Aug 6, 2019
A conversation with Mike Kuhn and Gunner Bergey aboutPennsylvania Gravel and the Unpaved and Ironcross events.
Upaved Websiste
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Ironcross Website
Ironcross Instagram
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TECH CORNER sponsored by THESIS
Thanks, Craig.
In recent years, 1x drivetrains have taken over the mountainbiking world. Today I’m going to argue why 1x should also be thedefault for most gravel riders.
1. With no front shifting, there’s less to go wrong, and lessskill needed to dial things right.
2. With 1x, the user interface is vastly simplified. There’s nopossibility of rubbing or cross-chaining, and you can just focus onthe terrain ahead.
3. 1x drivetrains are cheaper to buy and generally cheaper tomaintain.
4. In the case of some mechanical front shifters, you can modifythem to activate a dropper post. This is actually super slickbecause it puts your dropper post at your fingertips at all times,whether you’re on the hoods or in the drops.
Now there are two primary objections that I hear. First isrange. This one’s actually a non-issue. You can get the same orgreater range these days, with consistent jumps between gears aswell.
The second thing that often comes up is gear spacing. However,on dirt, the terrain is generally changing so frequently thatyou’re never at the same cadence for very long. Additionally, manyriders, especially those of shorter stature, are running cranksthat are too long for their inseam. Having a crank length that’sproportional to your inseam will allow you to spin at a wider rangeof cadences, which would in turn cancel out much of the perceivedbenefit of tight jumps.
So that’s why, for most gravel riders, I recommend a 1xdrivetrain.
I’d love to get your feedback on this topic. In the meantime,back to Craig and this week’s guest.
FULL EPISODE:
Automated Transcript (please excuse the typos)
Mike, Welcome to the show.
Okay.
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Yeah. I'm excited to talk about unpaved, but before we dig in,how did you get into event organizing and what attracted you tobeing a gravel cyclist?
Uh, I, I know we don't have a whole lot of time so we'll try tokeep it brief, but um, but many years ago and in Lewisburg where webased on pay from a, I went to school and I got involved incollegiate cycling at the time and we, we put on a couple of eventsand I put on my, my very first, uh, event production involvementwas, was there, um, we did, we did road race weekend, we did amountain bike event at Arby Winter State Park. And that over theyears has blossomed into other things eventually. Uh, I was, I waspart of that crew that brought an event called iron cross together,which, uh, is now 15 plus years in two years. Sort of a mixed, um,mixed surface type ride. Uh, and then the Transylvanian mountainbike epic was one that I did for almost a decade. And through thoseexperiences in some bike racing experience too, we got to know thefolks in Lewisburg and the tourism office there, the, um,Susquehanna river valley and, uh, have built a really wonderfulrelationship. That's why John Paved this point.
For those of our listeners who don't know exactly the regionyou're talking about, can you describe where it is in the state ofPennsylvania?
Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty central in Pennsylvania. So, um,you're, you know, a couple of hours from Philadelphia. You're acouple of hours from Pittsburgh and north of both, both of them,um, and, and pretty central in the state. It's into what we callthe ridges and valleys, uh, portion of Pennsylvania at Lewisburgitself. That's sits on the Susko Hannah River, which is one of the,uh, made perhaps the main, um, you know, uh, body of water thatflows into the Chesapeake Bay. So it's a pretty big river. Andthen, uh, we, uh, we ride west from there. We ride West from thereinto, uh, towards state college, Pennsylvania. I'm at Penn StateUniversity and through the ridges and valleys of Pennsylvania.
So what's your [inaudible] this is the second year of unpaved inthe Susko Ohana Valley. Sounds like you've done a ton of eventorganizing in the mountain bike space and earlier in the roadspace. What drew you to this opportunity around creating a gravelevent?
