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.