The second annual Greenwood Gravel Grind is now open for registration for cyclists.
The event will be held April 24-26. Those who want to participate may register for $55 through March 14; from March 15 to April 22, the price will be $65.
Richard Beattie, co-founder of Greenwood Gravel Grind (or G3) and adviser for the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce, said he hopes this year’s ride goes as smoothly as last year’s did.
“I wouldn’t say we had too many serious challenges to overcome, which is amazing when you think about it,” Beattie said.
“The biggest challenge will be to get the weatherman to do what he does and make a good prediction this year,” he added with laughter.
Keith Tarver leads the pack at Start Line 20b in the 2019 Greenwood Gravel Grind.
Twenty-five people already have signed up for this year’s Gravel Grind. There were 94 total riders last year.
There were a few hurdles last year in the inaugural race, but Beattie said they are prepared to overcome obstacles.
“We tried to have a post-ride party separate from where the finish line was, but we aren’t going to do that this year. We’re going to have our post-ride party downtown at the farmer’s market, where the finish is,” Beattie said.
The chamber and Ordinary Epics are partnering on the event.
“(Ordinary Epics’) expertise with gravel riding, their knowledge of the community of gravel riders, their marketing expertise helps out,” Beattie said. “They’re the ones that revamped our website — totally revamped it — and I’m really proud of that.”
The site is www.ordinaryepics.com/greenwood-gravel-grind.
G3 offers two courses: a 50-kilometer route, or approximately 30 miles, and a 100-kilometer route, or approximately 60 miles.
The event does not offer training rides or programs, but Beattie advises cyclists to aim close to the distance they’re participating in.
“Let’s say you sign up for a 30-mile ride; you don’t have to ride 30 miles prior to our ride. As long as you train and get close enough to that, around 20 to 25 miles, the excitement of the day will carry you through the entire route,” he said.
Last year, Indian Cycle in Jackson provided 12 gravel bikes and six e-bikes. The e-bikes have motors to facilitate pedaling. Beattie is unsure if those options will be available this year, as Indian Cycle has not sponsored them again yet.
There aren’t many new additions being implemented this time around; rather, Beattie is aiming to improve on what worked well the first time.
“One of the reasons we don’t have to do a whole lot of new things is because we had a whole bunch of good feedback from people last year. We had fabulous reviews, and now our challenge is to get the word out to more people,” he said. “We’ve done that by improving our website. And since it’s our second year, we have pictures of what it looked like the first year, which people always want to see. They want to see previous riders’ pictures so they can get an idea of what it’s like.”
A warm-up ride will be added to the schedule.
“It’ll be a short, maybe 10-mile warm-up ride on Friday night, and then we have two recovery rides on the following Sunday morning,” he said. “And Station 222 is going to offer a biker brunch Sunday morning.”
•Contact Kerrigan Herret at 581-7233 or kherret@gwcommonwealth.com.
