Just when you thought the season was over and we could all go back to our normal lives not having to care about the most niche sport thats ever existed...GRAVEL BURN in South Africa debuts. It's extremely dialed and activated, probably because its put on by the same people who do Cape Epic (an MTB race I'm forced to care about because it is gravel-adjacent). Call it the Matt Beers effect!!! South Africa! Springboks! Toyota!
Anyway, young cyclist girls are all wanting DJ decks to compliment their on-the-bike skills. Call that the Alexis Skarda effect!
Before we get to any of that though we go through the On The Attack Life Time videos and some last bit of Big Sugar housekeeping til I remember something funny LDC and Deb said/did. I made some reels. Did you see them? I'll get back to making memes.
There was some interesting Midsouth news (I'll still find a way to fuck up their race).
Chris Froome was/is on that team.
DFL Culture - here to stay or downright offensive???
When editing the sound for this episode, I accidentally activated the software's AI singularity and it went ahead and summarized this episode and this is what it said:
The episode touches on the dynamic and sometimes chaotic state of content around races like 'Big Sugar' and Grazel Burn, delving into the complexities of race organization, team compositions, and the broader cultural aspects of the competitive and social sides of gravel racing. Speculations and commentary span from race logistics, fan engagement, marketing strategies, and potential industry changes. The hosts also ponder on the future of podium celebrations, cultural shifts in the sport, and the possible integration of new race formats.
It called the race GraZel Burn.
Big Sugar Gravel in Bentonville. Last stop in the Life Time Grand Prix. Your dad's favorite meme account (where he gets like half the jokes), Holy Spirit of Gravel, was there! And once again she didn't actually ride.
Instead of commentating on the race, this time she was embedded with a privateer - and a legacy privateer at that - LDC aka Lauren De Crescenzo and her partner-in-crime/mechanic/life coach/in house guru Deb to film and produce her version of *meaningful* and *powerful* Gravel Content. It was a blast (according to Holy herself).
Shout out to LDC and Deb because without them none of this would have been possible.
This episode covers Holy's adventures with the gals and also her own personal activations.
Topics include:
Two big Gravel races happened and neither were even Gravel races. (Does anyone still capitalize the world "Gravel" or is that just us?) Anywho, join the Holy Spirit of Gravel meme page admin ("Holy" for short) and her Gravel Dad best friend has they discuss Little Sugar MTB race and the UCI Gravel World Championships. Like I said neither was what we come to expect from your typical gravel race.
It all begs the question. Is the soul of elite Gravel MTB races? or is it euro-coded dusty road races? Does it matter at all? or is what really matters the pro athletes we ride along side and we connect with? We discuss it all in this episode of the pod.
Also! Big Sugar is coming up in a few days and the Holy Spirit of Gravel will be hosting a panel (i.e. activating at an activation) with the support of MAAP and some bike shop called The HUB Bike Lounge...sounds fancy! Come heckle her in person, film and tag the drama so she can show her mom. Thursday 10/16 at 5pm. We talk the the pro-normie relationship and where it fits into the future of Gravel Cycling. See you there! Also Holy skipped last weekends grassroots race so she should actually be fired and cancelled.
Topics include:
Lots going on in this episode but it's mostly Holy complaining about getting harassed (just kidding, she loves it) by Gravel Dads at a privateer curious local, grassroots gravel race.
First off, Tom Pidcock is doing UCI Gravel Worlds because he didn't get his Vuelta stage win. If he wins the rainbow jersey, he WILL line up at Unbound so he can fight with Keegan (also in marathon mountain bike rainbow) about the definition of Xtreme Gravel. The Gravel Earth series is over but we will endure and solder on. Doss Gravel made Holy like riding Gravel again.
Topics include:
Ranxo Gravel:
The Women's Top Three
The European Champion crashed
Holy Spirit of Gravel ruins an organic gravel moment by taking a selfie with the winners
Gravel Earth Series 2025: Did it WIN gravel 2025?
After the success of Sea Otter Girona, Launching Traka USA in Stillwater Oklahoma
Bicycle Station Interview Recap:
Riding the Midsouth Hungover 2026?
Video content coming soon?
Small business is endlessly fascinating
Reading the worst Google Reviews for the Bicycle Station, a small bike shop in Indiana
Doss Gravel:
AirBNB accommodations are the new tire width
Lauren Stephens interview
Hayden Christian, Justin McQuerry and Chase Collins
Chase Collins comedy culture critic deserves his own documentary
How to win the 30 mile race of a grassroots race
How to win tandem e-bike fat tire category at a grassroots race.
