Rear View '19: In Images

The 12 best images from the blog for 2019 as chosen by me, Guitar Ted. All decisions are final! (HA!) I actually do not have one from this month as it is filled with all this other garbage from looking back on the other 11 months, so you'll get a "bonus" November image instead.

So, here we go with the 12 best images from 2019. Enjoy!

January- Winter came late, around about January 15th, so gravel travel went longer into the season than usual. 

February- There wasn't much riding done in February as all I did was shovel snow. The C.O.G. 100 was a month away!

March- While it took about two weeks to melt all the snow, we were pretty worried going into the inaugural C.O.G. 100 that it wouldn't be.

April- The Renegade Gents Race day presented me with this opportunity to ride to the start from Ankeny Iowa.

June- The Solstice 100 was a fun, but strange adventure for me.

July- The Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational. Dirt, rain, and heat.

August- Peace falls on Southern Black Hawk County

September- "Grandpa Flowers" on Petrie Road's Level B section.

October- A lonely dog trots down Sage Road in Black Hawk County

November- Sunrise over Grundy County

Bonus November image- Riders coming back towards Cedar Falls, Iowa on a chilly morning. 

Thanks for checking out Guitar Ted Productions!

Rear View '19: In Images

The 12 best images from the blog for 2019 as chosen by me, Guitar Ted. All decisions are final! (HA!) I actually do not have one from this month as it is filled with all this other garbage from looking back on the other 11 months, so you'll get a "bonus" November image instead.

So, here we go with the 12 best images from 2019. Enjoy!

January- Winter came late, around about January 15th, so gravel travel went longer into the season than usual. 

February- There wasn't much riding done in February as all I did was shovel snow. The C.O.G. 100 was a month away!

March- While it took about two weeks to melt all the snow, we were pretty worried going into the inaugural C.O.G. 100 that it wouldn't be.

April- The Renegade Gents Race day presented me with this opportunity to ride to the start from Ankeny Iowa.

June- The Solstice 100 was a fun, but strange adventure for me.

July- The Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational. Dirt, rain, and heat.

August- Peace falls on Southern Black Hawk County

September- "Grandpa Flowers" on Petrie Road's Level B section.

October- A lonely dog trots down Sage Road in Black Hawk County

November- Sunrise over Grundy County

Bonus November image- Riders coming back towards Cedar Falls, Iowa on a chilly morning. 

Thanks for checking out Guitar Ted Productions!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and joyous holidays spent with family, friends, or doing whatever it is that brings you happiness this time of the season.  May you have safe travels and the best of times.

I'll be back tomorrow with a regularly scheduled dose of Guitar Ted musings for y'all.

All The Best From Guitar Ted Productions!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and joyous holidays spent with family, friends, or doing whatever it is that brings you happiness this time of the season.  May you have safe travels and the best of times.

I'll be back tomorrow with a regularly scheduled dose of Guitar Ted musings for y'all.

All The Best From Guitar Ted Productions!

Thank You!

I would be remiss if I didn't immediately and thoroughly thank so many of you readers here, (and others that reached out with messages of encouragement), after I posted yesterday about the end of my time at my old shop job. I wasn't expecting the outpouring of support and remembrances that were shared with me. Please know that I am very grateful for all of it and I won't forget this day, that's for sure.

It is weird to walk away from something that has become a fixture in your life. Although in your heart, you know it is the right thing to do, there still are those doubts and fears that crop up and need to be put down. Your thoughts and messages really helped to kick doubt straight out of my mind. Thank you!

One side effect of all of this was learning how I had touched a few of your lives in ways that I did not expect. I was honestly surprised by these remarks which warmed my heart also. One lesson for us all: Never underestimate how you may have impacted someone's life. It makes you wonder if we shouldn't all keep it positive and move forward, because what we are doing really does matter to people you'd be surprised to know about.

Anyway...Thank You One and All! 

I can never repay all the love and goodwill I have received over the past 24 hours. 

Thank You!

I would be remiss if I didn't immediately and thoroughly thank so many of you readers here, (and others that reached out with messages of encouragement), after I posted yesterday about the end of my time at my old shop job. I wasn't expecting the outpouring of support and remembrances that were shared with me. Please know that I am very grateful for all of it and I won't forget this day, that's for sure.

It is weird to walk away from something that has become a fixture in your life. Although in your heart, you know it is the right thing to do, there still are those doubts and fears that crop up and need to be put down. Your thoughts and messages really helped to kick doubt straight out of my mind. Thank you!

One side effect of all of this was learning how I had touched a few of your lives in ways that I did not expect. I was honestly surprised by these remarks which warmed my heart also. One lesson for us all: Never underestimate how you may have impacted someone's life. It makes you wonder if we shouldn't all keep it positive and move forward, because what we are doing really does matter to people you'd be surprised to know about.

Anyway...Thank You One and All! 

I can never repay all the love and goodwill I have received over the past 24 hours. 

