, I had to hand out in a bar in Grinnell, and the left overs were used for sponsor prizing the following year. Then there was the way WTB used Trans Iowa in marketing.

Will Ritchie, then of WTB, in T.I.v12. Image by Wally Kilburg

WTB had a gravel cycling, and more specifically, a Trans Iowa advocate, in Will Ritchie. Will, believed in what Trans Iowa was all about so much that he pretty much went full immersion and not only asked for, and got, tires made for gravel racing/riding, but attended and rode in Trans Iowa. He basically lavished Trans Iowa with sponsorship unheard of before or since.

Trans Iowa got rare pre-production tires for the winners of V-12. Trans Iowa got a piece of a shipment of tires meant for OEM's to test ahead of them being for sale. Trans Iowa got tires from the first batch of tubeless gravel tires ever made for sale and which were so much in demand that I was receiving calls from bike shops begging me to sell them tires from the prizing stash.

Will and WTB got valuable exposure, testing time, and came up with at least two designs directly coming out of their Trans Iowa experiences. Those tires being the Riddler and the Resolute. The Riddler, a variant on a theme first released as a mountain bike tire, is a perennial spec on many gravel bikes while the Resolute, a purely Trans Iowa derived design, has gone on to become my favorite tire for gravel. It is criminally underrated in my opinion.

But getting back to the marketing- WTB never really overtly called out T.I. in their marketing, nor did they overtly use Trans Iowa in their imagery. Not a big deal to me. I suspect that was mostly done out of respect stemming from Will Ritchie's deep feelings toward the event itself. Will penned a couple of heartfelt blog posts once on the WTB blog. You can see those here and here. I don't know how many folks actually read blog posts on brand websites, so those may have been mostly under the radar for many cyclists, but they are well worth reading. Will has a way with words, and they are good reads. But the point is, you can see the deep respect that Will had for Trans Iowa, and it seeped into the way WTB went about doing gravel specific tires and in their marketing.

A view of the Trans Iowa inspired panel in the Salsa Cycles' booth from Frostbike.

Salsa, on the other hand, actually put images and words about Trans Iowa into one of their catalogs and into their trade show booth appearance for a couple of seasons. I got to experience the trade show booth at Frostbike and it was impressive. I cannot say that ether Salsa's or WTB's way of marketing T.I. was right or wrong. It was good. It was good for gravel grinding in general. It didn't do anything for Trans Iowa because I was not doing the event in such a manner that capitalizing on the attention would make sense.

 So, it was flattering, for sure, and I was grateful for the momentary spotlight, but in terms of bringing more prestige, glory, and probably most importantly and obviously, monetary benefits? Nah.... not so much. I wasn't geared toward making coin off Trans Iowa, and that wasn't what it was about. So all the marketing and whatnot was a tool for the brands that participated in Trans Iowa with me. And that is okay. In the end, what they did with Trans Iowa benefited gravel riding overall, and to me, that was the most important thing. Bringing this style of cycling to more rider's attention. In that, the marketing done out of Trans Iowa was somewhat successful, I hope. 

Next: Let's get on with the show.......