Holy podiumed but missed the podium
Someone wise once said recording a podcast between unhinged meme admin Holy Spirit of Gravel and youtube starlets The Bicycle Station would be like trying to herd cats...and we can proudly say they were not entirely wrong.
HSOG needs a new bike and she thought who better to ask than the team that has tried just about every bike under the sun and lived to tell the tale.
Jesse, Chase and Trey are content creators, small business owners and race organizers favorites of Gravel enthusiasts from across the normie and hitter spectrum.
Topics include
We don't know much.. but we know slightly more than you (unless you were there, because we werent). Some big races happened this weekend, Sea Otter Girona, USA Gravel Nationals and the European Gravel Championships.
And sometimes its not what actually happens during race, (because how are supposed to know without some coverage and lengthy captions) but about how we, the normie, perceive the action and then catalogue them into our memory stores. We make connections and references and build on the narrative of our own design. On a physical AND metaphysical level Gravel Cycling and Gravel Racing is truly what you make of it.
Riffs include:
we had the 2025 Life Time Chequamegon MTB Festival finish line livestream on while we were recording and it ruined this episode and we will probably never pod again because of it
topics include
Maybe you've heard of the one of the best and most elite privateers on the planet by the name of Rosa Kloser?
Well if you haven't then where the hell were you while the Rift/Corn Cup/German Nattys were going on?
Holy Spirit gets ACTIVATED with the other half of Team RK to talk all things GRAVEL vs Road, HipHop, Corn Sweat, Mud Sweat, Academia and who's the Juan Ayuso of the women's peloton.
Topics Include
Protests, Bike Thefts, Ultra-Distance, Movies ... its all here!
Holy Spirit of Gravel wonders: Are you my best friend? Listen to one of the most unhinged gravel cycling riff pods ever recorded. Listen to us write the script for Gravel Privateer: The Movie in real time. Is this a prestige gravel hiatus? It must be, because listen to us go.
Riffs Include:
From the heavens to the corn fields…this episode is somtimes casual, sometimes erratic Lauf Gravel Worlds riffin. You were all either there or watching the livestream anyway. Or commenting "cross is coming" on a stray piece of mud-coded media.
-presented by MGrills or MLGrills, we arent sure
Holy Spirit has her first in-race media gig from core4 in Iowa. She recaps the vibes of the race, the course conditions, and what it takes to elevate a race into the gravel discourse for a weekend. Maybe every race doesn't need a 6 hours livestream to capture the hearts of gravel fans? All-in-all a great weekend for gravel and core4.
Topics include:
We weren't there and don't know a whole lot about Mountain Bikes but that doesn't stop us from talking about the most gravel-coded MTB race in the world. Or maybe its just X-Treme Gravel?
Holy Spirit and the Gravel Dad cohost ate at a really activated pizza spot featured on Barstool Sports and then just decided to pod before she went back home because even tho the vibes were off, the pizza was really good! Also Holy Spirit briefly mixed up Heathland Gravel and Latvia's Gravel Weekend, she should resign from the Core4 media team. Also Holy Spirit wants to commit fraud and use the funds to start a team of privateers. Also thanks for listening, please rate/review and tell your friends.
Topics include:
Alternate title for the podcast episode is
“Did Axelle Dubau Prevot’s INSANE Leadville Block inspire her sister to win TdFF???”
Your favorite unhinged Gravel podcast breaks down the paved race called Tour de France Femmes avec Whoop Cycling and DESTROYS the critiques of “women don’t know how to ride bikes”. Also Megre Gravel was happening during the queen’s stage and apparently pro cycling stats has a hidden tab for gravel races.
Topics include:
The Holy Spirit of Gravel digs in on two weeks of gravel and whatever Leadville stage race is because we were getting sick of the Tour (we love it but). Gravel Earth Series seems to be winning the aesthetics war with their women’s rift coverage… I think the men’s was in there somewhere. Foco Fondo had a dialed, grassroots-coded livestream where we could see some normie style aid station usage. Leadville stage race was stacked but does Holy Spirit even care about MTB? Will Daxton Mock/Lance Haidet’s family break the Gravel Database Project servers because they checked their profiles too many times? (We are too cheap to have a good server). Are vibes-based race calendars the new high carb movement? Why does Holy Spirit wear the same shirt in every video she’s soft doxxed herself in? What actually happened in the Lithuanian forest all those years ago? Do Lithuanian gravel races have 10k prize purses is that just middle of nowhere North Dakota?