Bikes Of 2019: Noble Bikes GX5

As currently set up. A "test mule" for Riding Gravel

Nobel Bikes GX5: This will be an odd post for this series because this bike was a review bike for RidingGravel.com . It was a test/review bike sent at no charge, and I am under no obligation whatsoever to talk about this bike at all. So a bit of disclosure here to begin with:

Here is something not many folks that review stuff tell you- they end up with things companies don't take back, or do not want to take back. You can look at that however you want. I'm not completely sure how to explain it, and I've been doing this sort of thing since 2005.

What I can tell you is that most wear items, clothing, and accessories under, oh say $100.00, maybe more- don't go back. Some of this is obvious. What is a company going to do with a pair of socks after a reviewer has ridden in them several times? Same goes for shoes, jerseys.....you get the idea. It isn't new anymore and you don't want to wear clothes that someone else has sweat in. Well, typically..... Anywho.... Tires, bar tape, and things like that fall into this category as well. Bikes however; well, they usually almost always go back, always on the company's dime, as far as shipping goes.

Back to this bike. I offered to send it back. It was left here. So, instead of just leaving it to rot in a corner, I'm using it as a test sled for stuff for Riding Gravel. Currently it is set up with Shimano GRX 1X which is being reviewed for the site. The drive train and wheels are all GRX here. Shimano PRO covers the bars, seat post, and stem. The saddle is a WTB Volt.

I've ridden this bike a lot throughout 2019, and so it deserves to be on this list. It's a great bike, taking the "DNA" of the Raleigh Tamland and translating that to carbon fiber. It rides very smoothly for a carbon bike. The fork is nice, not a jackhammer, but not a noodle either. It isn't going to probably be the bike that folks coming from the roadie side think will be good on gravel, because those folks want to mimic the road geometry on gravel, which isn't optimal. The Noble Bikes GX5 avoided that trap, thankfully, and rides far better on gravel for it.

It's not a perfect bike by any stretch. It isn't mechanical front derailleur compatible, so this is a 1X only bike unless you go Di2 or AXS. The tire clearance is good, but it isn't what some bikes have now. It doesn't have a lot of extra bottle mounts. (Nothing on the fork) So, there are things it could have that its competition does have, but this is still a great gravel bike.

Plans for this bike in the future? Ride it as a test sled until the manufacturer wants it back, or....???  Stay tuned.... 

Note: Noble Bikes sent the GX5 for test and review to Riding Gravel at no charge. 

Bikes Of 2019: Noble Bikes GX5

As currently set up. A "test mule" for Riding Gravel

Nobel Bikes GX5: This will be an odd post for this series because this bike was a review bike for RidingGravel.com . It was a test/review bike sent at no charge, and I am under no obligation whatsoever to talk about this bike at all. So a bit of disclosure here to begin with:

Here is something not many folks that review stuff tell you- they end up with things companies don't take back, or do not want to take back. You can look at that however you want. I'm not completely sure how to explain it, and I've been doing this sort of thing since 2005.

What I can tell you is that most wear items, clothing, and accessories under, oh say $100.00, maybe more- don't go back. Some of this is obvious. What is a company going to do with a pair of socks after a reviewer has ridden in them several times? Same goes for shoes, jerseys.....you get the idea. It isn't new anymore and you don't want to wear clothes that someone else has sweat in. Well, typically..... Anywho.... Tires, bar tape, and things like that fall into this category as well. Bikes however; well, they usually almost always go back, always on the company's dime, as far as shipping goes.

Back to this bike. I offered to send it back. It was left here. So, instead of just leaving it to rot in a corner, I'm using it as a test sled for stuff for Riding Gravel. Currently it is set up with Shimano GRX 1X which is being reviewed for the site. The drive train and wheels are all GRX here. Shimano PRO covers the bars, seat post, and stem. The saddle is a WTB Volt.

I've ridden this bike a lot throughout 2019, and so it deserves to be on this list. It's a great bike, taking the "DNA" of the Raleigh Tamland and translating that to carbon fiber. It rides very smoothly for a carbon bike. The fork is nice, not a jackhammer, but not a noodle either. It isn't going to probably be the bike that folks coming from the roadie side think will be good on gravel, because those folks want to mimic the road geometry on gravel, which isn't optimal. The Noble Bikes GX5 avoided that trap, thankfully, and rides far better on gravel for it.

It's not a perfect bike by any stretch. It isn't mechanical front derailleur compatible, so this is a 1X only bike unless you go Di2 or AXS. The tire clearance is good, but it isn't what some bikes have now. It doesn't have a lot of extra bottle mounts. (Nothing on the fork) So, there are things it could have that its competition does have, but this is still a great gravel bike.

Plans for this bike in the future? Ride it as a test sled until the manufacturer wants it back, or....???  Stay tuned.... 

Note: Noble Bikes sent the GX5 for test and review to Riding Gravel at no charge. 

Shifting Gears

This has been a looooong time coming. So, hang on, because I have to start this tale at the beginning, and that goes back 17 years and three months ago, give or take a few days. It was 2002, and I had a young daughter, only a year and a half old, and I wanted to get out of the car fixing business. That was a great job with an awesome, business savvy boss and fun co-workers, and I made a LOT of money doing that. I had benefits, a 401K, insurance, and the whole nine yards. But......I didn't want to be THAT kind of father. I was working 60+ hours a week, and I would be dead tired at the end of the day. Plus, I had to work six days a week every other week. It was too much, in my mind, for me to be a good Dad. I needed to change jobs to be the father I was wanting to be.

