Let's Do a Little DIY Gravel (Thanks Ted King!)
Earlier this year, I had convinced a big group of local women to join me for a gravel event. Some of them were doing their very first event and some were seasoned riders who were joining us to get more women to the starting line. Since most of my endurance racing came out of my experience with Team in Training, I was excited to rally a community around a common goal and couldn’t wait for the hugs, high-fives, occasional curse words, and inevitable finish-line smiles on race day.
Of course, race day never came. Our mid-April event was canceled as Georgia joined most of the country under Shelter-In-Place orders. We weren’t the only ones to lose our target event. We’ve seen the spring race calendar decimated and now the cancelations have rolled into summer (the Peachtree Road Race on the 4th of July was canceled as of today). We hope that August and September bring back events but no one knows.
Although I didn’t have plans to race it, Dirty Kanza was a target event for Girls Gone Gravel. We had planned to launch our live race coverage in the Flint Hills at the end fo May. My friend Claire, a producer at CNN, had gotten time off work to come help me with the coverage. So, when I saw Ted King launch his DIY Gravel, it sparked an idea. Why not just jump onboard and get a group of women to join him specifically for the DK DIY Gravel event? It made perfect sense. Kristi Mohn, long time DK race director is my podcast co-host and I’ve gotten to know Laura King since her appearance on our podcast. We’ve been looking for a great way to collaborate with Women Ride the World, an initiative that we would have participated in at DK, so it all made sense.
And on an emotional health note, I think it’s good for us to have a goal to look forward to. Most of us are struggling with motivation and structure. Putting something on my calendar and committing to preparing for it helps me create the structures I so desperately need right now. I suspect I’m not the only one.
So how does this work? Here are the rules (straight from Ted King’s DIY Gravel):
The Rules: read them all because it’s a tiny bit tricky, but it’s going to be awesome
Starting the weekend of the original event day (meaning, you have 9 days, from Saturday until the following Sunday) you have one week to do a ride of at least the same distance -- the same elevation is encouraged, but not mandatory. Once completed, return to this page and submit a link to your ride. Do any of the event’s actual ride distances. Each ride earns a credit to win. The more rides you do in the one week period increases your chances to win. Each and every ride you want to earn a credit must be entered here.
This is NOT a race. Speed and time do not matter.
Ride alone.
Ride outdoors or indoors, on-road or off-road. Adhere to local ordinances.
I (TED) have the best sponsors in the business! As this is NOT a race, we will award prizes at random, with each ride serving as an entry to win. A handful of prizes will be awarded weekly with each race. As more events are postponed/canceled, this will snowball into a much bigger giveaway, so keep playing!
By entering, you may receive correspondence and sweet incentives from my sponsors. All of which are the best in the business and have very simple opt-out options.
You're welcome to follow along with other riders in this #DIYGravel community by joining the Strava club. (Again, joining the club doesn't not enter you into contention. You must enter below to join the competition to win.)
Cycling is inherently dangerous. Duh. Participating in DIYgravel is done at your own risk.
Ted is running DIY gravel for all of his canceled events but as a group we are going to focus on Dirty Kanza, which would have taken place on May 30th of this year. DK offers four ride distances: 25 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles, and 200 miles (okay if you’re really motivated you can do the 350). In Ted’s challenge you have 9 days to complete the distance but Kristi wanted to add a little challenge - if you do the 200, complete it within 3-days. (Of course, you can do whatever you want to be entered into Ted’s prizes)
Speaking of prizes, Ted King is well Ted King so he has some awesome prizes from sponsors. You MUST record your information on his site (GO HERE) to be eligible win prizes.
We are going to do some fun things along the way - including some insider zoom calls, etc. To make sure you get the info, join our DIY gravel list here. (I know, so many lists but hey it’s free and fun and we’re just trying to figure this all out!) And because I like to make things obvious, below is a big box to sign up to get our Girls Gone Gravel DIY Gravel Updates (try saying that fast after you’ve already had your first glass of wine for the evening….)