These questions and many more get answered on today’s pod.
Oh yeah? Should we continue to do political pundit impressions on the pod?
Here’s that awesome Kate Courtney video I was talking about: https://youtu.be/xFJsR8bG6es?si=fg2nWUOq0BpkCm19
Holy Spirit of Gravel DESTROYS NBC Sports' coverage of the Tour De France. As much as we enjoy this time of year, why does the Peacock coverage in America feel disconnected from the things that we love about cycling in America? Are we too gravel-pilled, or is the broadcast disengaged from the best parts of cycling in America?
-guys in suits
-Bradley Wiggins and George Hincapie working out
-track cycling to UCI British Olympic pipeline
-ketones and veteran owned podcast products
-the fallacy of having an American be the best
-improperly using Sepp Kuss, Quinn Simmons, Matteo Jorgenson,
-Quinn Simmons to Miami Blazers pipeline
-Broke Knights
-Has Lance Armstrong been memory-holed with Zoomers and Gen Alpha?
-we do NOT talk about Tadej vs Jonas
Presented by The Feed presented by Nathan’s hot dogs presented by San Luis Potosí tourism board presented by Campaign for Nick Blouin for Utah Presented by Crusher in the Tusher presented by
Today marks our first ever interview on the Holy Sprit of Gravel podcast. We are calling this series the Beyond Privateer Chronicles (until I think of something better).
We're joined by German pro elite hitter Paul Sandmann. You might know him for his 38th place result in Unbound 2025. He pulls back the curtain on life as a lesser-known gravel hitter, if the privateer model is worth it, and the differences between Euro gravel and American prestige gravel. Oh and he's Rosa Kloser's boyfriend.
We here at HSOG productions make an effort to highlight the lesser known hitters whose stories deserve to be told.
We get to hear unfiltered views from inside the men’s elite field, such as:
-Tim DeClerq policing the Unbound breakaway
-The future of steel/metal/magnesium bikes
-The best tire to rollover a water bottle in a rut
-What can sponsors truly add to a privateer
-Who gets to debrief first: Paul or Rosa?
-politics of Unbound Drafting
-is Chase Wark shadow banned in Europe?
-are Hambini and Peak Torque accurate from an engineer-privateer point of view?
-what it’s like being a member of Team RK (team Rosa Kloser)
-how to travel with your bike like a pro
And much more…
We hope you enjoy the first in what will be a continuing series in highlighting the best of our deranged sport.
The Holy Spirit talks about SBT GRVL for way too long. It ends up being a podcast about lap races in gravel, neutral feed zones and MAURTEN's nutrition. (Not to be confused with Morton's Steak House or Morton's salt). The Cooldown with Alexey Vermuelen and Keegan Swenson provided insight into a race weekend of narrow tires and champagne gravel from the perspective of the gravel elite.
Eventually, there is a vibe check on Oregon Trail Gravel Grind. We talk about the camping vs Airbnb wars among privateers and the future of the spirit of gravel. Does the Lifetime Grand Prix need a stage race? BWR Montana also happened and Chase Wark won a grassroots race. An overbooked weekend in Gravel means the privateers don't all get to hang out and post videos on Instagram together!
Overall, there's a normie vibe shift towards adventure biking so gravel dads can ride overnight/camp in a Lachlan Morton style windbreaker tent for a night. There's also a vibe shift towards SCOTT bikes in 2025. Holy Spirit continues to push the narrative that the women are more interesting than the men. And that there should be more nutrition-specific gravel races when races design their course + race experience narratives.
We talk about the biggest cycling brands like Pas Normal, MAAP, Colnago, Scott, and the ongoing vibe wars in gravel.
Riffs of today:
-Endurance Bro says the podcast is terrible
-The move from aero to adventure coding
-Is the aero movement ending?
-Gravel is ruining every cycling discipline theory
-The spirit of Randonneuring
-SBT GRVL's cultural significance on the gravel calendar
-The new format of SBT GRV
-Loop formats and Dozinky Doozie's triple loop format
-Brennan Wurtz and his stars and stripes x SCOTT bike
-Is SCOTT bikes winning the vibes war in gravel this year?
-The Cam Jones UNBOUND video drop
-Are Cam Jones and Brennan Wurtz the REAL Keegan and Matt Beers?