So the gravel, I know the gravel things. So first off being inthat area in college, you know, I was exploring some of theseroads. Um, even back then I think that even even before we had sortof the specialized equipment that we do today though, the gravel inPennsylvania is really welcoming to a wide range of bicycles. Andso, uh, even getting out there on some, some road bikes as, aspossible, um, from just south of there and Pennsylvania and have,um, and had that experience too. And then, you know, really ironcross I think was sort of the first, um, venture into this world.Uh, iron cross is a hundred kilometers. It's mostly gravel. We mixit a little bit. We didn't purposely mix in as much pavement and alittle bit of single track and to that event so that we can, uh,we, we really try to make it hard to figure out exactly how to setup your bike.
I mean that's really the purpose is like what, what is the, youknow, how do you, how do you figure this thing out? But then withinthat, also as, as gravel grew, we, we started something that wecalled the a great gravel gathering, which was just a weekend, kindof in the same area in a little town called the Ohio. Um, that it,that, that on paved kind of reaches on its, its exploration of theBald Eagle state forest. And, uh, and, and that once we figured outthat, that a rail trail was being built because the rail trail thatwe use to get from Lewisburg, our starting location out to kind ofthe first section in the last section of the course did not exist.Um, until, and, and I'm going to get to, you know, I'm going to getthe exact timeframe wrong, but I don't want to say until maybeeight years ago or so.
And once we figured out that that connection was there that wecould get into the volleyball state forest and have sort of thisgravel connection, um, from Lewisburg out there, that's when wereally, you know, went back to our friends at Susquehanna rivervalley and said, hey, this is gravel stuff is looking pretty cool.Um, that's probably about six years ago that we did that. Andlet's, let's start exploring this. What's it gonna take? And haveworked through that process over a couple of years with and[inaudible] and, uh, which is our department of Conservation andnatural resources in Pennsylvania. And now working with, uh, withthose two entities in a whole lot of others to, to kind of bringthe city together.
Yeah, it's great when you can get those agencies involvedbecause they can help open spaces that might not have otherwisebeen opened and really help show the athletes and the community howspecial those open spaces are.
It's, um, you know, Pennsylvania has thousands and thousands ofmiles of trails and, um, kind of millions of acres of propertybetween, you know, between the state portion and something else wecall the state game lands and the gravel roads. It stretchedthrough all of this stuff. And once you get to, I mean gravelseverywhere in Pa and then especially once you get to kind of to theLouisburg area and endorse in the state, I mean, you could ride fordays if not weeks, um, and on gravel. So it's really, it's prettyspectacular. First state that's as old as we are and as developedas we are, we also have this really wonderful way to escape intothe back country.
Yeah. Geographically speaking, as I mentioned when we wereoffline, Pennsylvania is so well located amongst a whole bunch ofstates. I, I gotta imagine you draw athletes from all over theplace wanting to sample the trails you're talking about.
Yeah, we just, um, W I mentioned Transylvania, you know, we, wewere drawing folks from around the world to continuing to as a, asan a just kind of been reborn this year, uh, under a new directorand continuing to draw writers from around the world to that event.And, uh, it's, you know, the, the trails here are technical and,and rocky and challenging in a different way than what most peopleare used to. And then, like I said, the gravel, just amazing howmany miles of Babel roads exist. Um, w what we typically refer toin the northern tier of the state, but even, even coming downthrough the central part, and, uh, you can just, you can just findit everywhere. Um, it's, uh, it is geographically really welllocated in the u s and has some great, you know, betweenPhiladelphia and Pittsburgh, couple of pretty big airports.
Harrisburg offers another, you know, travel option in, it'sabout an hour or 15,000 of the venue. Another good place to travelin and out of. Uh, and certainly from, you know, from a connectconnectivity by a interstates man, there's all sorts of stuff. 80,81, 76, um, which depends on what you turned by all of them. Allright. Pretty close to where we are. So it's pretty easy to drivefly, uh, access land rovers there if you know, you feel like paddleand then you can probably make that work too. But yeah. Good spotto be for sure.
Absolutely. So speaking to you from the west coast and just sortof having an understanding of sort of the number of athletes wehave here in northern California, in southern California over thelast few years, have you been doing iron cross and last year withunpaved? How is the scene on the east coast? Is it growing asquickly as we see it in the West?
