Remember that Saturday Night Live skit Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey...

I hope somewhere in these paragraphs I can thread the needle between usefulness and absurdity in sharing my thoughts. We're going to start sharing more stories and content like this regularly, so let us know what you think!

When thinking about what to write for this first newsletter one initial thing that sprung to mind is learning something new. That's what the Gravel Roll is all about, inspiring people to try something new and fun!

Having been a “serious” cyclist dang near my entire life, there isn’t much "new" left in the sport for me. Road, track, cyclo-cross, BMX, gravel, MTB.
At one point or another I feel I accomplished what I wanted to in each. Downhill mountain biking? Throwing myself off the side of mountains on two wheels definitely falls into the want category and I definitely want nothing to do with that.

But, it can be healthy to get out of your comfort zone and learn something new. A few years ago my wife and I moved west bound. There’s a myriad of reasons why, but, never mind the why, the move meant this southerner was going to have to start dealing with actual winter...

Not the few days of cold, back up to the 70’s for a day, here comes a tornado, snow flurries and a few chilly days we all know as southern winters. But, actually shoveling the driveway, buying snow tires, reading about avalanche conditions, making driving plans around storm forecasts, and what 400” of snow looks like, WINTER.

How would I get through it?

Before we moved I immediately decided I would build up a fat bike. But fat biking turned out to be a scam (that’s a story for another day) so all that left was skiing.

Remember how I didn’t want to throw myself off mountains on a bike. I really didn’t want to do that on two pieces of wood either, at least not at first. However, my wife is a fairly accomplished skier even though she's also a southerner. So, with some spousal encouragement, at 39 years old, I went skiing for the first time.

Cross-country skiing that is. I thought it fits the lifelong athlete in me (aerobic exercise FTW), my Scandinavian DNA (according to Ancestry.com and my inner Viking) and there’s no big mountains, or so I thought...

Those of you who have been alpine skiing are probably laughing at me now. But, I'll have you know, cross-country skiing is much, much harder than downhill skiing.

Not because of the exercise part, but because you literally have to learn how to river dance to turn or do anything on them other than aerobically falling on your ass!

Skiing I discovered, is a lot like track cycling. You have no brakes and you use various natural forces to slow yourself down. Mainly the skis going out from under me and sliding on my face or butt one way or another until friction finally took over or I grabbed a tree to keep from going further.

But, I gave myself some grace, and kept trying. I read some articles, watched some videos, and learned at my own pace. Slowly but surely I’ve gotten better. So much so that somewhere along the line I decided to try and add downhill in to the repertoire. So here I am throwing myself off mountains after all.  

But look at these two videos of the learning process; me crushing the classic kick and glide compared to me now trying to learn how to skate ski (watch the person going the other way pulling a kid and skating like it’s second nature). I obviously still have a long way to go before I can slip and slide on this frozen stuff with confidence.

So what did all this have to do with the Gravel Roll?

1. Promise, I was technically riding on gravel in the video. Under that snow is one of my favorite gravel roads. 

2. We all start somewhere and it’s important to keep that in mind. We design the courses of the Gravel Roll to be challenging, but not impossible. Someday the mountains, or the sand, or the distance of the longest course will be manageable. Just keep at it.

3. Seek out resources, whether it be articles, or video, or just hitting us up. But keep learning and keep trying.

4. It’s all definitely scary to somebody at some point. Have grace and give grace.

Happy Holidays,
Rob Evans & Your Gravel Roll Team