- This is Sun Valley, Idaho.
Now, it's a place I'd not heard of
from a riding perspective before,
but that's absolutely to my loss.
The road riding, admittedly, might not be off the charts,
but venture off-road onto gravel,
and you'll be absolutely blown away.
Oh, and yeah, I am wearing a bumbag.
Yeah, all will be revealed.
(upbeat music)
The reason I'm here is because I've been asked to come
and cover some super interesting bike tech
that's been on display at Outerbike,
which is actually nothing like the old trade show,
Interbike, not at least, because instead of Las Vegas,
you get this.
Now, you will see a few videos popping up on GCN Tech
diving into some of the highlights,
but, whilst here, it'd seem rude not to go in for a spin,
or, rather, I beg to be let out.
So I very kindly been loaned a bike and kit,
so I could do just that.
And it's for that reason that I'm riding
the new gravel frame from Viathon
kitted out with a Rotor 1x13 hydraulic groupset,
and wearing Showers Pass clothing.
There is more info on all of this
over on the Tech channel, as well.
(calm uplifting music)
Other than the scenery and the trails,
there is, yet, another reason
to be very excited to ride here,
and that is because one of the locals
is none other than Rebecca Rush,
ultra-endurance athlete, and adventurer.
If you've only ever followed the road side
of cycling before, you could be forgiven
for not knowing who she is.
So, with the help of Wikipedia,
let me fill you in on some of her exploits.
She won Dirty Kanza XL last year,
the normal Dirty Kanza, so just 200 miles
on three other occasions,
she's a four-time winner Leadville,
and a former course record holder,
three-time World 24-hour Solo Mountain Bike Champion,
as well as Cross-Country Masters World Champion,
and you'll also like this, tucked in amongst them,
two-time US National Whitewater Rafting Champion.
Oh, and she's also won an Emmy, as well,
for her documentary, Blood Road.
(uptempo music)
Hey! - Are you Simon?
- I am, Rebecca, hi. - I am Rebecca.
- Nice to meet you. - We should hug, I feel like
we should hug.
I'm stoked to show you around.
- Yeah, cool, thank you very much.
Where are we heading today?
- Well, we got to get on some dirt,
so I thought what we could do is
go out the start of Rebecca's Private Idaho course.
So, get one of my favorite training hills
is Trail Creek Hill, Trail Creek Summit.
- Cool. - So, we do some of that,
and you get these killer views,
and then I thought I might
take you on a little singletrack.
- Yeah, nice! - Yeah, that sound good?
- Good stuff, yeah!
Thanks for the hug, by the way.
That's so not British.
- Oh, it's not? - No, it's not at all.
So, it's just a nice treat, really.
- Well, you're in America, Sun Valley, Ketchum,
super friendly place, so stoked to have you here.
- Fantastic, all right, let's ride.
- Okay.
- You know, this is quite a momentous day for me, Rebecca.
- To ride with me?
- Yeah, and also 'cause it's 22 years
since I last wore a bumbag.
- It looks good on you.
- Thanks. - Yeah.
- Yeah, they're cool again, aren't they?
Ready? - Well, where we're going,
there's no cell phone, there's no bike shops,
so we're going in the wilderness,
so maybe you need a bumbag. - I need a bumbag, for sure.
- Exactly. - All right, let's do it.
Which way?
(uptempo electronic music)
- So, a little Sun Valley history for you,
which is really cool.
So, can you see those wooden things on the hill up there?
- Yeah. - So that, it was the original
Sun Valley Ski Resort, and those pieces of wood,
that was the first chairlift in North America.
(calm acoustic music)
- [Simon] So, Idaho is your home state, right, Rebecca?
Have you always lived here?
- No, I've been here, like, 15 years.
I'm a mid-westerner, from the flat lands,
but when I learned to rock climb,
I decided I had to go west.
So, ended up here, yeah. - Okay, cool.
So, you've always done, as far as I can tell,
pretty much ultra-endurance sport?
- Yeah. - Whether that's
adventure racing, or bike racing?
- Yeah, I'm not a sprinter.
You're probably finding out.
- How did that come about?
- If we go a few more hours, I'll kick into gear.
But, I was a runner in high school and, even then,
I was better at cross-country than track, and
it's always been the longer it is, the better I do.
- Right.
- It's just gravitated, naturally, to ultra-endurance.
- And now that ultra-endurance is, kind of,
becoming more and more to the fore of cycle sport,
and you've been there, and you've done it all already,
but how do you feel about
the rest of the world catching up, almost,
with what you've been up to?
- It is kind of funny that people now are really wanting
to adventure on their bike,
whether it's gravel or bikepacking,
and I think it's amazing that people want to
get off the beaten track, and they want to go exploring.
I've wanted to do that even since I was a little kid.
I would camp in our backyard and hang out outside.
I've always been doing this stuff, but
I'm stoked that people want to
see where their bike can take them, you know?