Yeah, good question. I have not had the pleasure of making it atrip out to your negative woods, but eh, I mean I, if it's not, ifit's not growing as fast, um, holy macro must you guys be blown upand you know, and say at an insane rate. Cause it's, it's pickingup really, really quickly over here. I mean, we've gone from zeroto 1,002 years at on and we have, you know, our friends putting onevents like keystone gravel, just selling out, you know,immediately a little lack of Waco Hondo, uh, sells out immediately.Those are, you know, relatively big events. Of course. Yeah. Northof us. There's some, some great stuff happening, um, in the NewEngland states like the Vermont overland, you know, ted King hashis event coming on. Um, it's big, right? It's big and it seemslike it's getting bigger.
Yeah. Well that's exciting to get that report from the eastguest. I didn't doubt it. There's certainly a lot of effort and alot of great events that have been going and are cropping up. WhenI look at the unpaved website, and I'll certainly put this in the,in the show notes so people can get to it, it's pretty easy to beattracted to the trails when I'm an athlete thinking about comingor signed, signed up already, what do I need to think about from anequipment perspective?
Yeah, good question. I feel like, you know, I end up feelinglike that so personal, so much of the time, it's so much, itdepends on the experience that you've, you know, that you have,that you bring with your equipment I suppose. But I'm going tothink a general rule of thumb is you for the most part. Now I'mgoing to, there's a little caveat in here because on the reallylong day on the one 20, on our longest distance, we throw a wetlong well draft people along. They'll draft a is, is it very sortof chunkier type experience. It's not a, it's not Pennsylvaniasingle track, but digging in pretty decent size, embedded rocks ona, on a downhill grade. And uh, and that's kind of its own thing.And if you're headed out there, you really want to protect yourselfand protect your, you know, your equipment and they lessen thechance of flats or you might, you know, a little bigger tire mightbe a good choice for you. But you know, the vast majority of thiscourse, the gravel is, um, unless we happen to hit a time whendecent art has just graded one of their roads and kind of kicked itup a little bit and turned it up a man really well packed, reallywell maintained. And I've done, I've done large portions of thecourse on, you know, on, on 28. Now I don't recommend that. That'snot the most enjoyable way to do it, but it can be done. Um, somaybe, maybe that, does that help you figure it out?
It does. And when, when you talk about Pennsylvania fat tires,what, what kind of with are you talking about for that?
Yeah.
People who are experienced 40 ish really want to feel it. Youknow, if you're 40, 45, he really, he really want, like, if you'rereally like, mm, that's pretty, you know, I'm maybe really out herefor the cruise and enjoy it. Just want to be, just want to be safeand happy or whatnot. You know, throwing something a little wideron there is not a, is not a bad idea. If you're taking on the one20, I don't think I would say. I would say if you're not doing theone 20, there's a little section that gets pretty Chunky, um, earlyon in the course. But you know, you can really, I think most peopleare probably going to be pretty comfortable on that 40 45 sort ofchoice. Yeah.
Yeah. It was. I recently had Alison Tetrick on the podcast andwe were sort of laughing because she tends towards, in my mindwhat's a narrower attire. I told her I routinely run fifty's herein Marin County and she sort of laughed and she laughed at me andsaid, well actually I think that's stuff that you ride down inMarin county's actually mountain biking, which is probablytrue.
Right.
So that is fun. I mean that's why and how that's all changed.Yeah. I don't, I, you know, despite having this podcast, I don'tlike to geek out or agonize too much over equipment choices. I amvery much at, you know, ride what you got and there's going to beadvantages and disadvantages. Certainly when that the group is, ishauling butt through some of this, the uh, the more paved sections,having an hour or tire and lightweight setups going to be great.But as you said long into the day, that little bit extra comfort,you really need to balance that. If you, you know, are you outthere really to, to kind of win and go for it? Are you just outthere to kind of have a smile on your face all day long?
Yeah, right. The last, right. You protect yourself a little bit,a little little, you pay a little penalty for, for carrying alittle extra weight, but you don't have to stop, you know, youdon't have to stop you on problems. There's, there's joy in thattoo, right? Like it just makes a day that much more funpotentially. So.
Yup. Yeah,
exactly. So you mentioned there's multiple distances for theevent this year.
