As you know, a broccoli bike has entered my life, and rather than spurn it or cower from it or simply ignore it and hope it goes away, I have decided to embrace it. In so doing, my hope is not just to learn why these bikes are so popular (or at least why more and more companies keep trying to cram more and more models down our throats), but to discover the elusive and mythical Spirit of Gravel, or “SPOG.” (Has someone else used that one already? Probably. But I’m not part of the community so I can’t say for sure.)
In so doing, I expect to undertake a profound metaphysical journey venturing deeper and deeper into the metaphorical Tunnel of the Unknown, at the end of which I hope to find…myself.
One of the first things I’ve learned about the Spirit of Gravel is that when you’re searching for it in earnest you see it everywhere.
Did you spot the gravel?
There it is:
That’s some big-ass gravel.
My next transformational experience happened this past Friday, shortly after ordering my intern to upload that day’s post, upon which I hopped on the PRJCT GRVL broccoli bike and made straight for the South County Trailway. I was just a few miles from home when I rolled through the spot where there’s always broken glass because the same assholes must get drunk there every night and smash their empties, upon which I heard the telltale sound of a puncture, only wetter because this was a tubeless tire with sealant in it. I could also feel the splatter of liquid SPOG on my bare calves.
Rolling to a halt I could see I was losing SPOG quickly:
Very quickly:
Indeed, the Spirit of Gravel had made bukkake all over the bike:
In fact I’m pretty sure it’s pregnant now.
Hoping that perhaps the sealant might eventually do what it was supposed to do, I spun the wheel around in order to carry more SPOG to the wound–and to my utter relief the sizzling sound stopped! So I got back on the bike and started riding again…and the hissing sound of escaping air returned almost immediately. What was going on?!? I thought this magical tire juice meant you were never supposed to get a flat again!
As I stood there with a rapidly deflating tire leaking spoodge all over the place, my first instinct was to announce to anybody who might happen to be within earshot, “Okay, that’s it, I quit gravel!” I then began to calculate how long it would take me to walk home and get my Roadini, and whether I’d have any time left for a ride if I did. But then I remembered this was not just a ride, this was a quest–a quest to find the Spirit of Gravel. If this were a true gravel ride–the Mid Kanza, say, or the Dirty South–and I were a true gravel rider, would I give up, summon an Uber, and return to the comfort and security of paved roads and skinny tires with inner tubes? Or would I reach into my Suitcase of Courage and my Saddlebag of Supplies, fix the problem myself, and continue grinding away along a surface strewn with Very Small Rocks towards a personal best?
Once I’d stopped crying, I opted for the latter.
Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m no stranger to tubeless. In fact, I’ve been using it in a mountain bike capacity since 2011 (longer than many gravelistas have even been gravelling!), when I took delivery of my erstwhile Engin:
[That was a nice bike.]
However, in all that time, I’d never experienced an actual flat tire while riding tubeless. Yes, I’d occasionally return to the bike days after a ride and find a tire had gone flat, but squirting more sealant in there generally solved the problem. Oddly, you’d think this would have made me into a tubeless convert, but never underestimate the depth of my resistance to change, or my general distaste for the tubeless tire mounting process.
All of this is to say that in fifteen years of part-time tubeless use I’d never plugged a tubeless tire. In fact, until PRJCT GRVL I’d never even owned a tire-plugging kit, and simply carried a spare inner tube instead. However, the unprecedented difficulty I experienced in mounting the tires on the PRJCT GRVL bike (seriously, my thumbs are still sore) made me realize it would be nearly impossible to get a tube in there on the side of the road, and that I also needed to carry some tire plugs at all times while riding it.
So I had what I needed; now I had to use it, having only watched a single instructional video several days before.
First I found the hole, which wasn’t difficult thanks to all the SPOG:
Then I reamed it out with the hot dog fork on my new multi-tool, which goes against every instinct you have when dealing with a brand-new bicycle tire, and then I stuffed a plug in there, feeling very much like an anxious surgical resident as my patient hemorrhaged air and sealant:
Then I inflated the tire with my mini pump, certain I’d done it wrong and that it wouldn’t hold air:
But to my surprise and relief the patient didn’t die on the table, and the repair did hold air:
And yes, I realize this is completely routine to many of you, but it was my first time–and like other firsts in life it was really short and really messy and I was really, really nervous the whole time, but now I feel really good about myself and want to brag about it to anybody who will listen and I’m ready to do it again.
With the tire now holding air and the bike rideable, I realized I could now go home and get another bike, and that’s when the Spirit of Gravel spoke to me for the first time.
“Keep riding, trust the repair,” it said like Obi-Wan.
And so I did, leaving behind me a large puddle of SPOG:
I stopped a little while later to make sure the plug was still holding:
And satisfied that it was I headed for the trails:
Some were still too icy and muddy to be enjoyable:
Others were quite ridable:
And still others were blocked by Amazon vans:
Someone must have ordered a bunch of gravel components for their gravel bike using the new Amazon Gravel Prime service.
At this point you may be wondering, “So how do you like the bike?”
Well, I’m enjoying it very much, but I can’t make any sweeping pronouncements about it for the following reasons:
- The trails have been too much of a mess to do much more than hop on and off of them here or there, so I haven’t been able to do any sustained graveling
- I’m still feeling the effects of my crash over the holidays, which means I’ve had to ride even more gingerly than I usually do
- As with any new bike, I’m still in the fussing-with-stuff period, which is necessary, but also distracting
- At the same time, there’s a honeymoon period with any bike, and you don’t know how you really feel about it until you’ve shared a bathroom with it for a few months
However, I finally feel like I’m close to being recovered, and I also feel like the bike is close to being dialed in, so if the trails dry out and stay that way for a bit I look forward to more pain- and fuss-free riding.