Monday, March 8, 2010

Jumping The Shark

Well, I think that the novelty of riding on gravel has taken a huge step backwards. I see on Cycling News that the field for Strade Bianche this year was super stacked with talent. Pro riders, pro rigs, pro kit, all on Italian gravel. Hit up the thumbnail gallery for a look. Looks damn beautiful! Still, our little cycling secret is pretty safe until RAGBRAI announces a gravel option, right? Time to move on to a new "under the radar" cycling genre? Anybody wanna do Cycle Speedway this summer?

Now that's what I'm talking about!

5 comments:

MrDaveyGie said...

I know a lot of lonely gravel roads I've never seen another bicycle on. :-)

djdau@walnutel.net said...

I'm sure there are some gravel roads that have never seen a bicycle, period. When I ride my bike out to visit my folks, I'll bet I'm the only person that's ridden a bike on their gravel road in the last 30 years.

Travel Gravel said...

I sometimes get the feeling, while riding, that some post WW2 kid in jeans and a button down shirt has ridden the gravel road before on an old Schwinn ballooner, and wonder if it's possible that nobody has ever ridden a certain stretch of road before. What if some spry old farmer has ridden the same mile section down and back for 75 years? I'm sure miles have been tracked on some, but not the majority, of our roads.

Captain Bob said...

I'm in on the cycle speedway. Sort of like the grass track race thing we talked about. I know a couple of tracks that might let us ride on. Let's talk!

Travel Gravel said...

Captain, Here are some of the tech things I would like to see in this kind of event. 1. Single speed-freewheel 2. NO,flat bars (flop n chops, full-on 10 speed bars, etc.) 3.NO BRAKES, it's Speedway! 4. No clipless pedals or clips/straps. Flat pedals only. 5.(And I would lean heavily on this) One piece crank! 6. Old janky helmets. Got an old Vetta someplace? Strap it on and go! Why not set up our own rules, it's a new thing for this area. I'll probably put up a whole post about these ideas and expand them, so come back and check it out! Later! Go to www.spokesman-online.co.uk or www.britishcycling.org.uk for more on this!