On May 22, more than 1,000 cyclists are expected to take on the hills and canyons crossed by gravel roads in the desert between Fruita and Utah, but the effort to get the new event to the starting line has had its own ups and downs.
When Morgan Murri, founder of Desert Gravel, the company organizing the event, started planning his Colorado-to-Utah race, called Co2uT, the COVID-19 pandemic was still fresh. He was planning for an October 2020 date and started signing people up on June 1 of last year.
âRight as we were trying to develop this buzz and this idea behind it, as weâre getting energy, COVID is just crushing the world,â Murri said.
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6 New Gravel Bike Races Are Coming to Colorado This Year
Gravel riding has been talked about as cycling s next big thing for the past few years. These six inaugural gravel grinds are proof the discipline has fully reached the mainstream in the Centennial State. Courtney Holden •
April 26, 2021
You’ve likely heard that gravel or dirt riding (aficionados use the terms interchangeably) is the cycling trend du jour. In recent years, increased gear sales, an influx of websites dedicated to the discipline, and various magazines including us have signaled just that.
What’s the appeal? Well, it’s slightly more adventurous (and much less pretentious) than road riding and slightly less gnarly as well as less ego-driven than mountain biking. “It’s this boom of cyclists who don’t like all the traffic of road riding and who don’t feel the need to do all the technical stuff of mountain biking,” says Mad Gravel race director Dave Muscianisi. “They just want to [