Yes it is!

Got us to page 4 (M2 Macbook Air, fully updated) of this utterly pointless thread. Good enough for jazz?

I don't know about ND, but SD was the only place more boring than Nebraska.

Eben and Gravel

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoo...-gravel-riders

I do.

Hilarious, considering that the OP once questioned my riding credentials.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...19897184c.jpeg

Aren't you the guy who keeps posting his Uber Eats bike, filled and ready for a delivery?

Frequent views in ND:


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One day was a century. I'd be shocked to learn we saw 25 moving vehicles until the outskirts of Bismarck, our overnight stop.

The Black Hills area of SD is interesting.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3c894940d.jpeg
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https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...55ef679bd.jpeg
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https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c488d1ba9.jpeg

I lived in Nebraska for 13 years. Loved it. Now I live in another Great Plains state, and still love it. We have actual communities out here, not just large agglomerations of people.


I think that's true in certain parts of the country. Around here, pretty much everyone who rides is doing it partly (often mostly) on gravel. Heck, I live on a gravel road.

Quite a few of the gravel haters would probably change their minds if they rode in a good area on a decent bike. Get out of the urban/suburban areas and gravel is often some of the best riding. In my own case, there's about a 17k acre block of private timberland, across the street from my house. Closed to motor vehicles, but accessible by foot or bike...beyond that are parts of a 750k acre National Forest. All of it is criss-crossed by fire and logging roads. I can do gravel centuries out of my house without running across a single person all day.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6cb5d7556d.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...005646949b.jpg

Is that you, ryda? :D

Seriously…One of the things I like about touring is riding through the middle of nowhere and then coming to a small community where people are welcoming. It’s why I try to plan some overnights in towns instead of remote areas. During my tour last month I had friendly interactions with people at the local, independent grocery store. I later went to get a milkshake at a place that was about to close. The woman running the place had one of her young kids make me one. It was funny watching him reaching into the ice cream freezer to scoop and then using the mixer on a relatively high counter. He did a great job, and you could tell he was excited to show off what he could do.

There was a guy going full monty on the bike path last night.

No one is hating on gravel riding. It’s the marketing and the scruffy hipsters it has spawned that fuel’s amusement.

iirc, he was in Lincoln. Hardly a small community.

You dislike cycling-specific clothing and scruffy hipsters, who generally wear something other than cycling-specific clothing. Have you ever made a list of clothing that is acceptable to you to wear on a bicycle?

I’ll bet it would include fishnets, NTTAWWT.

Successful branding spawns mimicry. Gravel is on overload. Bombastic Rubicon packaging.

Appreciate it for what it is and revel in its idiocy or embrace the Grizl and cycle, not for performance, but for life itself. Just be sure to get the t-shirt.

We went into a town in Kansas and we were extremely hungry. There was a Mexican restaurant which was highly recommended. The door was locked and the kid came out and said they were closed between lunch and dinner. We started walking away to find something and the kid came after us and said his mom would feed us after all.

We sat down and she started bringing out plates of delicious food. She just wanted to ask about our trip and tell us about her town. It was wonderful and a lifetime memory from that trip.

That was a major feature of that tour, people who were curious, friendly, and just wanted to share stories.

Sporting goods marketing rides the waves Mr Consultant, it's not a cycling thing....

Some of our group got invited to spend the night in tiny Oxford Jct., IA. (The rest of the group were on a side trip.). It was extremely hot a humid, and the place had AC. That afternoon a woman with the county paper came by to interview us. She later mailed us a copy of the paper with the article and group photo. I’ll try to post it when I get home. On the road after volunteering at an animal rescue farm. Got to get some $2.95/gallon NJ gas.

Many of us do.

Yep, you aren't hating gravel riding. You are simply hating people who are different than you. I get it. Very much like most of your threads.

My youngest kid (now 22) works at a bike shop and can get significant discounts.

He instead bought a Canyon Grizl AXS (not the latest model) about a year ago, on sale. '

It is an excellent bike, and he is regularly doing 50+ mile rides in Montana. The bike is very high quality, electronic shifting, the SRAM brakes even work, and I think he got it for under $3K.

Like moths to a flame, and to the exasperation of the moderators, many of us are drawn to idiocy.

And at the same time, he hates people who wear cycling specific clothing, "fully kitted."

He clearly is a half-kit.