You may ask “Why would you gravel race on your mountain bike? Isn’t that like bringing hockey skates to a figure skating contest?” (That’s the only analogy I could think of.) But, yes. It isn’t the perfect tool for the job. But they both roll and perhaps was the best idea I had this summer. Lock out the shocks, check. Get rid of those knobs and slap gravel tires on mountain bike frame, check. Learn how to drink out of a water bottle, check. And away I go… sort of.
Before the debate starts on the right bike or components for gravel racing, let’s first go back to how I got here.
Riding Bikes is All The Same
That’s what I always thought. You learn to ride a bike as a kid and then think, “I know how to ride bikes. Any bike with two wheels is still two wheels.” In theory, sure. If you can stay upright and pedal, it’s all similar. But I’m sure every bike coach still shakes their head every time they hear that.
For me, my favorite bike growing up was a Strawberry Shortcake banana seat cruiser with a 6 ft flag waving behind and streamers in the handlebars. And those annoying plastic clicking balls you put on the spokes. She was beautiful and fun! At some point I also remember a bigger-girl drop bar road bike with teal and purple accents. That was maybe preteen era but it doesn’t resonate in my mind like the Strawberry Shortcake ride or even my Big Wheel.
Then we moved out West and my focus became horses. I didn’t really ride bikes again until my 30’s when city commuting became a thing instead of sitting in traffic and parking. Fast forward to my late 30’s and living in Lake Tahoe, my sights got set on mountain biking. And I do love mountain biking. But about a year ago, gravel racing weaseled into the picture. I don’t exactly know how or why. I remember thinking I don’t enjoy enough time in the outdoors just soaking it all in and bikepacking was a thought to combine bikes and nature without breakneck mtb speed or snowboarding life. And then perhaps the competitive drive to push myself with a bit more need-for-speed crept in once again and gravel racing became my focus.
2025 is for Gravel Racing
When I decided I wanted to start gravel racing and finally find a community of women with like passions, I set my sights on 2025. That would give me time to seriously train and get a proper gravel bike. (I REALLY want a Liv Cycling gravel bike and to become a local ambassador – hint hint.) I might be in my 40’s, but if you’ve ever looked at the race circuit before, the ladies in the 40+ and 50+ age groups are animals! These women are in the best shape of their lives and crushing the souls of everyone around them, including the 20 somethings and even the men! This isn’t just a group I leisurely stroll into. I need to do my work to play in this category.
And while I thought I had the plan worked out, here comes the local 2024 June race of the Truckee-Tahoe Gravel. I looked at that race as my 2025 goal. The moment to kick off my racing aspirations. By then, I’d have a gravel bike, learn how to use drop bars, clipless pedals, and 2x shifting. Not to mention the endurance gains from training. I’d floated my idea by a few friends and colleagues because I firmly believe you have to tell people your goals to help keep you on track and accountable. Those few mentions turned into an email from the race communications team, Alex Roa @ TOPO Collective, with a casual but impactful suggestion that maybe I pedal the race this year as a pre-warmup and compare it to the full race next season. What a genius idea! Only wrinkle is the race was 7 weeks away and I’d be traveling for 2 weeks of that time.
5 Weeks to Train
I already train year-round in the gym, keeping me on my mountain bike and snowboard. I’m never not training for a season and my nutrition is always dialed in to support it. But what I didn’t have was time in saddle. On average, I ride my mtb 2x week, with rides ranging from 1,000 – 2,000 vert and somewhere between 10-15 miles. That’s not good enough for a gravel race. Not even if I just aspired to finish it, let alone podium. These women are ripping through 100 – 200 miles courses with thousands of vertical feet, some even over 10,000! My two little rides a week weren’t even enough to graze that.
Originally, the Truckee Tahoe Gravel was a 70 mile race. Then they added the XL version at 100 miles. And this year, they added another option – The 30. How perfect! Even though my brain told me I could pull off the 70, the 30 mile course was a perfect introduction to race day, a gravel event, and trying to integrate my mountain bike into the equation. All I needed to do was pedal, pedal, pedal every week and fold in some interval work.
Training Schedule
The training schedule worked out as follows for the 5 weeks I was at home. The 2 weeks we traveled, I trail ran each day and rented bikes for 2 days of city biking miles, as many as I could rack up.
Gravel Tires on Mountain Bike Dilemma
Like ripping off a bandaid, there’s no better time to get my tires wet than to race a race. But I don’t even have a gravel bike. Does that really matter? In hindsight, I’d say YES, but to let that stop me from starting my gravel journey, that’s a definite NO. If I would have kindly refused the suggestion that I shouldn’t ride our local race because I didn’t have the perfect bike… well, that’s an excuse I just couldn’t give. I’d heard some local intel that a hardtail mountain bike for this race was a perfectly fine idea and a simple tire change could make it all work. I don’t have a hardtail but I could lock out the shocks and at least do the tire thing.
So Many Tire Choices
Since the day I started mountain biking, I’ve been a diehard Maxxis tire gal. If you’re curious on the wide world of mtb tires, we have resources to help with that.
Wheel Go Round & Round On The Best Mountain Bike Tires
Never Fold Under Pressure For Mountain Bike Tires Finding The Right PSI
But when it came to gravel tires, I was at a loss. There are plenty of articles written about them, but I went straight to the bullpen and asked a few friends what they actually suggest for this race, knowing its terrain. I got two resounding answers. The Maxxis Aspen or Maxxis Rekon tires. Sounded easy enough. So I called our local shops.
