Gravel Rides Rarely End “Cleanly.”
I am overall pretty easy on bikes. It's just when something happens. It's catastrophic. So either nothing is wrong, or I just DESTROY my bike. My first year racing full time as a 20 year old I must have been on the ground every week. Or that's what it felt like. Lot's of poor bikes met their end with me at the controls that year.
But even outside of racing, I've had some moments where I thought, "Now what?" Like the time I didn't bring my Spirit Schtick with me and, while trying to power through some mud, I ended up powering my derailleur right off the frame as well. The now what moment is "ok, we are 30 miles away from where we parked, I have no derailleur. Single speed time I guess..."
Nope. The universe made sure I had twisted my chain like a wash rag as well. I was well and good stuck. So, while my buddy took off in the direction of our transportation. I took the pedals off, dropped the seat, and worked to close the distance to home Strider Bike Style.
I must have scooted about 10 or 12 miles down a dirt road until I got to a cross roads with a country store where I waited for my buddy. With leery loitering eyes staring at me!
There’s this idea—especially if you spend any amount of time around events, that everything is supposed to come together cleanly at the end, like all the pieces line up, the sponsors are locked in, the course is perfect, the weather cooperates, and everyone rolls across the line like they just stepped out of a commercial for “The Spirit,” and if you’ve ever actually put on an event or ridden a bike any meaningful distance, you already know that’s complete fiction.
Things go wrong. Sometimes in small, annoying ways, like a cue sheet being just slightly off or someone forgetting the one thing they absolutely need (like your battery for your shifters or derailleurs!*), and sometimes in ways that make you stop and go, alright…this is going to be a problem.
Like losing your long time aid station space, or a cop calling out on an important traffic control point an hour before start time.
And there’s this brief moment where you hope it’s not as bad as it feels, where you spin the pedals and listen for something that sounds remotely normal, and then reality sets in and you realize, no, this is exactly as bad as it looks, and you’re a long way from anywhere useful.
At that point, you’ve got two choices.
You can get frustrated, sit there, run through all the things you should have done differently, or you can accept where you are, figure out what’s still usable, and start solving the problem in front of you—even if the solution is slow, inefficient, and involves a lot more walking than you had planned that day.
Let me tell you, my hips flexors and abductor/adductors were so strong after that day of scootin’!
You just figure out how to keep going with what you’ve got, make the best decisions you can, and trust that the foundation and knowledge you’ve built is strong enough to carry you through the parts that didn’t go according to plan.
Which is also why we think a lot about what it feels like to be out there as a rider when things go wrong.
Because eventually, they will.
Not every ride, not every event, but if you’re doing this long enough, you’re going to flat at the worst possible time, you’re going to misjudge something, or you’re going to have that one mechanical that turns a good day into a long one in a hurry.
And while we can’t prevent all of that (if we could, we’d probably also fix the wind while we’re at it), we can make sure you’re not completely on your own when it happens.
That’s why we put real effort into having support out on course—medical when it matters, and a SAG vehicle when things cross the line from “inconvenience” to “catastrophic mechanical” (the derailleur-in-the-middle-of-nowhere category, which I can personally confirm is not where you want to be without options).
Because as much as we love the romantic idea of self-sufficiency and figuring things out on the fly, there’s a difference between a challenge that makes for a good story later and one that just leaves you stranded, and we’d rather err on the side of making sure you’ve got a way out when you need it.
*Just like we mentioned: after getting asked more than a few times on race day, we’re going to carry a couple of extra SRAM AXS/eTap battery spares on event day. If you find yourself in that particular flavor of self-inflicted chaos, because while we can’t fix everything out there, we can at least save a few rides from ending before they get started (and yes, this is your gentle reminder to charge your stuff, which we will also ignore at some point, because we are no better than anyone else here). These are generic and we'll keep them cheap, yours to own for $20. We'll also keep some 2032s on hand for the shifters and heart rate straps, or power meters, or....holy crap, when did everything on my bike need a battery?!?!
If you haven’t signed up for our first event of 2026, the Opelika Okey Dokey yet, make sure you do before the next price increase on April 24th!
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