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.
Part two of the Race Director round up focuses on the directors of the “mid majors” in gravel racing. These races are the bread and butter of the discipline. They are the independent heartbeat of dirt road racing. Often, the promoters are the heartbeat as well – investing so much of their time and money into the ventures that are never guaranteed to pay off. With this investment, and with those race promoters shaping their races from their own personality and geographies, the different races offer both comparisons and contrasts. This offers us at the Rodeo Labs Podcast a chance to get a little non-linear with our stories.
In this episode the over five hours of recorded conversations with the race directors of these independent “mid major” races. Thank you to all who agreed to chat, and, for those interested, attached is a list of the race directors and their races.
In this season of the Rodeo Adventure Labs Podcast, we are doing a little bit of ‘one for you, one for us’ action. But, actually, it is really one about the world, and one about our world. Today, Logan talks to the Cerakoter In Chief, Ryan McMahon, to understand a little more about the painting operation in house in Denver, his journey to finding himself in the Rodeo Labs Cerakote booth, and what his hopes are for developing more tools of the trade.
Then, in part two, we bring on a special guest to talk more about design philosophy, the power of color, and how Rodeo has grown around a design philosophy that centers around tinkering differently. You never (and by never, we mean almost certainly) will guess who it is.
The Atlas Mountain Race sets off for its third edition next week. In anticipation of the bike packing race, we brought in Ashley Carelock to look back at her Moroccan experiences in last year’s October edition of the race, while Stephen Fitzgerald dropped into the chat to add his own perspective from his outing to Africa in 2020.
If you are interested in following along to the 2023 Atlas Mountain Race, be sure to check out the race website, here. Additionally, back in the depth of the pandemic, Stephen penned this expansive write up about what that race was like. You can find that here. Lastly, Ashley eloquently wrote more about her race on her blog, which you can access here.
It is 2023 and we have a little New Year’s resolution. With more folks on Rodeo bikes than ever and the possibilities of the adventure cycling world growing all the time, we felt like it was time to make a concerted effort to tell more of our story — beyond the Instagram-able moments that are not going anywhere — on the platforms of the journal and the podcast. The goal is to both look internal and external, with more Rodeo rider features, more connectivity with the events and adventures, and journalistic storytelling of the world around us.
The last couple weeks I have been surfing. You know, the proper radical stuff. You know, getting stoked.
“You just drop in, smack the lip… Waapah! Just drop down… Swoopah! And then after that, you just drop in, ride the barrel, and get pitted, so pitted.” – Surfer Guy, 2012
That’s it — that has been me. Minus the ocean, and the water, and the surfboard, and the crazy Californian energy. Nonetheless, there have been waves, I have been riding, and I have been getting pitted. So pitted.
Over my spring break I had $1,000 dollars of flight credit to use, built up from four postponed trips. After so many false starts, it was time to go again – and go I have. First up, Siena for the Strade Bianche. For the trip, I put away my Instagram and my updates and I turned to my journal. Over dinners and downtime, I wrote down my sensations. These are the moments that captured the trip for me, and I hope you enjoy the “crudo” distillation of my week in Tuscany!
March 3, 2022 — Firenze Centrale, Florence, Tuscany
People seem to flow here. In scarfs, overcoats, down puffers, and other regal regalia built for temperatures colder than now, the Italian masses move with effortless intention. In twos, and threes, and four, and sometimes ones but nearly never fives, people would come, and people would go in a swirl of the sing-song language of the land.
Once again, you’ve done it, you mastered viral marketing. Now, December is marked by the bombardment of Spotify branded music tastes. As much as I try to be the grinch, I like it. I like it a lot.
Alas, my contrarian flare persists, and I have journals to write. So instead of a simple Instagram story share and per a budding tradition, here is my 2021 playlist. Five of my favorite songs from 2021 paired with my top five rides. I highly encourage you to listen as you go! Each passage was written while the tunes played on loop. My apologize to my roommates. Enjoy!
After copy editing last year with a classically gnarled old-school journalist, I have been on the prowl to slash and burn the cliches I have in my writing. I think I am improving. Nevertheless, sometimes those cliches are cliches for a reason and I’d be a fool to let a good trope pass me by. So, as I have emerged from my forced concussion sponsored reset, I am going to have a little fun with some lazy formatting because it’s what I want to do. Sue me.
In my ruminating on my summer in Ecuador, the old Clint Eastwood cliche keeps seeping in. It was good. It was bad. It was ugly. And I just couldn’t help but share this worn triumvirate in the third installment of Ecuador shorts.
