Gravel Rides Are Saving Small-Town America
When the Dirty Kanza gravel race began in Emporia, Kansas, in 2006, with 34 participants, it departed from a hotel parking lot with little fanfare and almost no knowledge from townspeople that it was even going on. Now, it’s grown exponentially-1,000 participants signed up for the 200-mile race this year, with an additional 1,350 people riding the 25, 50, 100, and 350-mile versions of the ride. That growth has been a huge boon for Emporia. The racers who stay in town spend money on hotels, food, gas, and last-minute ride supplies and repairs. “We have merchants that tell us Dirty Kanza weekend is worth more to them than Christmas,” says Jim Cummins, race director and founder of the event. The total economic benefit for the area? Nearly 2.2 million dollars, says Susan Rathke, Executive Director of the Emporia Convention and Visitors Bureau.
This one-day event has transformed Emporia in surprisingly permanent ways. “You can walk up and down our main street on any given weekend during the year and you’ll see out-of-state and out-of-county license plates and bike racks-that’s people who drive to Emporia to ride their bikes,” says Cummins. Emporia, which struggled to support even one bike shop 13 years ago when the Dirty Kanza first started, now boasts three thriving shops. The area now positions itself as an outdoors destination. Emporia has four billboards along the highway advertising the area’s cycling and disc golf opportunities.
Kim Redeker, owner of Sweet Granada chocolate shop in Emporia, has seen the transformation firsthand. Over the past six years, her business’ sales and traffic have doubled, and she credits the impact the ride has had on the town. Of course, business is good on event weekend-in the past few years, they physically haven’t been able to serve any more customers in their 600-square-foot shop on race weekend, she says. But there’s a lift throughout the year, too-the race has put Emporia on the map for travel and destination business. “I had a friend of ours come in a few years ago, right around the time Dirty Kanza was here,” Redeker says. All the windows in downtown shops were decorated, and there were signs and marquees welcoming riders. “And she said, ‘I haven’t been to Emporia in over ten years, but Emporia’s cool factor has gone way up.’” It’s not just her store feeling the lift. “There are just more businesses that want to be here. We’ve seen good business growth, especially in our arts and entertainment and dining.“
A Growing Trend
Small towns and gravel events go well together. After all, the things that draw riders to a gravel ride or race-quiet roads with few cars, and natural scenery-are usually found outside of major metropolises.
Scott TenCate organizes the Barry-Roubaix gravel road race in Hastings, Michigan. He says that residents were initially skeptical about the benefit of the race. Several people in the town of 7,000 complained that it made it tough to get from one side of town to another. But with focused community outreach-and some firsthand experience with what the race did for local businesses financially, including one local five and dime that did four months’ worth of business on race day-the overall attitude changed. Now, it’s a staple community event that involves many of the volunteer groups in town, and brings in up to $750,000 to the surrounding community, TenCate says. Plus, locals were impressed with the attitudes of the cyclists they encountered. “Obviously, when you’re a part of the cycling community you know how great it is,” TenCate says. “But when you heard outsiders talking about how good cyclists are and how polite, and kind, and generous...that was cool to hear.”
Hastings has also experienced some changes as a result of the ride: The town now has permanent signs marking three Barry-Roubaix routes, so cyclists can find them any time during the year without a map. “The city always talks about how they see hundreds of people who are preriding the course for the race in the spring, and there’s also people throughout the year who come to the city to ride the course,” says TenCate. With post-ride beers and meals, that visitor spending adds up.
Thanks in part to success stories like the Kanza and the Barry-Roubaix, event organizers are more able to make the case for support from other local governments and tourism boards. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (population 6,000), will host the inaugural unPAved race/ride this year, a 120-mile odyssey through the gravel roads of the surrounding Bald Eagle State Forest. The Susquehanna River Valley Visitor’s Bureau is the title sponsor for the event. Two of the organization’s board members are cyclists, and they recognized the area’s potential to be a destination for the sport. “We want it to be a gateway to get people to come to the Susquehanna River Valley and have a great time,” says Andrew Miller, the organization’s executive director.
I attended a media pre-ride of the unPAved course this spring. My fiance had lived in the area for several years, and Lewisburg was already one of my favorite areas to ride-there are hundreds of miles of quiet paved farm roads, where the light traffic is punctuated by horse-drawn buggies driven by Mennonite farmers. Those paved roads split off onto gravel ones that take riders over mountain ridges and up miles-long climbs to stunning vistas of the valley. There are also plenty of places to eat and drink post-ride, including the state’s largest (and my favorite) brewpub, Rusty Rail Brewery, which is just down the rail trail in nearby Mifflinburg, and Brasserie Louis, a charming restaurant with unique cocktails and an upscale, seasonal menu. It’s the kind of place that seems built for cyclists.
While I already knew how awesome Lewisburg was, the other cyclists I was riding with were pretty much floored. My coworker Gloria Liu immediately started scheming about long weekends there, filled with big rides, and Jayson O'Mahoney of gravelcyclist.com described the area as a "gravel paradise." (You can check out one of the articles he wrote about the ride here.) Even Jim Cummins was impressed: "It's a beautiful area-you don't find those mountains and those trees just anywhere."
I hope he's right. At 120 miles and over 10,000 feet of climbing, unPAved will be brutal. But its mix of great roads, huge mileage, and a welcoming town positions it to be a success story, both for its local businesses and for cyclists across the country. Only time will tell if it becomes as big as Dirty Kanza, but judging by the enthusiastic reactions of the people I rode with, it's on the right track. With any luck, Lewisburg will become one more success story: a town transformed by bikes.
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