That's me back in 2005 at my bench. Image probably taken by Jeff Kerkove.

And in September of 2002 I did. I started working at the bike shop.  I ended up being a part timer for many years, with little to no benefits, no  retirement, no insurance, and a boss that was the polar opposite of my boss at the auto repair shop. I took a HUGE pay cut. But in return I didn't have to work nights, weekends, and I got Holidays off. I got one week paid vacation, and later on, two weeks. For a while I got paid holidays too. But the biggest benefit of all was that I could, at a moments notice, take care of family matters with no repercussions. I could be there for my kids to take them to school every morning, and pick them up in the afternoons. I got Wednesdays off for years. This helped a ton with my review work. It was low stress and a lot healthier lifestyle, despite the lack of benefits you'd normally associate with a job. I was very fortunate to be able to raise my two kids in this era of my life with this employment situation. I was also very fortunate that I met many of the people I have met because I was in this job. I am well aware of that part.

But then things went bad. I cannot say much about the business here.  (You know what they say- If you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all.) As far as how things were going personally, about three years ago, with no warning, my paid vacation and holiday pay were yanked. It became increasingly clear that something was deeply wrong at my place of employment. About a year, year and a half ago, I started looking into my options. The kids are grown, I didn't get the same benefit out of working there anymore. The plan was to move on in the Spring of this year, but circumstances didn't pan out.

Meanwhile, things got worse. My hours were cut again and again due to poor business decisions. Repair and maintenance work disappeared due to the appearances that the shop was in trouble. There was a new shop and many good customers went there instead during late 2019. Things got weird at work with management, then they got weirder. On December 1st, I found out via Facebook that the shop was closing its doors for good on December 31st. (Not that I was surprised, mind you, it was the principle of the thing that got to me) Maybe someday I can release details, but for now, all you need to know is that I no longer work for Europa Cycle & Ski. I terminated my relationship with that shop as of last Friday.

My work area during my last days at the shop.

I knew the end was coming for quite some time and I had been moving my things back home piece by piece over the Spring and Summer. The "situation" has been obvious to many, I know, and I wasn't blind to it either. By the time December came I had pared my tools back to a bare minimum to do basic stuff. Not that there was much to do....

Switching gears now will be tough until I can enter whatever will be my next phase in my employment life. I'm excited for that, and I know I will be a LOT better off than I have been for several years. But until then, I have to muddle through for a while. It'll be okay. I've managed to save some money, and I have some odd jobs lined up. It'll be tight, but change is never easy, is it?

Stay tuned.........

Shifting Gears

This has been a looooong time coming. So, hang on, because I have to start this tale at the beginning, and that goes back 17 years and three months ago, give or take a few days. It was 2002, and I had a young daughter, only a year and a half old, and I wanted to get out of the car fixing business. That was a great job with an awesome, business savvy boss and fun co-workers, and I made a LOT of money doing that. I had benefits, a 401K, insurance, and the whole nine yards. But......I didn't want to be THAT kind of father. I was working 60+ hours a week, and I would be dead tired at the end of the day. Plus, I had to work six days a week every other week. It was too much, in my mind, for me to be a good Dad. I needed to change jobs to be the father I was wanting to be.

That's me back in 2005 at my bench. Image probably taken by Jeff Kerkove.

And in September of 2002 I did. I started working at the bike shop.  I ended up being a part timer for many years, with little to no benefits, no  retirement, no insurance, and a boss that was the polar opposite of my boss at the auto repair shop. I took a HUGE pay cut. But in return I didn't have to work nights, weekends, and I got Holidays off. I got one week paid vacation, and later on, two weeks. For a while I got paid holidays too. But the biggest benefit of all was that I could, at a moments notice, take care of family matters with no repercussions. I could be there for my kids to take them to school every morning, and pick them up in the afternoons. I got Wednesdays off for years. This helped a ton with my review work. It was low stress and a lot healthier lifestyle, despite the lack of benefits you'd normally associate with a job. I was very fortunate to be able to raise my two kids in this era of my life with this employment situation. I was also very fortunate that I met many of the people I have met because I was in this job. I am well aware of that part.

But then things went bad. I cannot say much about the business here.  (You know what they say- If you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all.) As far as how things were going personally, about three years ago, with no warning, my paid vacation and holiday pay were yanked. It became increasingly clear that something was deeply wrong at my place of employment. About a year, year and a half ago, I started looking into my options. The kids are grown, I didn't get the same benefit out of working there anymore. The plan was to move on in the Spring of this year, but circumstances didn't pan out.

Meanwhile, things got worse. My hours were cut again and again due to poor business decisions. Repair and maintenance work disappeared due to the appearances that the shop was in trouble. There was a new shop and many good customers went there instead during late 2019. Things got weird at work with management, then they got weirder. On December 1st, I found out via Facebook that the shop was closing its doors for good on December 31st. (Not that I was surprised, mind you, it was the principle of the thing that got to me) Maybe someday I can release details, but for now, all you need to know is that I no longer work for Europa Cycle & Ski. I terminated my relationship with that shop as of last Friday.

