In 2014, a crazy guy named Sam Ames, some volunteers, and about 50 very trusting riders gathered in Bakersfield, California for a lark of an experimental, mixed terrain bike circus. The Rock Cobbler was born, and quickly began to grow. Cobbler combined a wildly variable course, beautiful emerald rolling hills, silly gags, and a positive atmosphere to form something that was not often seen in the cycling landscape in those days: A singular bike party.
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The Fat Pursuit is a winter ultra event located in and around Island Park, Idaho. There are two distances, the 60k and 200k, and there are three different disciplines, biking, running, and skiing. I did the 200k on a bike last year and had to come back for more. Looking at the weather prior to the race I knew it was going to be a tough one. Lots of new snow had fallen making the course soft and slow and with lows in the -30F range plus wind chill it was sure to be an exciting one.
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Once upon a time, exactly ten years ago, when Rodeo started, it was 100% about community. There were no products, no ambitions, no balance sheets. We started a team, we invited anyone who wanted to join the team, and we had no plan from there. Whatever happened, happened, and a lot happened. In the following months an entire community sprang to life not just locally in Denver, but throughout the state, throughout the region, and throughout Colorado.
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Everesting is a ride wherein riders ride a single hill over and over until they’ve climbed the height of Mount Everest. That’s 29,032′ or 8848m.
I decided to do an Everest attempt after doing a last minute Instagram poll just throwing it out there to see if I should give it a go. 100% of you said yes. I wasn’t sure if I would do it up until this point and since this was the day before I was pretty ill-prepared.
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Words clutter. So without delay, here is a video we shot of a most perfect outing to White Rim with friends in late October, 2023.
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Consumerism is undeniably woven into the fabric of modern society. However, its expansive reach may not be as innocuous as flashy advertisements would have us believe. Now, it might seem contradictory to start a blog discussing the pitfalls of consumerism while intending to funnel visitors to Rodeo’s website, hoping they’d invest in a bike. But this juxtaposition is what sets Rodeo apart. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that Rodeolab’s fan’s are here for the culture not just the bikes. As adventure cyclists, our brand of consumerism is geared towards not just healthier choices, but also more meaningful experiences. What I’m driving at is, while traditional consumerism, particularly the American variant, often leaves a trail of depletion, there exists an alternative that can enrich rather than exhaust.
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Come join us for three days of bikepacking southern backroads with other Rodeo riders the weekend of January 13th, 2024!
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This Journal entry is the third entry in Brynn’s series about the things that took them away from the bike, and the things that brought them back. You can find chapter 1 here, and chapter 2 here.
Grief brought my life to a standstill. At first, I didn’t know who I was anymore: whether I would be able to continue nursing, and, if I did, what that would look like. After years in the ICU, years during the pandemic, and then finally watching my father waste away on a ventilator, work was a constant trigger point.
What I also knew is that I don’t do well when I’m not moving. I decided to take the leap and try travel nursing out in California, which was the last place I had really felt like myself. The year prior I had worked at the clinic in Yosemite National Park and it had been life changing. I had fallen in love with the West coast, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and backpacking. I wanted that energy back again.
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All of the warring voices in the four walls of my skull have agreed to a holiday ceasefire, presumably sitting around a campfire, listening (semi-ironically) to the Psychedelic Furs as I stand quietly behind the starting line of a 350 mile bike race. The race director’s voice drones on as the corral grows fuller and I begin feeling increasingly veal-like. The new-wave kumbaya holding my anxiety at bay is quieted by the voice above, “blah blah blah… can you believe that they paid for this, folks… wah blah wah mud blah rain blah paint stick blah”.
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When you’ve been living in a place for ages, it’s easy to overlook its charm. Growing up just a couple of hours outside Emporia and spending most of my life in Kansas, I couldn’t fathom why people would travel from far and wide to race on seemingly dull and unchanging roads. But then, amid a grueling nearly 25-hour journey, a realization hit me like a lightning bolt. As I pedaled along the ridge, the undulating emerald hills stretched for miles while ominous thunderclouds loomed above—a quintessential Kansas storm rolling in to welcome me back. There was nothing to do but smile and hope it wasn’t too harsh. Soon, a refreshing 30-minute drizzle came to my rescue, and I found myself grateful for the momentary respite from the heat and electrified by the surrounding beauty.
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