Since becoming hooked on endurance type gravel and mountain bike races about 10 years ago I've ridden in events like the Dirty Kanza 200, the Mahh Daah Hey 100, Leadville, Almanzo, the Lutsen 99er and many more. I've also bike-packed across the Colorado Rockies and Utah desert a few times, just for good measure. NormOnTheRocks.com is a place for me to capture and share a record of my adventures.
Since becoming hooked on marathon gravel and mountain bike races about 10 years ago I've ridden in events like the Dirty Kanza, the Maah Daah Hey, Leadville, Almanzo, Lutsen and many more. I've also bike-packed across the Colorado Rockies and Utah desert a few times. This site, NormOnTheRocks.com is a place for me to keep track of it all.
A Dirty Millennium is 1,000 miles of off-tarmac racing in a single calendar year. My friend & I coined the term, borrowing from the ubiquity of gravel race names that start with “dirty” and extending the use of “century” as when referring to a 100 miler; if a century is 100 miles than a millennium must be 1,000 miles, right? BTW, a Dirty Millennium is hard stuff for the weekend warrior, we’ve only done it once. Of course any Tour Divide finishers would pass this milestone twice, but we don’t including bike-packing events & races. We’re talking about mostly 100 -200 mile races where the tempo is quick, but the effort still needs to be sustained for lots of hours.
Truth be told, I had a bit of a lull after the Maah Daah Hey 100 - that race took some time to recover from. Not just physically, but mentally. I just didn't feel like getting back on my bike again for awhile.
The trail is absolutely amazing, totally exceeding all of my expectations. 100 miles of relentless single-track winding through the badlands of North Dakota. Riding the entire trail in one day was nuts, so much harder than I anticipated. We covered about 105 miles with nearly 11K feet of ascending and 11K feet of descending trail.
The Dirty Lemming is a one of a kind event and the race that really got me into this genre of racing. Probably because it feels more like a ride with friends than it does a race.
We're thinking of replacing Gravel Worlds with the Inspiration 100.
The best riders cover the distance in about 10 hours & 40 minutes; we managed to finish in 15 1/2. I'm not sure how many started in 2014, but 469 finished.
The 99er was a mudfest. Maybe not as bad as years past, but still muddy. Brent and I both went into the 99er a little overconfident. Having survived the Kanza and being only 6 days removed from an 8 day mountain bike trip out West the general feeling was that the extra red-blood cells would easily lift us through a mere 99 miles. We were wrong.
Dirty Kanza 200 is behind us. It is a bit of a relief to be done. I was pretty intimidated going in, and for good reason. Our remaining 100 milers seem pretty tame.
The track was fast and the weather was perfect. No doubt the talk after the race was about the three horses who decided to run along with us.
The wind was a challenge all day. I was fortunate to find a group of about 12 -15 riders for the 1st half of the race which was huge - I didn't want to be out there fighting the wind alone. The second half was predominantly downwind, which was lucky for me, because I rode most of it alone.
We didn't know what to expect of the ride, for some reason I thought we'd be on pavement; instead nearly the entire course was on gravel, or more precisely on frozen dirt roads. We were lucky with the temps - cold enough for the roads to be frozen and not so cold as to be uncomfortable.
Flat, no wind, totally blue-bird sky and 101 miles. The last event in our inaugural quest for a dirty millennium.