A gravel event across northern Utah may be challenging during normal times, but during a pandemic? Robert Kennedy and John Hernandez are bucking the trend of gravel event cancelations by bringing small-scale grassroots gravel racing to Northern Utah and Nevada in October, and they think they can do it in a way that protects riders’ and the community’s health. While massive gravel races like the MidSouth (Oklahoma) brought controversy, and established endurance mountain bike races like the Mohicans 100 (Ohio) pushed forward without state and local health officials’ blessings, promoter Robert Kennedy believes he has the recipe for a memorable yet safe event in Utah.
Salty Lizard and Stupid Pony gravel events are scheduled for October 2nd and 3rd, 2020.
It looks like a unique, scenic and challenging event. Of course the first thing many will wonder, can it be done safely during this time? What measures will you have in place to keep racers and the community safe?
Robert Kennedy said “That’s the big question, right? Bike racing is never 100% safe and especially not now, but we’re setting everything up to try to keep people from bunching at the start, aid stations, and finish. I’ve been trying to look at how other events are doing it, reading up, and I’ve also been volunteering at some local races to get a feel for how other events are handling the [storm] that is COVID. We’re still going to do group starts for both the Stupid Pony and the Salty Lizard 100, but everyone’s going to start with a small group and they’re going to line up on a grid with lanes marked out long enough for people to get up to speed.
It’s a 200+-mile ride, so it’s not like there isn’t plenty of space on course–it’s just those few places where people will actually stop that I have to worry about. Same with the Salty Lizard 100–it’s a Fondo and actual century, so there’s a lot of room out there with no one else but the lizards and antelope.
The hardest thing is that the Pony is it’s a point-to-point, not a loop, so we have to get solo riders back to their cars at Eagle Mountain, and that’s been what’s been eating me. Originally, we have a bus reserved [for this purpose]. In order to keep the ride affordable for everyone and prevent the ballooning costs of, say, The Ride Formerly Known as Dirty Kanza and LoToJa, which easily top $1k for the ride and other stuff, we offer transportation and lodging for the Pony. You can bring your loner self and be fine, is the idea.
But now with COVID-19, suddenly, sharing a bus with 50+ other riders doesn’t sound like much of a good time anymore. We’re trying to figure it out. Best thing is to try to arrange your own ride with someone in your household so that we can save the reduced number of seats on the bus for those who are truly lonely and broke.
But yeah, there’ll be a rider’s bible that tells people what we’re doing and what they’re going to have to do to be sure that we don’t pass all our germs to each other.
But as far as COVID-19 goes, my thought is that our responsibility is to make the most cautious potential riders comfy. We need to be able to answer their fears rather than the people who aren’t worried about it, especially since we would be doing a disservice to Wendover and Eagle Mountain by not taking it seriously. Some people won’t feel comfortable coming out and I sympathize. This year does quite suck, after all.
But back in 2015, I rode the Pony with two friends the other direction as a two-night bike-pack and fell so hard in love with the West Desert and endurance riding that I got a tattoo. Then, last year, I decided I wanted to try and ride it again in one sitting, since it’s pretty flat, just on the edge of doable, and since I couldn’t in good conscience leave my loving wife with our rambunctious toddler alone for several days. So I asked people on Facebook if they wanted to try it and a whole bunch of people responded, so much so that it started to snowball with sponsors and volunteers and all that stuff.
I met John Hernandez when one of the techs at a local shop mentioned the ride to him and he decided he wanted to help out, which was the best thing that could happen to the ride, because he’s got deep roots in Wendover and an endless bounty of enthusiasm. We’ve been working together ever since.
But anyway, it was pretty damned cool. We rode it in November (which I prefer, because even then, it was 60 degrees out in the West Desert. About two-thirds of the people made it to the end, so 10 in all. Our fastest finisher came in at 13 hours and 40 min and our last came in at pert near 24 hours on the dot. No one died. No one even flatted. Many of us rode for multiple hours in full darkness in freezing temps. It was absolutely magical. I’ll never forget it. Best ride ever.
So yeah, John and I hooked up in January afterward and I found out that he was wanting to put on a gravel ride that he’d worked on with his friends. He’d been hosting rides out by Wendover for years and he had one in particular that had hooked him. He was working with Becky Benson on it, and we three joined forces to make Salty & Stupid Cycling, LLC. It’s working out pretty well, considering the end of the world and all.
If you’ve ever been to the north of Utah, you know that it’s a lot different than the south. The West Desert is like the physical incarnation of the idea of space. It’s so damned big. Where everything in Moab is weird and vertical, the West Desert is all kinds of horizontal. They make you feel on your own and free in different ways. The West Desert is so big it invites you to feel big, too. You can see everything and get on everything: very little is hidden. Except that there’s so much out there. There are geode beds and lava flows and herds of pronghorn antelope a hundred strong and wild horses and packs of coyotes and golden eagles and bright goldenrod rabbitbrush and weird little flowers. And pinyon and sage and all sorts of stuff.
My favorite example is from last year, we were getting close to Simpson Springs and there was a little rise and over that rise, separated by the road, was an enormous herd of antelope. Couldn’t see it from either side of the rise. It was a complete surprise.
And it’s incredibly quiet out there. Sometimes, they’re testing weapons or flying F-35s and then there’s an ominous booming that reminds me of the giant’s feet in Slaughterhouse-Five. It’s such an incredible place. It’s weird and wonderful. Best place in the world.
For equipment, what you need is easy gears and the biggest tires you can squeeze in there. The Pony’s pretty buff, comparatively, but after 150 miles, you’re going to square-edge pretty much every obstacle you encounter, and the climbing is a bit back-end-loaded, so at around mile 150 lurks an enormous climb over to Gold Hill from the Canyon Station on the Pony Express. I had a 2×10 36/26 x 11-36 last time out and I was in the easiest gear for a solid 40 miles. Dugway Pass, especially, is pretty awful because it’s 20 miles of false flat uphill until the last mile, where it kicks above a 20% grade.
Tire-wise, you just need to make sure that you run something that’s durable so you don’t spend what little energy you have fixing flats. As I said, it’s pretty buff, but there’s significant sand out by Callao and Wendover and a lot of loose rocks everywhere because it’s gravel. I’m planning on a 42mm minimum this year. I ran 29ers last year and was pretty comfy. My gearing this year is going to be 40 x 11-46 since I’m not dragging 50 lbs of touring 29er across the desert. I think a lot of people are going to go for something similar.
For the Salty Lizard 100, it’s pretty flat and fast in parts, but the techy parts are really techy. I’ve had people declare that they’d only ever ride their mountain bike out there. There’s one part I call Mt. Dune where it’s about a mile uphill over moto whoops that are entirely made of fine sand. I saw a guy who tried it on 35mm tires and got Judo-flipped over his bike and ended up nearly amputating his finger in his disc rotor.
The top three times for Mt. Dune are all on mountain bikes. But a lot of it, you don’t really need it. The best sign of a good gravel course is that you have no idea what bike to bring, and I think John’s course does that. It’s fast and funky.
I think that for both rides, we’ll see a lot of both mountain bikes and gravel bikes. Maybe the odd CX bike with a lot of clearance and extra water bolted on.
(This article was written by CycloCross Magazine- Pictures also from CycloMagazine)
