Great American Road Trip 2021 Part 1

Where to start. The race report is near the end, but I hope you'll read more than just that because honestly a lot of the coolest stuff isn't even in the race.

I think it was sometime in April on a random ride at North Park when Will causally mentioned that next year he wanted to do some 24 hour races. It was really just random conversation, but it got me thinking. That night I did some research and read about the WEMBO North and South American 24 hour Solo MTB championships out in Oregon in July.

I texted Will about the 24 hour race in Oregon, but since that race was the week before High Cascades (which we were on the waitlist for), I figured the 24 hour race was off the table. But, to my surprise, Will was like "why don't we just stay in Oregon for the whole week and do both?"

880 mile/8 day Crush the Commonwealth Gravel

 The bike shop I'm affiliated with, Sweetwater Bikes, had been working on a massive gravel tour of Pennsylvania for some time now. It had always been in the back of my mind, but it did not really seem realistic since I did not have any gear, and I did not really think anyone else would want to do it during race season.

Fast forward to early August, and Will Loevner calls me and starts talking bikepacking. Hmm. The thick plottens. Now it began to seem like the CTC Gravel route might be a possibility. After a few days, we decided to do the CTC Gravel route over Labor Day. This was all being planned before Breck Epic, so we knew we'd have time at Breck to keep planning and talk to Montana Miller (dirtcruise.com, and a veteran bikepacker) about bikepacking.