My work area during my last days at the shop.

I knew the end was coming for quite some time and I had been moving my things back home piece by piece over the Spring and Summer. The "situation" has been obvious to many, I know, and I wasn't blind to it either. By the time December came I had pared my tools back to a bare minimum to do basic stuff. Not that there was much to do....

Switching gears now will be tough until I can enter whatever will be my next phase in my employment life. I'm excited for that, and I know I will be a LOT better off than I have been for several years. But until then, I have to muddle through for a while. It'll be okay. I've managed to save some money, and I have some odd jobs lined up. It'll be tight, but change is never easy, is it?

Stay tuned.........

Trans Iowa Stories: The One-Off- Intro

The calf from the morning of T.I.v4's pre-race became the header for T.I.v5.

 "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 the time of the running of the fifth Trans Iowa, you would think I'd have had everything all figured out. Boy! Nothing could have been further from the truth. With the event evolving every year, and with some of those changes being pretty significant ones, the event really lacked a lot of continuity. The fifth one didn't help much in some ways with that, but in others it was the event which 'solved a lot of problems' for me. I hope to paint a clearer picture of this as I get into the telling of the stories about this, singularly unique, and very memorable, Trans Iowa.

Some things I won't dive into very deeply as there are things I've beaten to death concerning this event. But there are details I've never shared which may help put some puzzle pieces together for some fans of Trans Iowa. I will touch on all that was unique to the event though. One thing in particular should be told up front that I believe was a story that sets the stage for what is to come concerning T.I.v5's stories.

David Pals was still my co-director, and for this Trans Iowa, we had a new territory to explore, but an area that David knew well, being it was within his area of gravel riding from his home, then in Marengo, Iowa. I'll get into why it was we were down that way later, but one of the things David was excited to share with me was a quaint little village called Washington, Iowa.

Now, I had a bit of familiarity with this town, located Southwest of Iowa City, as I had explored possibly living there at one point when I was working in Iowa City as a jeweler. (That's another whole story of my life, but there is no space for that here.) That said, I hadn't really gone "downtown", and this was what David wanted to show me. Washington, like many smaller Southern Iowa villages and towns, has a town square. It was surrounded by businesses, and David was thinking we might use the town square as a checkpoint location. He showed me the central, park-like lawn, and then we drove around the square looking for a coffee shop or bakery. David was sure there was one, but he didn't know exactly where it was.

It was early, perhaps too early, for small Iowa businesses to be open on a Saturday. We didn't see anything inviting, that is, until we saw her. She had appeared as if out of nowhere. We hadn't noticed her on our first circumnavigation of the town square. She was a strange visage for such a town in Iowa. She seemed to me to be more like a liberal arts student from the University of Iowa than a small town, conservative, rural woman. We immediately were both struck by the incongruity of her appearance and her presence on the very edge of the street. She stared at us intently as we gazed upon her. Then something very peculiar came over us. We slowed down. It was as if we were hearing the Siren's song, but it was eerily silent. She beckoned to us just then. As if under a spell, David simply pulled into a parking space, and we both got out. The young woman then offered us coffee from her shop, which plainly was there, all of a sudden. But we didn't see it until just at that point in the day.

Odd that. But the coffee was as magical as the woman's appearance, and she not only was a fine and engaging hostess, but the owner of the shop. In the end, we struck up a deal for her to offer her coffee and pastries when we arrived with the event later that April, and by all accounts, the coffee was excellent and she did a great business that day.

It was weird like that, and so was the entire event. A one-off, magical moment in Trans Iowa's history.

Next Week: Rejected!

Trans Iowa Stories: The One-Off- Intro

The calf from the morning of T.I.v4's pre-race became the header for T.I.v5.

 "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 the time of the running of the fifth Trans Iowa, you would think I'd have had everything all figured out. Boy! Nothing could have been further from the truth. With the event evolving every year, and with some of those changes being pretty significant ones, the event really lacked a lot of continuity. The fifth one didn't help much in some ways with that, but in others it was the event which 'solved a lot of problems' for me. I hope to paint a clearer picture of this as I get into the telling of the stories about this, singularly unique, and very memorable, Trans Iowa.

Some things I won't dive into very deeply as there are things I've beaten to death concerning this event. But there are details I've never shared which may help put some puzzle pieces together for some fans of Trans Iowa. I will touch on all that was unique to the event though. One thing in particular should be told up front that I believe was a story that sets the stage for what is to come concerning T.I.v5's stories.

David Pals was still my co-director, and for this Trans Iowa, we had a new territory to explore, but an area that David knew well, being it was within his area of gravel riding from his home, then in Marengo, Iowa. I'll get into why it was we were down that way later, but one of the things David was excited to share with me was a quaint little village called Washington, Iowa.

