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Back in October or so Surly Intergalactic HQ dropped some photos and a dribble of information concerning their soon-to-be-unleashed do-it-all 29er bike – the Ogre. Recycling many of the attributes of last year’s 26″ Surly Troll touring trouble-maker, the Ogre also bought the big boots and would roll off the production line as a 29er.

Unlike seeing them in person and trying someone’s setup, reading about bar setups on a blog is about as useful as reading how to exercise – oh, you’ll get book smart and maybe even entertain yourself (how?) but in the end you’ll still be wondering what it feels like to ride in a size medium legging with these here Woodchippers (number 2? version 2? … it has the number 2 after woodchipper, that must be better!)

Somehow I managed to get off work early and to my house by 2pm. I’d explored in my truck and by satellite imagery some far roads out west and today was the day to ride the loop I christened the Franklin County Foothills.

The third Missouri Gravel Grinder event of the yearly winter gravel series took place near St. James, Missouri just south of Meramec Springs State Park. To everyone’s surprise, over 70 riders made the trek from all over the state to attend the Joe Dirt ride on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

Three weeks ago a simple post was placed on the GORC site from Jim Davis who was cross-linking a blog post from Team Virtus. Until that post, I had not heard of this adventure race team. Turns out Bob Jenkins was part of this crew and he had thrown the idea of a Berryman Social Ride into the wind – then it took flight.

Another busy year for GORC. With 19 official workdays, not to mention some impromptu ones, as well as a lot of unpublicized individual efforts, it’s hard to keep track of everything. Here’s a summary what went on this year, and I’ll try to point out the plans for each of the trails in the coming year.

As you know, winter can be tough in the Midwest. Whereas, if you are currently living in Crested Butte you pretty much figure it out in about a week that you aren’t going to be mountain biking as the snow gets deeper and deeper, here in the middle (North/South) middle (East/West) midwest the weather can play tricks on the outdoor-oriented adventurers.

Our GORC family lost a cycling brother on Tuesday December 20th.  While Bob Taylor made the most of the past […]

Tom Erb designed Spartacus several years ago to help with much of the rockwork at Klondike, but since we’ve been using it quite a bit as of late, I thought I’d mention it again.  This is a very clever device, made out of chains arranged in concentric circles, that lets you move heavy objects, usually rocks, when you don’t have the luxury of bringing in heavy equipment.

Wow, a big Thank You! to everyone who showed up at our SIUE workday this past weekend. Forty-nine (49!) people showed up and we completed the new section of trail…yes completed. It was a total of 0.3 miles of trail, while not a lot, it is still something.