Hello, friends and welcome back to the Bikes for Death podcast. As always, my name is Patrick and I am your host.

And on today's episode, we are talking about West Virginia and taking a look at the bike scene up there.

Specifically, we're talking about Grusk, which stands for gravel ride up spruce knob and it is a bike race that has been taking place

in West Virginia since 2016. It's evolved over the years and now offers distances from 25 miles

up to 260 and each route features a long out and back up spruce knob which is the highest

point in west virginia at 4,863 feet when Travis the race director contacted me about coming out, I was immediately interested and excited.

I had done a bikepacking trip in West Virginia back in 2019, and that trip shared some of the same roads and trails that Grusk goes on.

And I remember this area being very beautiful and remote,

and I was excited to go see it again,

and check out the cycling scene up in West Virginia

and see what that was like.

And I'm happy to report that West Virginia is just as wild and wonderful

as I remember. And the cycling scene is thriving as well. I spent the weekend following the

240 and 260 mile riders and taking some photos.

And then after they were done, I sat down with the two first-place single-speed winners

of the 260-mile route, Chris Joyce and Maggie Livelylisberger, to get their perspective on the route, the race, and to

hear their experiences. And I also sat down with Travis Olson, the race director, to tell us more

about this event. So that's what we have coming up for you on today's episode.

But before we get to it, let's take a moment to thank the people that made it possible, starting with our latest batch of patrons.

Oh, wait, we don't have any this week.

But that's okay.

Maybe next week.

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