The WTB Graveliers is a new ambassador division of the WTB family, helping to share and spread our passion for cycling. These athletes are everything from after-work joyriders, masochistic bike-packers, blindingly fast racers, charismatic storytellers, and all-round gravel advocates. Each one of these Graveliers has different styles, but they all have one thing in common, they love the open road, have a blast riding their bikes, and have a genuine desire for all things gravel. Tune in throughout the year to check out what the WTB Graveliers are up too, and maybe even join them for a ride on your local trails.
Located: East Bay, California
Favorite Ride: The Marin Headlands. The trails are endless!
2020 Excitement: looking forward to doing more gravel races this year, specifically Lost and Found, Old Growth, and Grinduro.
Follow: @gene_torno
Located: Santa Rosa, Ca
Favorite Ride: Annadel State Park and Bolinas Ridge
2020 Excitement: Getting more ladies on bikes, exploring North Bay by gravel bike more through group rides, leading a bike packing trip, and competing in Super Sweetwater and King Ridge Hopper
Follow: @hail.stormin
Located: San Francisco
Favorite Ride: Marin Headlands
2020 Excitement: It's taken me awhile to find out what kind of "gravel" riding I really like, and testing out what bikes fit a small bodied rider best. Now that I have a better fitting bike (Heyooo Juliana Quincy!!) I finally feel comfortable and confident in my riding abilities. I'm excited to see how it helps my times at some long gravel grinder races that I like to hit up! (Grinduro, Lost and Found, Old Growth Classic, and MORE!)
Follow: @theta9
Located: Vancouver, BC.
Favorite Ride: Undoubtedly Squamish BC. Whether you're Gravel riding or mountain biking it's an amazing place to ride. Everyone needs to go there.
2020 Excitement: There are definitely a few things I'm excited about. For gravel events I'm particularly excited about the 2020 Ride For Water in Chilliwack BC. It has a lot of things going for it. It looks to be a super challenging event with an elevation gain of 7000+ feet over 80 miles. The terrain is extremely varied and includes 20% paved roads, 50% gravel, and up to 30% doubletrack/singletrack. It's a proper challenging gravel race. This is reminiscent of my previous favourite event, the Cascadia Super G which is unfortunately not running this year. Another awesome thing about the Ride For Water is that it's a fundraiser. 100% of the registration fee for this event goes to the Run For Water Foundation which will provide fresh clean drinking water for thousands of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to get it.
Another event I'm extremely excited for (if I can get in) is the Downieville Classic All Mountain race. This type of race is definitely suited to my strengths. Although I do a ton of gravel riding, technical singletrack mountain biking is where I'm strongest
Follow: @curtisspencer_
Located: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Favorite Ride: Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia
2020 Excitement: Most nervous for Rasputitsas, and most excited for Grinduro Canada!
Follow:@goplay.intraffic
Located: Portland, OR
Favorite Ride: The Oregon & Washington Cascades
2020 Excitement: More bike-packing exploration, My gravel gang, @skidlizards, The Oregon Outback, Return to the Redwoods, The Olympic Peninsula, and Producing group rides in/around Portland, OR.
Follow: @skidlizards
Located: Santa Cruz, CA
Favorite Ride: The Santa Cruz Mountains
2020 Excitement: To ride more and work less!
Follow: @mybucketsgottaholeinit
Located: Boulder, Colorado
Favorite Ride: Boulder's Switzerland Trail; a surprisingly technical jeep trail that offers spectacular views
2020 Excitement: In one word: bike-packing. I've always loved the immersion in nature that backpacking offers and am excited to combine this with cycling to enable a totally new form of adventure where the days are longer and the weight isn't on my back.
Follow: @lukejmills
Located: Shoalhaven, South Coast of New South Wales, Australia (two hours south of Sydney)
Favorite Ride: Gravel roads, cross country mountain bike trails, exploring the local trails and gravel trails
2020 Excitement: 2020 to me is a year where I hope to try and beat the 9000 kilometres I rode last year, I will riding the Beers and Gears festival where I intend on riding 130 kms of gravel, beating the 50 kms I rode there last year.I primarily ride drop bar gravel bikes at the moment and I would like to keep experimenting with the gravel bikes and finding more gravel trails to ride. Have just built a Chumba Ursa MTB to replace a bent Niner Ros9plus, this is for XC and trail exploring.Planning to organize a few more group gavel grinds and some cross country rides and riding with a couple of the local races once the mountain bike track is rebuilt post recent bushfires. Currently planning a group ride at Tathra MTB trails in a few months, and celebrating an upcoming birthday by riding Stromlo MTB park in Canberra in may.
Follow: @Rusty_Discbrake
Located: Philadelphia, PA
Favorite Ride: Along the Hudson Valley River in New York, Bear Mountain, Catskills, especially from Bridge to Bridge Loop. The towns are quaint and the mountains and river are quite spectacular. It a good break from the Philly roads.
2020 Excitement: I'm most excited to grind some gravel for my second year, riding events all over the Mid Atlantic and taking on Leadville 100 in August.
Follow: @yarkmanagisawa
Located: San Luis Obispo, CA
Favorite Ride: All over California's Central Coast in the springtime
2020 Excitement: I'm most excited to race Ruta del Jefe in February in southern Arizona because it aims to bring awareness to humanitarian and environmental issues in the area, plus the landscape is so beautiful and inspiring. And after that I can't even wait for summertime bike-packing season and everything fun that goes along with that.
Follow: @littlepedal
Located: Grass Valley, Ca
Favorite Ride: Nevada City, CA. We have a lot of amazing dirt roads and several with old historic bridges that cross the South Yuba River.
2020 Excitement: This year I am most excited to ride the 106 mile Lost and Found route, explore more gravel roads between Nevada City and Truckee, and go on some longer bike-packing trips
Follow: @lukejmills
Located: Chennai, South India
Favorite Ride: India - Ride along the Bay of Bengal from Chennai to Pondicherry. New Zealand - Alps to Ocean route (A2O). USA - Mountain biking on the Flume trail overlooking Lake Tahoe
2020 Excitement: I recently rode a tandem bike named 'Kindness'. from India to Germany picking up random strangers and friends to help raise awareness and funds to help the victims of bonded labor slavery. During this expedition named 'Freedom Seat', 180 strangers from 18 countries joined me and I biked 8646 km across 13 countries and 2 continents to finish in Hamburg, Germany.
I am most excited about doing a similar expedition in USA. I intend to ride from California to DC on a tandem with random strangers to help raise funds to help the victims of sex trafficking.Follow: @iamarunr
Located: Beautifull Sydney, Australia
Favorite Ride: Thredbo and Kosciuszko national park in the summer! Alpine mornings are glorious and inspiring.
2020 Excitement: I am absolutely gaging for the gravel season in the USA this year. Which I will be attending as many of the events as I can with the WTF Bikexplorers crew.
Follow: @jambi_jambi