Now, I had a bit of familiarity with this town, located Southwest of Iowa City, as I had explored possibly living there at one point when I was working in Iowa City as a jeweler. (That's another whole story of my life, but there is no space for that here.) That said, I hadn't really gone "downtown", and this was what David wanted to show me. Washington, like many smaller Southern Iowa villages and towns, has a town square. It was surrounded by businesses, and David was thinking we might use the town square as a checkpoint location. He showed me the central, park-like lawn, and then we drove around the square looking for a coffee shop or bakery. David was sure there was one, but he didn't know exactly where it was.

It was early, perhaps too early, for small Iowa businesses to be open on a Saturday. We didn't see anything inviting, that is, until we saw her. She had appeared as if out of nowhere. We hadn't noticed her on our first circumnavigation of the town square. She was a strange visage for such a town in Iowa. She seemed to me to be more like a liberal arts student from the University of Iowa than a small town, conservative, rural woman. We immediately were both struck by the incongruity of her appearance and her presence on the very edge of the street. She stared at us intently as we gazed upon her. Then something very peculiar came over us. We slowed down. It was as if we were hearing the Siren's song, but it was eerily silent. She beckoned to us just then. As if under a spell, David simply pulled into a parking space, and we both got out. The young woman then offered us coffee from her shop, which plainly was there, all of a sudden. But we didn't see it until just at that point in the day.

Odd that. But the coffee was as magical as the woman's appearance, and she not only was a fine and engaging hostess, but the owner of the shop. In the end, we struck up a deal for her to offer her coffee and pastries when we arrived with the event later that April, and by all accounts, the coffee was excellent and she did a great business that day.

It was weird like that, and so was the entire event. A one-off, magical moment in Trans Iowa's history.

Next Week: Rejected!

Minus Ten Review 2009-51

One of the prettiest bikes I think I've had. A 2009 Soul Cycles Dillenger.

Ten years ago on this blog I introduced a stand alone site for "Gravel Grinder News". The whole "GGN" thing was something I had been doing right here since, oh.... about 2008 or so. It was kind of like a search term/tag at first, then I started naming posts "Gravel Grinder News" whenever the content was there and I could publish a post on this blog with that content.

The whole concept for the name came from way back in the 1980's when I worked as a jeweler. The shop I was employed at made, repaired, and designed jewelry. There were four stores, at one point, that were in the chain. Where I worked was the headquarters, so we would send out communiques as faxes to the stores to keep them up to date on repairs in progress, designs in progress, and the like. Instead of just sending out some bland newsletter, I decided to have a theme. I drew up a header which went with every fax and those were titled "Mother Faxer News". So, obviously, "GGN" was an evolution of that.

Anyway.....

"GGN" started out on a blog format I had intended for the Trans Iowa History site. I ended up migrating that over to a site based on Wordpress which was going to become "Guitar Ted Productions.com" at one point. But that never happened, although I still have that domain. It was a very messy affair, but I didn't want to start up and abandon blog sites if I could use what I had. ya know? At any rate.....

"GGN" ended up becoming a "dot-com" address after a while and existed until I folded it in with RidingGravel.com in late 2014. And that's a bit of back story on that whole idea. Now I still post "GGN" posts here when it is a bit outside of the beat of RidingGravel.com. So that's why you still see that here up to this day. I also do "GGN" posts on RidingGravel.com when I cover press releases and the like.

I know......it's complicated.

Minus Ten Review 2009-51

One of the prettiest bikes I think I've had. A 2009 Soul Cycles Dillenger.

Ten years ago on this blog I introduced a stand alone site for "Gravel Grinder News". The whole "GGN" thing was something I had been doing right here since, oh.... about 2008 or so. It was kind of like a search term/tag at first, then I started naming posts "Gravel Grinder News" whenever the content was there and I could publish a post on this blog with that content.

The whole concept for the name came from way back in the 1980's when I worked as a jeweler. The shop I was employed at made, repaired, and designed jewelry. There were four stores, at one point, that were in the chain. Where I worked was the headquarters, so we would send out communiques as faxes to the stores to keep them up to date on repairs in progress, designs in progress, and the like. Instead of just sending out some bland newsletter, I decided to have a theme. I drew up a header which went with every fax and those were titled "Mother Faxer News". So, obviously, "GGN" was an evolution of that.

Anyway.....

"GGN" started out on a blog format I had intended for the Trans Iowa History site. I ended up migrating that over to a site based on Wordpress which was going to become "Guitar Ted Productions.com" at one point. But that never happened, although I still have that domain. It was a very messy affair, but I didn't want to start up and abandon blog sites if I could use what I had. ya know? At any rate.....

"GGN" ended up becoming a "dot-com" address after a while and existed until I folded it in with RidingGravel.com in late 2014. And that's a bit of back story on that whole idea. Now I still post "GGN" posts here when it is a bit outside of the beat of RidingGravel.com. So that's why you still see that here up to this day. I also do "GGN" posts on RidingGravel.com when I cover press releases and the like.

I know......it's complicated.

Friday News And Views

Flared drop bars are not well understood. (Easton EA 70 AX bar pictured)

Flared Drop Bars - Hype Or No?

The other day I saw a few posts on social media from a few riders deriding the trend in gravel bikes using flared drop bars. The overall feeling was that they were completely foolish, unnecessary, and "who really stays in the drops in the rough stuff anyway?"