Buy Local Bust
Buying local is Local Freshies® at the core. To support the little guys & gals in mountain towns. But I hit a big zero on this one. First off, my Norco Fluid mtb is a 27.5 tire, which nowadays is harder to find. We also live in a predominately singletrack town where knobs rule the trails. My attempt to find a smaller size gravel tire was unsuccessful. I knew the tires existed, but weren’t in any ordering catalog for our local shops. I had no other choice but to go direct to Maxxis. Even Amazon only had the larger 29″ size. The Rekon tires were easier to order, but my recommendations for the Aspen were loud and clear to try and get my hands on a set of them.
The tires came in a week later and our local shop, Bike Minded, got them mounted and ready for me to ride. My bike is a bit older so the rims aren’t tubeless per se, but Eric works his magic to make them tubeless converts. Seven years later and that conversion is still working – knock on rubber.
Do Knobs Really Matter
So now for the actual tires. First off, the smell of fresh rubber is intoxicating. Or maybe that’s just me. When I picked up my bike from the shop and saw the Maxxis Aspen mounted, they all of a sudden looked nothing like my maxxis Minion tires and terrifying for the massive rock gardens we have here in Tahoe. But I had to keep reminding myself these were for a gravel race not our singletrack. I only had two weeks to adjust to these tires before the race.
My first ride was on the bike path, so I inflated the tires to 40 PSI for the ride. OMG, it was so smooth and fast. I’d never felt that on my mountain bike before. Next rides were a series of forestry/gravel-ish roads to get used to a little climbing and speed on loose ground. After the 5 weeks, the new tires were really comfortable, even on small tech, and I was ready to race.
My honest assessment though is knobs DO MATTER. I never gained the confidence in those weeks, even after the race, to charge down our large technical rock gardens. I missed the aggressive nature of the Maxxis Minion tires and knew I needed them back once my gravel mountain bike became just a mountain bike again.
It’s Finally Race Day
Race day went by so fast! I decided to do the Shakeout Ride the day before so I’d know a little about the staging location and the course itself. It helped take off some of the stress on race day. I barely slept the night before. I’d thought about nothing but this race for the last two months and it was finally here. Breakfast was a challenge to choke down at such an early hour but with the race being under 30 miles, I got away with that snafu this time. While the entire race was a blast at around 2 hours long, I did come away with some valuable learnings.
1. Bike Does Matter
I wasn’t the only one on a mountain bike for the race, but none of us were praising the heavens for our mtb’s instead of gravel bikes. For the race course, about 1/3 was road and the rest dirt. The road was going to be a problem – a speed problem. And of the dirt part, maybe 60 seconds was on a singletrack trail with one rock. So to say a full suspension mountain bike was overkill is not an exaggeration.
I can say with confidence that when it came to the dirt sections, my stability and ability for speed compared to some gravel bikes was far superior. My bike, even with its gravel tires, blew threw any loose dirt or rocks like nothing was even there. But where I suffered and lost all my juice was on the pavement and the smoother dirt roads. Every climb I could power past riders, no problem. And I’m sure an even less aggressive road/gravel tire would have made me even faster. But all was lost when the downhill segments arrived. All my hard work to pass cyclists slapped me in the face as they flew past, still pedaling, as if they weren’t even trying. With my 1×10 setup, I ran out of gears within 30 seconds of descending. I just coasted along, watching my hopes and dreams fly by.
2. You Need Easily Accessible Fuel
This particular race was short so fuel wasn’t terribly important, knowing we’d all be done in about 2 hours. I didn’t buy any new packs for the race and decided to use a light weight trail running backpack for my water and snacks. My attempts to learn the water bottle thing didn’t work out, so that needs more practice. It’s hard to grab your bottle while pedaling and squirt water in your mouth without choking. I’m used to carrying water on my back but it would be nice to lighten that load for future races.
Now for the fuel. Races are good about aid stations but that means you have to stop to get supplies. I didn’t want to do that for this shorter course, but I also didn’t have front strap pockets or any other pockets to put easily accessible snacks. It’s pointless to carry fuel if you can’t quickly and efficiently get to it. I need to better work this out as well. A quick bathroom break was in order from all the water I was managing to drink, so I took advantage of the pit stop and choked down a bag of Sport Beans for a fast pick-me-up.
3. Know the Course for the Right Tire Choice
I now understand why the event organizers at Bike Monkey scheduled a dedicated talk about tires before the race. Of course the bike matters, but the tires might even be more important. I didn’t make it to this talk, one as I’d chosen my tires and two I was already taking the 3 hr roundtrip back and forth to Truckee and didn’t want to add another day to that. At least not this year. But back to tires, having a solid understanding of the different race surfaces should drive your tire choice. If your race is mostly road or smooth dirt, a faster tire may be your ticket, assuming you can hold it together on the rougher bits without as much traction. And then vice versa if your race was set to be rough and tumble. In that case, the knobs could save you but know that you’ll have to really power through the smooth parts with more drag.
When I was on the road for about 9 miles at the start of the race, I was wishing for faster tires and more gears. But when the other 2/3’s of the course showed up with loose dirt, gravel, and rocks, I was loving my Maxxis Aspen decision more than I had regretted them on the pavement. My choice of tires was right for the day. My choice of bike and gearing was the issue.
What’s Next
As we fold into Fall, the biking weather is perfect, and I’ll be racking up the miles for sure. While I still don’t have a gravel bike, that’s okay. My mtb and its knobby tires will take me all across our glorious singletrack. I’m holding out for a Liv Cycling Devote gravel bike. My gravel journey isn’t just riding bikes and racing. I want to become part of the women’s gravel community and bring more women along with me for the ride. The Liv Cycling mantra for women’s cycling is important to me, and I want to represent them in the end as a local ambassador. I can wait for my bike knowing that my end goal is bigger than just pedaling. I hope to see you out on the gravel!