There are, and I'll tell you what man, we are, we are so excitedand so grateful to say that we're essentially, we have, we haveliterally one spot laughed and our three longest distances. So wedo a one 20, a 90 and a 55 as of this morning. There is one spotlast, um, in across the distances and it's in the 55 90 category.We kind of combine those for the field by met. So we do have a, wedo have a uh, a little shorter category. It's kind of a taste ofgravel. It's a lot of rail trail, a little bit of pavement. Itdoes, you know, it hits the rest of the rail brewing company, whichis, which is pretty cool out there. And Muslim various one of ouraid stations. And uh, that one's about a 30 mile, a little lessthan that, about 27 I guess this year. Um,
yeah, I saw that on your site and actually I was really excitedto see that cause I think it's so important if you've got theterrain that you can make into a very enjoyable beginnerexperience. It's so important for the sport because obviouslyyou're not going to sign up for a 121 miles with some steeptechnical terrain if you're a road rider that's never written offroad. So I appreciate the efforts of inviting, you know, allcategories to kind of join the event.
Yeah. And it's, you know, for us to, uh, again get thiswonderful experience up there and let us Berg w with school and,and we've got these great partners, not just the, uh, since Wayneat river valley, but the Miller center as well as our start finishlocation downtown Lewisburg is rolling out the, you know, redcarpets for riders with, with stuff going on all weekend andthey're really leading the effort on that, which is really cool.And we want to, we really want to encourage the, the localcommunity, Lewisburg, Williamsport, even Harrisburg is not thatfar. We would encourage that community to come out and try this andbe part of this weekend. And you know, and, and, right. I mean,every, you get a taste of this, you get a taste of this fun. Thepeople that are involved and then you're like, I just want to domore of this. And you know, hopefully we over time encourage themto try the longer distances as well. So that's definitely part ofwhat we're thinking too.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you see, you see the events that havebeen around eight, 10, even longer number of years. And you've gotkids who started their watching their parents who are all of asudden now able to toe the line, which is, I mean obviously whatthe sport and what cycling needs. Absolutely. 100%. So when we lookat the longer event, when I'm done with it, when I'm done with myone 21 miles, what are three sections that you think we're going tobe talking about at the end of the day?
Okay.
Longwell draft, which we talked about, you go down long. Well,you're like, okay, I've had enough of that, but it's a good part ofthe courts, uh, and, and long, well, sort of that, that extra 30mile loop is, is that meant that takes the 92, the one 20, uh,Dave, my coconspirator in this whole thing, day prior now calls outthe difference in, um, it, you know, you feel that there's a lot ofclimate in Longmont wrapped in there. So, so long while that is,is, is a piece of that, I mean, there's, uh, Pine Creek, Raj, andwe do roll out of town and it's relatively flat, a couple ofrollers, then you hit, um, John's mountain road and John's mountainis, uh, the first climb of the day and it's one of the biggerclients of the day. I think that often sticks out in people'sminds.
There's a wonderful vista just over the top of it. Um, kind ofhave to, you know, heads up to, to catch it. But man, what a, whata wonderful spot for pictures and, you know, taking an idea if youcan spare a second. But then after that, it is just this wonderfulslight downhill grade for 10, 12 miles. And, um, something that wedon't see a lot of in Pennsylvania actually. And that is probablymy favorite part of the course. I mean, you can just grow and rolland roll and Rovell uh, on this beautiful gravel section of thecourse. And I really love that one. Um, and then we have some railtrail in there and then that doesn't sound very exciting, but manis that beautiful along Pans Creek. He goes through a tunnel as youcome out of Pope Patti State Park. Uh, and, uh, and to me that'sone of the other kind of unique features and highlights of thecourse as well.
And then when we're all done, are you getting together for sortof a festival type atmosphere?