I restrained myself from trying to teach on the benefits of the flared drop bar, because really, in light of such ignorant and uninformed criticism, it was obvious I'd have been wasting my time there. But it does point out the fact that the mass adoption of the flared drop bar has been completely without any education, marketing of the benefits, nor with any historical context. If this type of bar had been detailed by brands in such a manner, then riders could make informed comments and choices. Unfortunately, the deafening silence on this type of bar, (and other facets of cycling in general), from brands that sell this stuff leads to the sort of worthless banter on components and bikes all over the internet. (Tires are the worst, for instance)

Standard race bred drop bars are perfectly fine, for what they were meant for, but gravel riding is a different animal, and therein lies the reasons for being when it comes to flared drop bars. Then there is the propensity for many drop bar bike owners to never use the drops in the first place. This also leads to a misinformed opinion on drop bars, because if the drops are something you'd rarely use anyway, well then, yeah.... Flared drops are pointless. But on the flip side, you should be using the drops a LOT, or why bother? Just cut them off, or use "bull horn" bars. It'd be lighter and those pesky drops wouldn't be in the way, using up bar tape when you could be double wrapping those bits by the levers. Or....maybe just use flat bars. 

Uneducated, misinformed opinions and takes on components abound on the internet. Flared drop bars are just one thing in the pile of parts that are not well explained, nor marketed correctly by the brands that spec them on their bicycles. I could write an entire series on this sort of thing, but the recent flared drop bar commentary I saw prompted me to post this time. I wish companies would see that they are doing a really poor job in this area.

The Cowchipper (shown here) and the Cowbell are now available in silver ano from Salsa Cycles.

 HiHo Silver!

I look at my Orange Crush BMC Monster Cross rig once in awhile and wish I had silver handle bars, but.....yeah. Silver flared drop bars aren't very common, and the ones that you can get in silver are not up my alley. It used to be that you could get the original Gary Bars in silver, and I may actually have a set somewhere, but no..... Cowbells or Cowchippers just blow those things away, at least for me.

So it was that I was rather excited to see that Salsa Cycles has now offered silver anodized Cowbell and Cowchipper bars in the "Deluxe" level. (7000 series aluminum, lighter weight) It looks like my dream of putting on silver flared drop bars on the BMC just might come true soon.

The Evil Bike Company's "Chamois Hagar" gravel bike.

 Wait.........WUT?!!

The other day I saw a Tweet about Evil Bike Company. You know.....the radical mountain bike, trail shredding brand? Well, they now have a "gravel bike". Yep! But check it out, because it is not a "me-too" bike at all.

Now y'all may wonder what I mean by "me-too" bikes. That was a term coined in the 00's for companies that were throwing together something with fat 700c wheels and calling it a 29"er, when in fact it was just a Taiwanese, or Chinese sourced "catalog" bike and was about as generic as they came. At one point I think there were a half a dozen brands using the same, or nearly the same, carbon hard tail from the same factory, but claiming differences. This also happened when gravel bikes took off four years ago and companies were slapping the gravel tag on cyclo cross bikes with terrible geometry for gravel roads.

I'm sure Evil Bikes sees the gravel scene as "the latest shiny object" like many bike companies do, and if you cannot afford, or want to deal with electrifying bicycles with motors, then gravel is your game. Evil Bikes took a very "clean sheet" on the design table and went nuts. Just what do we have here anyway? A new game in town- that's what.

Back when I was looking at what I thought would make for a really great gravel bike, I was advocating for a deeper bottom bracket height, slacker head tube angles, and longer fork offsets. In my mind, a 70° head tube angle and a 80mm bottom bracket drop was "pretty extreme". Ben Witt and I actually were toying around with having Mike Pofahl, a frame builder in Northfield, Minnesota, weld up a couple of these bikes. We were thinking fatter 700c rubber too. Maybe not 29"er sized, but bigger than 40mm for sure. At the time, (2010-2011), there just wasn't much of anything other than Bruce Gordon's Rock & Road tires, which were nominally 43-44mm wide, depending upon the rim you used. So, that was the tire Ben designed around. Unfortunately, we never got around to pulling the trigger.

But the "Chamois Hagar", (dumb name, but whatever), blasts past most of what we were thinking back then and sets a new bar. With a 66.8° head tube angle mated to a custom fork with 428mm axle to crown height and 57mm of offset, you could be excused for thinking this was a gravel bike designed by a trail shredder, because, well......it was! They used the 80mm bottom bracket drop too. And, with room for 50mm tires in 700c and 650B, the bike would be a pretty interesting rig in Iowa on a day where you had fast hills and fresh, chunky gravel.

What I don't know that I'd care for is the really low top tube. I know.....dropper post, but this makes the Chamois Hagar a bit less capable in terms of carrying along a top tube bag like a Revelate Tangle bag. But there is a lot to like, and more to be very curious about here.

That's it for this week! It's going to be nice this weekend around here and I hope to get some riding in. I hope that you do as well! 

Friday News And Views

Flared drop bars are not well understood. (Easton EA 70 AX bar pictured)

Flared Drop Bars - Hype Or No?

