*TL:DR, click here to donate a few cents per mile that I ride of the Olympic 420 to the SJ Brooks Scholarship Fund*
Follow along on Trackleaders here!
On September 9th, 2020 at 6:30am, the Olympic 420 Adventure bikepacking race begins in Port Angeles, WA. The 420 circumnavigates the entire Olympic Peninsula via single track and national forest roads, totaling 450 miles and over 60,000 feet of elevation gain. After years of talking myself out of participating in this event, this year I’m finally saying, “fuck it, why not” and lining up at the start with 7-10 other slightly depraved adventurers. This race will probably be the hardest physical challenge that I’ve ever attempted. It’s not because of the distance- I’ve done plenty of long, multi-day rides and brevets. It’s the remote nature of the route, the isolation, the climbing, and the technical terrain. Another added layer of difficulty this year will be the challenge of carrying 99% of my food to minimize stops at stores in an effort not to spread Covid-19. I’ve been told by race veterans that I should not ride my Black Mountain Cycles Road+, but I don’t have a proper mountain bike, so gravel bike it is!
In light of what’s happening in the world, the opportunity to head off into the woods with little-to-no cell service is not only appealing, it’s downright tantalizing to think about. The opportunity to do so is also an incredible privilege, and to not acknowledge that would be to write off our current struggles for racial & social justice as trivial, unnecessary. Not everyone has the option of checking out for a week. I would not have the opportunities that I have in large part if I were not a white cis man. So, I am going to try to use my privilege to extend the opportunities that I’ve had to folks who have been marginalized and excluded from participating in the outdoors, all while trying to survive this stupid (in a good way) bike race.
I’ve decided that I want to raise money for the SJ Brooks Scholarship fund, which seeks to, “increase access, reduce barriers, and center voices specifically for BIPOC cyclists who identify as femme, trans, woman, non-binary, intersex, two-spirit, or genderqueer.” The format will be a “per mile” fundrasier that a few other folks on the internet have done for various adventure routes: you can pledge a certain amount per mile that I complete of the Olympic 420. So, if you pledge $.50/mile, and I ride all 449 miles, then you will make a donation of $224.50 to the SJ Brooks Scholarship Fund. You can pledge whatever amount you want, as low as one penny per mile. This will also serve as motivation for me to finish the race, so that we can raise as much money as possible. That said, if I don’t finish (which is a distinct possibility) then you’re only on the hook for as many miles as I rode. So, if I only rode 200 miles and bonked half way to Mars with no hope of recovery, and you pledged $.50 per mile, you’d donate $100. Make sense? Cool.
To donate, hit up this google form and enter your in-for-ma-shion and I’ll put your name and amount per mile in a google sheet, which I will then use to calculate how much you will donate after the race is over. After I total up donations from everyone, I’ll take a screen shot of the donation.
Thanks to the organizers of the 420 for putting this event together (now in it’s 5th year!!), as well as Deschutes River Cyclery, Untapped Maple, and ENVE Composites for their support in this weird year. It really means a lot to me.
Evergreen Gravel Racing 