Yeah, I'll tell you what we are, we're throwing a party allweekend long. You know, I say we, I mean, all those partners, it's,it's far more than just, uh, just unpaved that's doing that. Sostarting even earlier, as early as Friday evening, uh, a littlefun. Graveled we're going to get on garage raveled unraveled ongraveled uh, oh on Friday night with some fun town's SaturdaysExpo. We've got a bunch of wonderful partners coming in salsa asthey are, stands as their, uh, I think Floyd's and Ergon are comingin and it looks like, you know, a Jira will be there and a numberof others. Vargo which is, uh, which, which some of our folks know,maybe not everybody would bargo make some really cool equipment forbike packing in there, right in town. They're actually based out ofLewisburg, which is a really cool connection. They're going to be,you know, part of this, we got all this stuff and then there's abunch of local artisans.
There's a wooly where and festival, which certainly appeals tome, but it's gonna appeal to my kids even more. Um, that's going onas part of this, uh, the wheeler center is working with us ondaycare opportunities. So, you know, both parents want to come. Uh,maybe you can't, maybe there's not enough daycare for the full one20, probably they may be for Alison Tetrick or somebody that fast.Maybe you can, you can blow through quickly enough, but from a meremortals, you know, if you're going out for the 30, uh, one of theparents wants to do that and, and have the kids kind of engage insome super fun activities. That number center's got family friendlystuff going on. Uh, and then Monday even we've, you know, we havesome rides happening conjunction with like at Buycott, Lewisburg,sort of local advocacy, um, folks there for, for cycling andpedestrian activities in those groups. So [inaudible] entire fullweekend of fun, family friendliness, you know, Clyde peelings rep,they'll land reptile land is just up the road. That's a pretty funstop for families while you're in town. So just tons and tons ofstuff to do even in, you know, kind of small town Pennsylvania. Butman, is it a beautiful spot on the Bucknell University and uh, andsome good things that weekend.
That's awesome, Mike. I appreciate the overview. Certainly fromall accounts. Last year's event was amazing, so I'm sure this onewill be even better. I hope the weather holds for you guys and youget a big turnout. It sounds like there's only maybe one slot leftfor some lucky, lucky person online who hears this. Go over andgrab it. Say I'm Mike. Thanks again for the time.
Hey, thank you very much for having us. Really appreciate it. Ihope you can hope you can make it and, and you know, not this yeardecent. Our, we're hoping to work with us and we get this thingbigger and better. Next year or two, we're going to keep, keep afoot on the gas with it too.
Right on Mike, I appreciate that. Cheers.
PART 2:
Gunner. I want to welcome you to this all Pennsylvania editionof the gravel ride podcast.
It's great to be here. Craig, thanks for having me today. I'mreally excited to help fill you in and get the listeners up to dateon what's going on with iron cross.
Yeah, I'm stoked to continue the conversation about Pennsylvaniariding cars. As I was mentioning to Mike, I've done a bit as amountain biker when I was living in the mid Atlantic. I love theterrain and I can see how it totally lends itself to gravel riding.I'm excited to get into a little bit to the, into the history ofiron cross, but let's start off by just learning a little bit aboutyou. How do you come to the sport of cycling?
So I grew up, my dad got me into mountain biking when I waspretty young. Uh, I raced mountain bikes as a junior year and Ieventually transitioned to focus on cyclocross. Um, I've raced withthe national team over in Belgium. I went down to these McCraywhere I raced, uh, in college and was part of some teams that didpretty well national championships and uh, and just sort of grewfrom racing my bike to I got Lyme disease and it sort of took meoff the racing side of things and that kind of opened up the doorto help put on races. And I've been really enjoying being on theother side of the core state.
Interesting. In Pennsylvania, is there a big cyclocrosscontingent? Okay.
Yeah, the mid Atlantic has a pretty awesome series a, the midAtlantic cross, they put on some really great events. They host abunch GCI events. It was really helpful growing up as a junior tohave such high quality events. Uh, you know, so close to where Igrew up.
And you mentioned Mike was there one of the original founders ofiron cross. What was the vision? What time of year did it sit inand what was the intention to contribute to the cyclocross racingcommunity there?
