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In this episode of Race Metal, Miguel goes back to Foco Fondo, his first-ever gravel event in Fort Collins, CO. He races the 118-mile course and asks fellow riders what makes this race so special, and in the spirit of Race Metal, do you own any metal bikes?
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The FoCo Fondo (July 21st, 2024) heard that gravel lotteries are super hot right now, so the Fort Collins gravel ride decided to make its own Fake A$$ Lottery. All currently registered riders, will receive their scratcher in the mail in the coming days. The team at FoCo Fondo hopes to see you scratching them on the Internets.
Two lucky dogs will receive a grand prize — either a VIP ticket to FoCo Fondo or a jersey of choice, so check your scratcher closely.
Don’t worry, everyone’s a winner at FoCo Fondo. Register at BikeReg.
Check out our FoCo Fondo Reportage here:
The 2022 FoCo Fondo featured some of Northern Colorado’s incredible mixed surface and gravel road riding with multiple expertly-curated routes ranging from 12 to 145 miles. All while fostering an inclusive and accommodating environment for a diverse group of riders.
All year long, gravel races and events seem to pop up in towns across the US. With its approachability, it’s no surprise that “gravel” has become so popular with cyclists in disciplines spanning the continuum between mountain and road riding. IMO, the most successful of these races are the ones that embrace and exemplify the values and character of the communities in which they are based. Having lived in Fort Collins, CO for nearly fifteen years, the FoCo Fondo is a special one for me, as it shows off some of Northern Colorado’s incredible mixed surface riding with multiple expertly-curated routes while also fostering an inclusive and comfortable environment for a diverse group of riders.
A few weeks ago, at the tail end of a trip to the Choice City, I jumped in a course car with locals Peter Discoe and Taylor Kruse to document the event.
Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
Our Radar Roundup compiles products and videos from the ‘net in an easy-to-digest format. Read on below for today’s findings…
Will Bender is a bicycle frame builder based in Fort Collins, CO. His custom frames run the gamut from all-road to gravel, touring, and modern hardtails. Last summer, Josh paid Will a visit to document his shop and learn about his background and approach to building bikes. While he was there, he enlisted Will to build the touring MTB of his dreams — a comfortable 29+ rig capable of carrying heavy loads and designed to harmonize with the Oddity Squid Fork made concurrently by another Fort Collins frame builder, Sean Burns. Continue reading below for the full rundown on this build…
The North South Colorado Bikepacking Race, a 610-mile adventure from Fort Collins to Trinidad, Colorado, is known for its challenging and scenic route over some of Colorado’s iconic (and lesser-known) passes. This year’s event saw around 60 riders toe the line, ready to tackle the diabolical journey. The course, notorious for its demanding 50,000 feet of elevation gain, offers a diverse mix of terrain, including smooth and blown-out gravel roads, trails, and even an abandoned train trestle precariously perched on the side of a mountain.
After a scratch on Day 2 of last year’s race Zack Allison returned this year with renewed confidence and a well-thought-out strategy. Zack, who spends most of his time racing gravel bikes and co-promoting the FoCo Fondo with his wife Whitney, provides a thorough recap of his North South Colorado win. His account delves into the highs and [mostly] the solitary lows of his journey to take the win at one of the toughest bikepacking races in the USA.
Oaxaca, Mexico, and its surrounding mountains, the Sierra Norte, have gained popularity in mountain biking and bike touring due to the efforts of the TranSierra Norte enduro race, and route development by a handful of local cyclists, but traditional gravel riding has gone relatively unreported and untapped in the region. But, in part thanks to the mountaintop Zapotec communities and local farming, the region is interlaced with hundreds of kilometers of high-quality gravel roads and trails, ready for rides of any length.
I’ve always wondered if there was something special about the water in Fort Collins that makes it a hotbed for legendary bicycle frame builders. Is the Poudre River’s clean mountain water that so famously supplies New Belgium, Odell, and numerous other local breweries in some way responsible for the wildly beautiful frames made by the likes of Black Sheep Bikes, Oddity Cycles, or Moonmen Bikes? Well, the answer is probably not, but Fort Collins’ water is delicious and it’s a great place to build bikes. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting with the Choice City’s newest framebuilder, Will Bender, of Bender Bicycle Company. Will has been making frames part-time for a handful of years now, with some truly beautiful machines under his belt, and he just recently moved into a new shop space to start building full-time.
Below, let’s take a look at Bender Bicycle Company as well as some of Will’s recent customer builds!
Like its predecessor, Drive to Survive, the new Netflix Unchained series seeks to humanize the World Tour’s automaton-seeming athletes that make up professional road cycling’s peloton. But as the exploding gravel scene in the U.S. faces “growing pains,” Nic Morales wonders if the effects of Unchained’s inevitable popularity will remain culturally abstract, or if they will serve to usher in an era of Road 2.0 on America’s gravel roads. Read on for Nic’s reaction to the series in this latest installment of The Dust-Up, our ongoing opinion column.
Looking at an Oddity Cycles-designed frame, handlebar, or fork, you might think that it was welded in a circus sideshow tent by a depraved, frazzle-haired, torch-wielding, radical. That these wildly bent steel and titanium tubes, contorted and bonded into freakishly beautiful forms, could only have originated in the darkest corners of a PT Barnum exhibition. And that’s exactly what Sean Burns, founder, designer, and fabricator wants you to think. So, on this eve of All Hallows, let’s pull back the curtain on this iconic framebuilder, and his assistant “Spooky,” along with a close look at a couple of Sean’s personal two-wheeled creations…