How do you compare and contrast an effort, especially when one is by foot and the other by bike? That wasn’t the driving question when Stephen and I sat down with Sam Martin, but we couldn’t help ourselves and asked anyway. Sam is fresh off of the Tour Divide. From the outside looking in, he was unfazed by the preparation and inevitable supply chain delays. So drastic, that Sam rode the Tour Divide on a demo Trail Donkey while awaiting his Flaanimal pre-order. He took it all in stride. Good, bad, who knows? While on the trip, he would post to photo updates and amazed us with stunning, moody, and in my mind, images that represent a love letter to bikepacking. I saw the Tour Divide in a way I haven’t seen before. However, Sam’s path did not start here. During the summer of 2018, Sam thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. It became clear to Stephen and I that much of Sam’s “being unfazed” was due to his experience (gear and mindset) to prepare for an undertaking of this size. In some senses, while the medium was different, a lot could be translated.
Where do you live? Were you born there and if not what brought you to where you live today?
Living in Boulder, Colorado. Moved here from New York when I was a kid thanks to my dad’s job
. What would you like to share about what you do for a living?
I work for a media company based in Boulder focusing on outdoor adventure sports!
What was your entry into cycling, and how did that ultimately lead you to owning a gravel bike?
I started cycling in college around 4 years ago just as a way to get around. I needed to upgrade my hybrid bike, with the only goal of getting a new bike with disc brakes. One of the guys at the bike shop I went to recommended looking at a gravel bike instead of a hardtail like I had planned. I wound up finding cycling quite fun while getting to class so I bought a pair of clipless shoes and some cheap kit. I evidently got really into the sport, and eventually found myself working in the industry at Rapha and meeting some of the Rodeo crew!
Do you have a go-to route that you hit when you want to have a sure-thing good ride?
Marshall Mesa and Flatirons Vista is a good mix of easy road to get there, mellow, flowing single track, and some technical rocky sections that really challenge your bike handling skills. Great pretty much all year round too. I’ve lead some folks around the loop too, and it’s a great way to get your friends into some kinda silly gravel.
How do you keep cycling fresh? How do you challenge yourself?
I like to avoid planning a route as much as possible, especially if I’m in a place I’m familiar with. Less structure to the ride let’s me follow whatever road looks like it could be fun. I’ve found great trails between houses, out on the plains, and of course, a few dead ends. But it’s always fun to explore somewhere you’ve never been.
Do you like to ride alone, solo, or do you like a mix of the two?
I mostly ride solo, but I do love riding with my friends and shooting photos of them while we ride.
What is the most sketchy ride or ride situation that you’ve ever experienced?
Recently I was in Grand Mesa, very unprepared for the altitude and the rain. The only communication I had was a walkie talkie that I just had to hope was in range of my friends back at the cabin. I found myself on some super sketchy 4×4 roads where the off roaders were having issues in the mud. I had to bail out after my wheels kept getting swallowed by it, and I’m thankful it was a cooler day out, otherwise I probably would’ve run out of water really quickly and been stuck at almost 11,000 feet and a long walk ahead. It’s always ok to say “nope”!
Do you have a singular favorite ride experience?
I think my favorite ride experience was the first time I was able to climb up Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder. At that point, even the smallest hills felt like a huge challenge, so being able to check it off the first time without having to walk really boosted my confidence and helped me prove to myself that I could actually be a serious cyclist, and even consider myself an athlete. Especially since I always thought of myself as a kinda wimpy kid in high school. Goes to show that you can always work at something and get better and prove to yourself that you can do it.
What would you like to see change about cycling as a sport, a way of transportation, a community, or a lifestyle?
I’d love to see other cyclists try to expand from their boundaries. There should be more mountain bikers on the road, more roadies trying gravel, gravel riders on track bikes. Sometimes we get too in our own niche, and the best way to improve as both a cyclist and a person is to try something new. Be bad at something for a little, you can only get better.
Tell us about your Flaanimal build? How did you narrow down the incredible amount of build options into what you are riding today?
My Flaanimal started as the most basic GRX build you could get when preorders opened. I was pretty bummed that I graduated in 2020 so this was my consolation prize, on a college budget. I wanted a bike that I could throw around and not worry about. Big rock in the trail that I hit? Oh well. Fell off the rack in my garage, no worries. It has a bunch of metal parts, big 700×45 tires, Silca titanium cages and a Silca X RCC frame pump (everyone deserves a treat) and of course the awesome steel frame. Bikes are meant to be ridden after all, and scratches just mean that the bike is personalized.
Is there anything you would like to change about the frameset or the way that you have it built?
I plan on keeping this bike for years to come, so the best part about it is that there will always be something that will change on it. But the frameset will stay the same throughout, though I may get some custom paint on it to give it a bit of a refresh when the time comes.
Any final thoughts, observations, or points of inspiration that you’ve had as a cyclist or a person that you would like to share?
I’ve met so many cool people just because they stopped to talk about my bike or the fact that they’re also owners of a Rodeo or they ride too. There’s such an awesome community in cycling, and bikes are a great way to make friends, see cool places, and push yourself farther than you ever thought you could.
Do you have any social media / strava profile that you would like to share if people want to follow along?
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