So Mike definitely pushed that cross as a, when he started thatrace. This'll be at 17, 2019. We'll be at 17th year. So it wasquite awhile ago when Mike got that off the ground and he was sortof doing something that no one else, no one else was offering.There weren't a whole sampling of gravel races back then. Therewere some minor cross claims to be the first one in North Americaand it was based off of, I believe it's called triple cross, thattriple cross or triple peaks that was over in the UK. And that wassort of where he got his inspiration there and it was an old racewhere they would actually ride to the pills and then hike theirbikes to the top and come back down and ride to the next step. Sothat was sort of what Mike used as says, um, idea and inspirationbehind it. And it sort of grew from there. Um, it's interestingbecause it's, oftentimes it's with falling this year. It's onOctober 20th, 2019. And uh, it is in the middle of cross season anda lot of serious cross raisers have a hard time working into theirschedule. You know, they're trading for short hour long efforts.So, you know, depending on how quickly you're going up, three tofive hour effort on the bike doesn't really suit that sort oftraining. But people come out and they make adjustments to theirschedule to make it because it's a, it's a pretty unique event.
Yeah. It's interesting that you mentioned the three peakcyclocross race in the UK. My cousin Tim had competed in it, shoutout cousin Tim Tebow Dalton. Um, and I remember seeing some of thepictures and I remember talking to them about how friggen hard thatrace was and seeing him struggle over those peaks carrying hiscyclocross bike on his shoulder, you know, going back a decade agoor so. So it's a pretty interesting model and I think like threepeaks, it's clear that iron cross is put on the calendar as a bigadventure, which is, I think it's really cool and exciting forsomeone who maybe specializes in cyclocross to kind of go out oftheir comfort zone and tackle a longer event and tackle theadventurous route that you guys have laid out for people.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's great. It's sort of pools, ironcross pools in a racers from road mountain and cross backgrounds.We've had people do it on road bikes with big tires. I wouldn'trecommend it, but it is possible. Uh, and then you've got seriousmountain bikers that are in the middle of their off season and thenyou've got serious cross racers in the middle of their, you know,racing season and they all sort of come out and they have a prettygood battle. It can neat to see a different groups that maybe don'tget to race with each other the rest of the year. Um, sort of meeteach other and, and meet people that maybe they do training rideswith but don't, don't attend races but together cause they focus ondifferent disciplines.
Yeah. And I imagine it's fascinating as you look at thedifferent parts of the course where they favor one bike or another,how you see athletes in that specific discipline close gaps orcreate gaps depending on their skill and their equipment.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, you've got, you know, sometimesthere'll be road racers that know that their technical skills arelacking and are a lot for a mountain bike because they think thatthey can overcome, uh, the larger tire with and the drag on theroad, uh, to be a most, maybe go faster on some of the offersections and then they'll be the opposite people that are used togoing downhill and used to navy riding, drop par bikes on somerough terrain that are worried about having to fitness to get up orsome of the hills.
So if I'm lining up at the start line, can you walk the listenerthrough what an iron cross races, like, what's, what's the terrainthat they're tackling, how does it unfold? And we starting out withmore technical terrain. Are we starting out on fire roads? Justgive us a brief overview of the exciting sections of thecourse.
Yeah, absolutely. We can totally walk through the course here.Uh, so we start right outside of Williamsport in southWilliamsport, uh, from the South Williamsport senior center. We goa neutral rollout through south Williamsport. And one of the coolparts about iron cross that we've been able to pull together in thepast few years is it's neutral. And we have a replica cannon on theside of the hill and people always say, well, how will we know whenthe river starts? And I tell them that, well, the race starts fromthe cannon goes off and not everyone thinks I'm serious. And wehave a full cannon that gets loaded with a, you know, gun powder init. It makes a loud, loud blast. There is no confusion on when therace starts. So as soon as soon as the candidate goes off, theyroll through the Williamsport. What authority property?
It's kind of a nice intro, some rougher double tracks, smootherdouble track, and that sort of just gets the blood flowing and leteveryone know what they're going to be in for for the rest of theday. Um, after that, they've got a road climb and he kind of worksthrough the tie dot and state forest. Uh, just some absolutelybeautiful views. Uh, some great descents, great climbs. Um, thenthe, the main thing that everyone fits, stands out in everyone'smind is the hike a bike. So we've, we've got a pretty, prettyunique section of trail where it just goes up this, this rocky inbank men and, uh, there's photos of people and there's often, oftentimes you've got three points of contact with the ground, both yourfeet in one of your hands because it is so steep that, uh, when youleave for not that far, your, your face is right off the rocks andeveryone's carrying their bikes.