The other day I saw a few posts on social media from a few riders deriding the trend in gravel bikes using flared drop bars. The overall feeling was that they were completely foolish, unnecessary, and "who really stays in the drops in the rough stuff anyway?"

I restrained myself from trying to teach on the benefits of the flared drop bar, because really, in light of such ignorant and uninformed criticism, it was obvious I'd have been wasting my time there. But it does point out the fact that the mass adoption of the flared drop bar has been completely without any education, marketing of the benefits, nor with any historical context. If this type of bar had been detailed by brands in such a manner, then riders could make informed comments and choices. Unfortunately, the deafening silence on this type of bar, (and other facets of cycling in general), from brands that sell this stuff leads to the sort of worthless banter on components and bikes all over the internet. (Tires are the worst, for instance)

Standard race bred drop bars are perfectly fine, for what they were meant for, but gravel riding is a different animal, and therein lies the reasons for being when it comes to flared drop bars. Then there is the propensity for many drop bar bike owners to never use the drops in the first place. This also leads to a misinformed opinion on drop bars, because if the drops are something you'd rarely use anyway, well then, yeah.... Flared drops are pointless. But on the flip side, you should be using the drops a LOT, or why bother? Just cut them off, or use "bull horn" bars. It'd be lighter and those pesky drops wouldn't be in the way, using up bar tape when you could be double wrapping those bits by the levers. Or....maybe just use flat bars. 

Uneducated, misinformed opinions and takes on components abound on the internet. Flared drop bars are just one thing in the pile of parts that are not well explained, nor marketed correctly by the brands that spec them on their bicycles. I could write an entire series on this sort of thing, but the recent flared drop bar commentary I saw prompted me to post this time. I wish companies would see that they are doing a really poor job in this area.

The Cowchipper (shown here) and the Cowbell are now available in silver ano from Salsa Cycles.

 HiHo Silver!

I look at my Orange Crush BMC Monster Cross rig once in awhile and wish I had silver handle bars, but.....yeah. Silver flared drop bars aren't very common, and the ones that you can get in silver are not up my alley. It used to be that you could get the original Gary Bars in silver, and I may actually have a set somewhere, but no..... Cowbells or Cowchippers just blow those things away, at least for me.

So it was that I was rather excited to see that Salsa Cycles has now offered silver anodized Cowbell and Cowchipper bars in the "Deluxe" level. (7000 series aluminum, lighter weight) It looks like my dream of putting on silver flared drop bars on the BMC just might come true soon.

The Evil Bike Company's "Chamois Hagar" gravel bike.

 Wait.........WUT?!!

The other day I saw a Tweet about Evil Bike Company. You know.....the radical mountain bike, trail shredding brand? Well, they now have a "gravel bike". Yep! But check it out, because it is not a "me-too" bike at all.

Now y'all may wonder what I mean by "me-too" bikes. That was a term coined in the 00's for companies that were throwing together something with fat 700c wheels and calling it a 29"er, when in fact it was just a Taiwanese, or Chinese sourced "catalog" bike and was about as generic as they came. At one point I think there were a half a dozen brands using the same, or nearly the same, carbon hard tail from the same factory, but claiming differences. This also happened when gravel bikes took off four years ago and companies were slapping the gravel tag on cyclo cross bikes with terrible geometry for gravel roads.

I'm sure Evil Bikes sees the gravel scene as "the latest shiny object" like many bike companies do, and if you cannot afford, or want to deal with electrifying bicycles with motors, then gravel is your game. Evil Bikes took a very "clean sheet" on the design table and went nuts. Just what do we have here anyway? A new game in town- that's what.

Back when I was looking at what I thought would make for a really great gravel bike, I was advocating for a deeper bottom bracket height, slacker head tube angles, and longer fork offsets. In my mind, a 70° head tube angle and a 80mm bottom bracket drop was "pretty extreme". Ben Witt and I actually were toying around with having Mike Pofahl, a frame builder in Northfield, Minnesota, weld up a couple of these bikes. We were thinking fatter 700c rubber too. Maybe not 29"er sized, but bigger than 40mm for sure. At the time, (2010-2011), there just wasn't much of anything other than Bruce Gordon's Rock & Road tires, which were nominally 43-44mm wide, depending upon the rim you used. So, that was the tire Ben designed around. Unfortunately, we never got around to pulling the trigger.

But the "Chamois Hagar", (dumb name, but whatever), blasts past most of what we were thinking back then and sets a new bar. With a 66.8° head tube angle mated to a custom fork with 428mm axle to crown height and 57mm of offset, you could be excused for thinking this was a gravel bike designed by a trail shredder, because, well......it was! They used the 80mm bottom bracket drop too. And, with room for 50mm tires in 700c and 650B, the bike would be a pretty interesting rig in Iowa on a day where you had fast hills and fresh, chunky gravel.

What I don't know that I'd care for is the really low top tube. I know.....dropper post, but this makes the Chamois Hagar a bit less capable in terms of carrying along a top tube bag like a Revelate Tangle bag. But there is a lot to like, and more to be very curious about here.

