Cycling as Sustainable Tourism: The Grayson Gravel Traverse

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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Back to Community

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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Frontal Lobe Militias: Caleb’s 350

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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Unbound: The Gloopy Glamour of Gravel

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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A Change Of Plans: Trans Virginia 565

Written, shot, and ridden By Benjamin Carpenter

Changing plans is an enevitable element of life I find myself in constant confrontation with be it the weather, my body, my family or my work life. It’s a constant flux, and maybe probably for good reason. Change keeps me on my toes, and constantly adapting, but  the same is true about bikepackng, or any long ride that covers many miles in a prolonged amount of time. Dealing with change and adapting is how I flourish.

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Podcast: The Race Director Round Up — Part One

Welcome to the Rodeo Labs Race Director Round Up! Over the next few weeks, as the gravel race “season” gets underway, we have decided to take on a mini-series focusing on gravel racing through the collective eyes of gravel race directors from across the country. Race directors are both the tastemakers and the police of the nucleus concept of “the spirit of gravel.” While race directors have a fantastic platform to voice their perspective for their own races, that voice is often limited to those narrow confines.  The goal here is to use our podcast, as a small journalistically minded outlet with no skin in the game, to give them a collective platform to share their interpretations of the state of the sport. 

In part one, Logan introduces the series through a field dispatch from the Gravel Worlds gravel race in Nebraska last summer and the dialogue that followed. The first conversation was with Andy Jones-Wilkins, who is not only Logan’s father, but also an accomplished ultra-runner and pundit. Using the conversation with Andy as a framework, Logan sat down with Jason Strohbehn, the race director of Gravel Worlds and the co-host of the Gravel Family Podcast, to learn more about the race and start at the question that is guiding the whole series: what is the state of gravel bike racing? 

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Podcast: Adventure Guidance

Adventuring on dirt is what brings everyone to Rodeo Labs. Yes, there are other contributing factors, but if your intention is not to adventure on bikes, on dirt, you might want to find a different bike company. With that ethos at our core, Logan wanted to do a bit of a deep dive into a fellow dirt adventure based cycling company: The Gravel Adventure Field Guides. 

Nonetheless, while reporting on the guides themselves, Logan found the project was a gateway into a discussion about adventure on bikes, on dirt, in the 21st century. So, in hopes of not ignoring those other voices, the podcast grew into something different from the standard Rodeo Labs production. 

Read more: Podcast: Adventure Guidance

In this episode you will hear from Juan and Stephen from Gravel Adventure Field Guides, but you will also hear from Wally Wallace from the economic development office in Trinidad, Colorado; Kevin Prentice from Ride With GPS; and Gordon Wadsworth and Emily Hairfield who are cyclists from Roanoke, Virginia, who helped builds routes for the recent guidebook there. We hope you enjoy it!