365 on 38/17

Back in November of last year I was gifted the best gift a cyclist can get, a new bike. Not just any bike though, this one was the Salsa Stormchaser a singlespeed gravel beast from Mark and Renee of Backroads Bicycle. Not to have to go through FOMO Jackie picked up one for herself also and so began her love and my getting reacquainted with riding a bike with just one gear.



We lucked out and had a fairly mild November and December last year so we were able to get out and put some miles on the Stormchasers almost immediately.



Then the snows came and it wasn't until March of this year that the Stormchasers saw any time on the gravel again but during that time an idea was hatched. We had decided that we would register in the single speed category for all of the events in 2023. First up was the Washington Jefferson ride and after not spending much time on the Stormchasers over the colder months of winter, we struggled a bit on that one and I wondered if we might have bitten off more than we could chew. Only time would tell on that one.



April came around and we had many more miles on the Stormchasesrs by the time Stay Fired Up in Kansas came around. We started that race in a very inauspicious manner as I had a flat right out of the starting gate... literally. Despite that we both took first place for single speed, albeit we were the only entrants but it was a tough course and we did well time wise and rode strong so there was a lot to be positive about.



I'm not sure that the idea was to ride the Stormchasers exclusively during the spring and into summer but it seemed like everytime we went to ride we pulled them out of the quiver rather than one of our other bikes.




Our next event was the Solstice Gravel Grinder out of Beatrice, Nebraska. For this one we entered into the relay race category with the Stormchasers despite there not being a single speed specific relay category. Everyone on the team killed it but we came up just short of the top spot and ended up in second place, losing to a much younger, geared team by only 20 seconds.





By the end of June when we lined up for the Coast to Coast in Michigan we had several hundred miles on the Stormchasers but this was going to be our longest race on them and also the first time where there was real competition in the category of single speed for both males and females. 100 miles of Michigan gravel, sand and single track later and Jackie ended up taking 2nd in the women's and I took third in the men's single speed category. This was a really fun event and the scenery of the course was pretty amazing, if you're looking for a late June race to fill a spot on your calendar give the Coast to Coast a real look.






Most of the summer had been hot and dry so we had anticipated a dusty, fast course for Gravel Worlds but 3" of rain overnight thwarted that plan. That was a difficult course for sure and it changed plans but we still did pretty well, Jackie finished fast enough for a third place podium spot and got to get up on stage. I missed third by a few minutes and took fourth in the men's single speed category... there was about an hour where I thought I had pulled off third but there was a 150 mile single speed guy that dropped down at the last minute to the 75 and once the standings were adjusted, that was that.



In-between Gravel Worlds and the Pony Express Gravel Dash the Stormchasers got a major upgrade by way of some deliciously sweet, Cantu carbon wheels. We may have broken the "don't change anything right before a race" rule and Pony was going to be our second ever ride on the wheels.


The Pony Express Gravel Dash ended up being a real battle in the 120 mile single speed relay category. This one was fast and dry, both the second and first place teams were pretty much neck and neck the entire race. We were flying, ended up finishing the 120 mile race in under 8 hours as a team with a combined mph average of almost 16 mph and walking away with the under 8 hours hardware and second place. I'd done the relay one other time on geared bikes a few years prior and even then with that team we only managed under 9 hours for the course... single speed doesn't necessarily mean slower it appears.




The Pony Express was pretty much the end of our competitive gravel calendar but we just kept on rolling on the one gear for some fantastic fall miles.




Backroads Bicycle in Maryville, Kansas put on a fun single speed only ride that saw around 15 riders, of those 15 I believe 8 of us were on the Salsa Stormchaser. That's how good of a bike it is, comfortable, fast, lots of room for bigger tires with still room for mud clearance and the smiles per mile are almost unbeatable.

This wasn't my first single speed, I entered into single speeds back in 2010 with the legendary Redline Monocog and rode that bike almost exclusively until 2014 when it was replaced by a Santa Cruz Highball frame I picked up from Ben in Seward. Still have that bike and it is starting to see new life on single track again. Also had a Redline 925 for a couple of years that was my "road bike" but I let that one go for a better road bike, it's still around the Lincoln area last I heard; sold it to Tracy H and I think she's still rocking it. When fat bikes came and gravel blew up I abandoned the one gear bike in favor of fat bikes there for several years, had it not been for the gifting of the Stormchaser I'm not sure if I would have rediscovered single speed again. Hell had it not been a Stormchaser I still might not have embraced it like we have. Like I said lots of companies make single speed gravel bikes but not everyone has gotten all the checkboxes checked like Salsa did. Single speed made me a better rider back when I was riding the Monocog exclusively and now again the Stormchaser has made me a better/stronger gravel rider... not to everyone's delight as I forget that not every ride has to be a fast ride but we are working on that one. It's just so easy to fly on that bike and it's made me re-evaluate some of my cycling goals and learn that with the right pairing of bike and rider I don't necessarily have to be a mid pack rider. After one year and over 2200 miles later, I can't wait to see what next season brings on one gear.