That's it for this week! It's going to be nice this weekend around here and I hope to get some riding in. I hope that you do as well! 

Rear View '19 - Summer

After getting lost on the Solstice 100, I had this meal at the Loma Tap.

 Hello Readers! Once again I am doing the annual retrospective on what went down over the year of 2019. This post will focus on Summer. Previous posts have covered the other seasons, with one to come,  for a total of four, one each week of December on Thursdays.

Summer: The year wasn't going well in regard to riding since Spring was so wet and cool. I was way behind on miles and training was not up to snuff. The Solstice 100 saw a day where it got hot and humid, and of course, that made things really hard on me. I ended up off course and found my way back to Loma, Nebraska where I had quite the experience in the tap there helping prepare my own lunch!

Well, while that was fun it was another DNF to add to the piles of DNF's that had been experienced before this one. Getting to finish lines was becoming a rarity in my riding, and it was wearing on me. But Summer was finally getting together, and heat and humidity were the name of the game. I managed to get some rides in, but I was not getting the miles in that I wanted to either. Part of the problem was stress related to work. The "end" of the shop's life was nigh, and how management was handling affairs was causing me, and other employees a lot of trouble. Let's just say "denial" was the strategy being employed which many of us at the shop could see right through.

The next big event on the horizon was the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational. After two successful years of Tama County dirt road tours I decided to roll a route in Powesheik County and it was brutal. I knew it was going to be a big day of rollers and hot weather was sure to play a part in things, but thunderstorms? Yes, we got rained on, and we barely escaped lightning which hounded us for a few hours. Still, it was fun to ride with so many great folks.

Then it was only a few short weeks until Gravel Worlds. I had good intentions, but the day went South on me. No big surprise there, the whole year was a big DNF as far as events went for me. A gut issue got me this time. Oh well!

From the 2019 GTDRI

From Gravel Worlds 2019.

After Gravel Worlds I did not have any riding plans. I just got out to help clear my head from the work related nonsense which was going on, saved my money for leaner times, and took in as much as I could whenever I did get out. The late summer riding was awesome. No events to "get ready for", nothing to prove. I needed every mile I got this past late Summer and into Fall.

The single speed version of the Orange Crush is a blast to ride.

I got this new Sully Guitars Raven model which I have been enjoying a lot.

On the "Six String Side" I got a new guitar after many, many years, and I am really enjoying it. It is a Sully Guitars Raven model from the Conspiracy Series. It plays so well, and I was pleasantly surprised by that and the sound, which, obviously, has to be there. This was, at least, one bright spot in the Summer for me.

Next: Fall and the close of this year's "Rear View" posts.

Rear View '19 - Summer

After getting lost on the Solstice 100, I had this meal at the Loma Tap.

 Hello Readers! Once again I am doing the annual retrospective on what went down over the year of 2019. This post will focus on Summer. Previous posts have covered the other seasons, with one to come,  for a total of four, one each week of December on Thursdays.

Summer: The year wasn't going well in regard to riding since Spring was so wet and cool. I was way behind on miles and training was not up to snuff. The Solstice 100 saw a day where it got hot and humid, and of course, that made things really hard on me. I ended up off course and found my way back to Loma, Nebraska where I had quite the experience in the tap there helping prepare my own lunch!

Well, while that was fun it was another DNF to add to the piles of DNF's that had been experienced before this one. Getting to finish lines was becoming a rarity in my riding, and it was wearing on me. But Summer was finally getting together, and heat and humidity were the name of the game. I managed to get some rides in, but I was not getting the miles in that I wanted to either. Part of the problem was stress related to work. The "end" of the shop's life was nigh, and how management was handling affairs was causing me, and other employees a lot of trouble. Let's just say "denial" was the strategy being employed which many of us at the shop could see right through.

The next big event on the horizon was the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational. After two successful years of Tama County dirt road tours I decided to roll a route in Powesheik County and it was brutal. I knew it was going to be a big day of rollers and hot weather was sure to play a part in things, but thunderstorms? Yes, we got rained on, and we barely escaped lightning which hounded us for a few hours. Still, it was fun to ride with so many great folks.

Then it was only a few short weeks until Gravel Worlds. I had good intentions, but the day went South on me. No big surprise there, the whole year was a big DNF as far as events went for me. A gut issue got me this time. Oh well!

From the 2019 GTDRI

From Gravel Worlds 2019.

After Gravel Worlds I did not have any riding plans. I just got out to help clear my head from the work related nonsense which was going on, saved my money for leaner times, and took in as much as I could whenever I did get out. The late summer riding was awesome. No events to "get ready for", nothing to prove. I needed every mile I got this past late Summer and into Fall.

The single speed version of the Orange Crush is a blast to ride.

I got this new Sully Guitars Raven model which I have been enjoying a lot.

On the "Six String Side" I got a new guitar after many, many years, and I am really enjoying it. It is a Sully Guitars Raven model from the Conspiracy Series. It plays so well, and I was pleasantly surprised by that and the sound, which, obviously, has to be there. This was, at least, one bright spot in the Summer for me.

Next: Fall and the close of this year's "Rear View" posts.