Some people put it on their shoulders, some people put it ontheir back, some people roll it up next to them. Um, and then abouthalfway up that climb is the unofficial aid station called Larry'stavern. And, uh, we often have someone there from SBDC and they'rein the past, they've grilled bacon, they'd grilled a deer meat,venison. They've had all sorts of stuff on the grill there. They'vehad a, sometimes they have some, some special drinks. They'rehanging out. And last year that the, uh, the winner of the overallwinner of the race actually stopped. And, uh, took a Ciroc shot andkept going on afterwards. So it's a pretty cool spot to hangout.
The Syrup shop might not be that bad of an idea. I get a littlesugar and yet at the end of that climb.
Yeah, absolutely. And after that you've got some more dre graveland other descent and another climb and then the course finisheswith a mountain top climb. Uh, and it's a pretty brutal, it's abouttwo miles long, really nice double track. And uh, up at the top wenormally have hot coffee cookies. And, uh, then it said, then youjust take your time and roll back to your car, the race at the topof the hill. You've got a nice three, two mile descent back intotown. And then, uh, that's sort of it.
And then what do they expect after the race back in town? Do youhave some events going on afterwards for people to enjoythemselves?
Absolutely. We've partnered pretty closely with, uh, um, thebrick yard restaurant and the stone house restaurant there. Thereare two restaurants that, uh, are operating under the samemanagement open company. So laughter in everyone's ready to bag.They get a token for free beer and a burger or pizza for after the,um, after the events and they can come down and we do awardceremony in the courtyard and there's lots of lots of hanging outand people talking about the event and whether or not they had agood time and uh, there's been some, some really cool cool nightsand it ends up people hanging out for a long time and reallyenjoying, enjoying what sport has to offer.
Awesome. I was looking at the GPX file for the, for the race. Soit looks like it's, it's just shy of 60 miles and about 6,200 feetof climbing, is that right?
Yup. [inaudible]
and looking at the elevation, there's no break in this bad boy.It goes up and down and up and down. And I could see that, um, thatlast finishing climb is as big as anything else earlier in theday.
Yeah. The, the last line definitely. I mean when you're done, Idon't care if you're the first finish or the last minister, you arehappy to be done when you come across the line. The last time'spretty tough. It's a good one. Um, and it, it's when you get to thetop and have that hot coffee and cookies, everyone's usually prettyexcited to be wrapped up for the day.
I bet. I bet. Are All these trails open to riders other times ofthe year or is this any private property?
Uh, most of the courses open all the year. The glands. What,what our authority, uh, grants the event access. You're allowed togo there and ride. Um, and we, and uh, there's just, there's somerules there saw posted on a side but, but you are able to ride allthe course all year round.
Awesome. Well I encourage everybody to go to the iron crosswebsite because there's a video of that cannon going off. There's acourse profile across the board and a lot of information about howcool this event is and about the history. Like when we were talkingto Mike earlier, I think this region is just so cool for people tovisit for riding. And I can see how gravel riding is just explodingin the mid Atlantic area for, for events like this, just sort ofsetting the stage for what that community can can do.
We'd love to have the hour, um, that there's a really, reallygreat gravel community going on in PA. Uh, and then I think thatyou'd have fun at anything that's going on in the state. There'ssome really great stuff and we'd love to have,
well I appreciate you taking the mantle of continuing thehistory of the Iron Cross race and continuing to have it evolve asnew opportunities arise. It's amazing when I think multiple peoplein the community dedicate themselves to putting on events andthinking about this cause it really helps. It really helps peoplevisiting the area to know where to ride and find some great loops.And it's just amazing to have these things on the calendar yearafter year after year. So gunner, thanks for joining us. I knowyou've got a busy weekend racing ahead of you, so thanks for thetime and we look forward to another great iron cross later thisyear.
Thanks for having me, Craig.