 

The Rides Are Back In Town

As much fun as summer is with all the things, the things to do, the things to see and the things to travel to; it is also nice at the end of the summer when things slow down a bit and not every weekend if filled with a gravel event of one kind or another. We are now in that time period which means that more regular occurrences of the Saturday ride from Cycle Works will commence once again. I've kind of missed the rides.



The plan last Saturday was to head out to Denton and the Denton Wall but because of an error on my part we turned up too soon and never made the well. We still made it to Denton because while I'm not Ferdinand Magellan I can still find towns, so I got that going for me. It was an honest mistake, pulled up an old route labeled as the wall and didn't double check it... stuff happens.



While we missed the wall we still found plenty of hills to go up and down, mostly up it seemed. And that headwind, don't even get me started on that... seems like if it's not blazing hot or Siberian cold around here the wind it do like to blow. Not a fan... ha, get it... not a fan, of the wind but whatcha gonna do except put your head down and pedal. It did make it feel like we were climbing most of the way to Denton even though we weren't actually. Mid-West Hills.


Thanks to Doug we even managed a ditch beer stop, I'm a bit rusty on these rides and am slacking in the planning and the beerin.


We did make a stop at Saro and Canyon Joe's on the way back into town, both were tasty. Not much in the way of pictures, camera is in for repair/replacement if they can't fix it so it's just the eye-phone right now. It takes decent enough pictures but it's a lot more difficult to get those quick snaps while riding so hopefully the Canon will be back in action soon. Sure would like it if someone out there would make a rugged camera that would shoot RAW and have the ability to customize camera settings like the advanced point and shoot cameras do. While they are good for pictures, they sometimes have troubles with the gravel dust and general jostling of the bike after a few years of abuse... someone help me here, please.


Enjoy the video version of the ride, going to try to keep those going through winter also but how many times can you record the same ride starting from the same spot and still make it interesting. I guess we will see on that one.

 

Shifting Is For Quitters

Last Sunday was the singlespeed ride out of Backroads Bicycle in Marysville, aptly named Singlespeed Sunday. Which is pretty fitting since many folks consider those who find joy in not shifting as being in a semi religious cult.




I felt like there was a pretty good turn out considering the singlespeed criteria for the ride, although we did have one rider that brought a geared bike but pulled his derailleur battery in a show of solidarity. Meant to be a ride more than a race, we all started at the same time and we mostly waited for everyone to catch up at the SAG stops. In all my years riding and leading group rides, I've never met one that didn't turn into a "race" of some sort. I mean you get two people on bicycles and they might ride together, you add one or two more and, well, you got yourself a good ole fashion test of speed and stamina. Not sure why it is that way but people are competitive, on a bicycle, merging when a lane ends on the road, getting to the check out first at the store, all of those scenarios and more often stoke the competitive fires within people. If you're not first, you're last!





There was a bit of rain the night before which made everyone a little leary about some of the roads that were on the 50 mile course but there was also a pretty stout headwind for the first 12ish miles of the route heading south and despite the extra effort needed to get down the road the wind did a great job of drying out the dirt and gravel.



With the exception of this hill here that measured in at a leg burning 22% grade, most of the course was just how I like it with plenty of hills to keep you from spinning out all day.





Once we turned and started our way with the wind the roads really became spectacular, one section of 5 miles was almost entirely MMR and some even less maintained then minimum... subminimum maintenance roads if you will... but those were the best roads all day.



The last 7ish miles back into Marysville was on the Blue River Rail Trail, also known as the Chief Standing Bear trail, Homestead trail, Jamaica North trail depending where along it's span you are riding it. While a bit spinny for a singlespeed, most of us who ride actually don't like flat for very long as it takes a lot of pedaling, it's a great resource for runners, walkers and cyclist. If you wanted to you could ride it from Marysville, Kansas all the way to Lincoln, Nebraska for 75 miles without ever getting off the trail. If you took the Rock Island at the new connector bridge you could take that all the way out to Wabash, Nebraska for 105 miles with only a few block of residential streets needed to connect the Rock Island to the MoPac trail. If you really wanted to get nutty you could connect the end of the MoPac at Wabash to where it picks back up again at the Lied Pedestrian Bridge via a 10 mile gravel section and take it all the way into Papillion, Nebraska for about 130 miles with roughly 11 ish miles not being trail. That's kind of mind boggling when you stop and think about it in our motor vehicle centric society.


I really enjoyed the event and while still not everyone's cup of tea I do feel like the Salsa Stormchaser has really helped to "legitimize" singlespeed as a gravel option. Sure there are other singlespeed bikes out there and always have been, I've not see this many of one particular kind at one event ever. Out of 12 riders on the 50 mile course, 8 of us were riding a Salsa Stormchaser of one flavor or another. That's really saying something considering it's a bike that has only been out less than a handful of years and I have to say both Jackie and I are loving ours.