Category: Editorial

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

The holidays are upon us, and with them comes the challenge of choosing the right gifts for friends and family. Not many folks have unlimited budgets, so selecting a great gift that’s also affordable is the goal. With that in mind, here are some gifts we’d be stoked to find under the tree this year, and all come in at $60 or less.

“an ocean of sweat
a delta of spirit
a barn full of sparrows
about to explode into the night.”
–from Ben Weaver, “The DAMn”

Every year for the past several years, I have posted a “State of the Gravel Scene” series in January giving my personal opinions on where we’ve been and where we are going in terms of the gravel scene. When I opened up my look at the gravel scene in 2020 and beyond this past January, these were the first words I posted:

Coronavirus Protection, With Notes for Gravel Riders – by John Ingham Note: This post is concerned with prevention and should not be taken as a…

Gritty Take: In Times Such As These – by Guitar Ted Ten days ago if you had asked me if I was going to be…

A Quick Guide To Get Your Bike Ready For Sloppy Roads – by Guitar Ted Spring is here in North America and along with that…

So, is having the UCI run a “Gravel Worlds” a benefit to gravel cycling? Would this make gravel cycling “legitimate” in terms of professional cycling? Or would this be, once again, the same old dog and pony show we’ve seen play out for decades.

Concussions are all too common. We try to be careful, yet all of us have lapses of attention and moments of poor judgment. We wear helmets, but standard helmets and even slip-lined helmets are only partially effective. Fortunately, fatalism and stiff upper lips are no longer our only remaining options. A new cellular-lined helmet may be far better at preventing concussion.

The year is about done for, so it is a good time to look back on 2019 and determine the most impactful stories on the gravel scene for the year. While there are a lot of things that happened over the course of the year, three things really stand head and shoulders above the crowd when it comes to stories we talked most about during 2019.