Instead of just, how fast can I go on my bike?
Where can my bike take me?
- And are you just like, "Where have you guys been?"
(Rebecca laughs) Come on, what took you so long
to work this out?
I've always just been an adventurer and kind of followed,
whether I was doing 24-hour racing, or stage racing,
or, now, gravel, and bikepacking,
it's always been just kind of what has moved me.
And it's really cool to see other people,
not necessarily following in my wake,
I didn't invent any of this stuff, but
it's cool to see people
figure out that there's so many ways to ride your bike.
- Yeah.
- And I love that the industry is getting towards exploring.
(calm acoustic music)
- [Simon] It's quite an amazing spot, though, isn't it?
- Yeah, it's hard when you're flying down to
not look at the scenery.
- Yeah. - And to stay focused
on the road.
- And so, where is this road going to take us, eventually?
- This crosses the Pioneer Mountains,
and goes into the Copper Basin and it's one of the only
east-west roads that cross this mountain range.
Actually, that view up there by that rock
is actually better better than the view at the top.
There are mountain lions here,
and moose are pretty aggressive.
- No. - Yeah.
Moose are really aggressive.
(Simon laughs) Yeah.
It's kind of funny.
- Now, agonizingly, this is going to be the high point
of our ride today, isn't it?
'Cause already you can see the road carries on.
We haven't got the time to hit the summit,
because there's more dirt, singletrack gravel
calling down in the valley.
So, what am I missing out on, Rebecca?
- Well, we could go, but you're too tired.
You said you wanted to turn around.
- Hey, shh. - Right?
No, what goes up there, the top of Trail Creek Summit,
it really just opens this Pandora's Box of gravel roads
in the next valley, in the next valley, in the next valley.
It's kind of endless.
You're feeling right now, every ride I go on,
I don't want to turn around 'cause there's so much more.
- Yeah. - But we got singletrack,
we've got a sweet descent,
and a roll back into town. - Cool.
- It just means you have to come back.
- Well, yeah. I think I will.
(upbeat music)
- This is a really cool access onto some sweet singletrack,
- Oh nice. - That we can check out.
- Sweet.
(uptempo electronic music)
- [Rebecca] The best kind of rides are when you,
you sort of get lost or it's a lot longer, a lot harder
than it looked like on the map.
- Yeah. - So, then you're out for,
went for a four-hour ride and you're out for 10 hours.
And you're like, "Oh."
Those are like bonus miles. (Simon chuckles)
- You must be pretty, mentally strong, though.
Especially, after four hours, and you end up out for 10.
I'd probably be like a gibbering wreck.
(calm music)
Here we go, right where we started.
Thank you very much, Rebecca.
That was super cool.
A quick 40k of epic gravel I think is fair to say.
- You're in America, it's miles.
But it wasn't 40 miles. - 25 miles?
- Yeah, 26-ish. - Yeah.
That's cool then. (Rebecca laughs)
- That was fun, what'd you think?
- I think it's great.
Particularly, that bit of singletrack.
- Yeah.
- I like gravel roads, don't get me wrong,
but, for me, gravel bikes are great
when you're riding stuff like that, super smooth, twisty.
Oh, it's brilliant, wasn't it?
What's coming next for you, Rebecca?
- Next, well, Rebecca's Private Idaho is end of August,
early-September. - So where people could come
and sample the very riding that we'd done today, right?
- Yeah, we did part of the course,
and there's 20, 50, 100, and the stage race.
- Nice. - So, something for everyone.
So, that's a big deal, that's happening, year number seven.
But, for me, next is just some bike adventures.
I've got some bikepacking and some overnights planned
in Idaho, in my backyard.
- Cool. - Yeah.
- Good stuff.
Well, hey, please invite me back at some point.
- You might have to stay overnight.
We'll go little longer than 40k.
- Yeah, yeah. - Next time.
You might need a bigger bumbag.
(Rebecca laughs) - I could get a bigger bumbag,
I reckon.
Yeah. - You fit a sleeping bag
in there?
- Not the kind of size sleeping bag that I need.
I get very cold.
Cool, anyway, thanks again. - Thanks for the ride.
That was awesome. - Yeah, super cool.
(heavy breathing)
Well,
I couldn't let that one go.
I couldn't get half way up a climb,
and not see what the top was all about.
Unfortunately, as you can see,
I've snuck out again.
Ironically enough, the summit isn't actually
as scenic as it is a mile down the trail,
but, anyway, the top is the top.
There's no arguing with that.
Right, if, as promised, if you want to see a little look
at the bike that I'm riding, in particular,
this Rotor 1x13 groupset, then you can get through
to video on the Tech channel now.
And, hey, maybe I will explain why I'm wearing a bumbag.
Otherwise, I hope you've enjoyed
this all-too-brief taste of Idaho gravel.
Make sure you give this video a big thumbs up,
and thank you very much to Rebecca
for taking me on this ride.