-Matt Beers is tall
-BWR Montana and Finsty
-Privateers who don't live in the Four Corners states have to go home eventually -- you can't just live in a van for months?
-Chase Wark won a race --new documentary dropping soon?
-Should more privateers go dominate grass roots races?
-We need more Deep South Gravel representation
-The Cooldown with Alexey and Keegan breakdown--Do we love Keegan Swenson hot takes?
-Nathan Haas rode road tires at SBT and wrote narrow-tire-core instagram captions
-Pas Normal Studios x Colnago road bike collab talk
-Is Pas Normal a roadie brand?
-The Pas Normal to Team UAE sponsorship Theory
-Neutralized feed zones--great for normies, bad for sponsored athletes
-Sarah Lange is bursting on to the scene
-The Cooldown Femmes with Lauren Stephens and Paige Onweiller -- Cecily Decker or -Lauren DeCrezenco? Sofia Gomez-Villafane?
-Are looped races just adventure dirt crits?
-BWR Montana results review - Stella Hobbs to podcast guest? Daxton Mock, Lance Haidet, Joe Goettel.
-Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder - Are stage races the next big vibe in gravel?
-Glamp style stage races
-Sophia Gomez-Villafane stayed at an AirBNB
-Cecile Lejune, Sarah Sturm, Morgan Aguirre, Dani Shrosbree
-Can Sarah Sturm digest Maurten's products?
-Cam Jones and his parents are gravel's top story of 2025?
-Iz King and her fourth trimester adventure experience
-Bike shop customers in Pas Normal and MAAP are the worst patrons
-Inside the Maurten's marketing team's reaction to post SBT buzz
-Going Narrow with 45s
-Facebook marketplace gravel dads looking to exploit cycling quitters
-A theory on Nike joining the gravel boom
-H&M bibs - is fast fashion aero?
-Los Angeles cycling bros - Mitch Boyer, Shreddy Pendergrass, Safa Brian and NOT Phil Gaimon
-That feeling when a fat tire bike passes you
-How to get NIKE into gravel - a roadMAAP
-Holy Spirit prepares to go to Gravel Mexico and get into the Gravel Earth longtail scrub standings (and connect with her heritage)
-The Paul Sandmann Documentary?
-Maurten's is SOYLENT coded
-How to get a bike shop to hate you
We had to reupload this episode due to the audio being horribly corrupted on the previous one (it made it seem like we were high on uppers interrupting each other constantly but in reality the audio was desynced). We are sorry and we strive to DO BETTER. We are not perfect but we will learn from this experience. Sorry again to everyone, now on to the show. If you were late and this is your first time listening just disregard the last few sentences.
The A24 coded / Criterion Collection era of gravel videos is in full swing this gravel season with Lachlan Morton's Unbound XL video. Will the world's most artistic directors begin making spon con for gravel brands? Will EF put MUCK OFF in their TDF team's tires.
This is basically a pod about Cinéma vérité, not gravel. But only in that gravel is real life, and real life is every thing, and thereby gravel is everything. American directors mentioned include Gus Van Sandt, Ben Affleck, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Greta Gerwig, the Coen brothers and Ben Affleck.
Don't you want to see spon con directed by Greta Gerwig about Paige Onweiller's former career as a physician's Assistant?
Elsewhere, the Holy Spirit does her worldwide grassroots recap on Migration Gravel and Big Horn Gravel. Let's just say PAS RACING (Cecily Decker, Karo Migon, and Emily Newsom] dominated the podium and picked up some physically HUGE checks.
-Introducing an a.i. generated farmer
-Local bike shops not knowing you are cool contemporary gravel coded
-Brady Corbet from child actor to director to gravel spon con collaborator
-The farmers are winning the War on Gravel
-Is Lachlan the most popular privateer amongst gravel dads?
-Pas Normal x JJJJound tastemaker collab
-Paul Sandmann to HSOG pod?
-GCN cringe core
-Rural Murals
-Will Keegan and Sofia launch a couples reality show?
-The Ben Delaney Ventum embargo
-Joe Goettl, a BWR Utah Specialist
-Dylan Johnson's heat training video
-Valterri Bottas's cringe gravel-coded IG privateer social media presence
-Matt Stephens is trying to Great British Bakeoff-code cycling
-Building out the Emporia State University Gravel Studies Program
-Natural Wine x gravel x Girona
-Can you do drugs and eat caffeine gels?
-SBT Gravel preview (not actually a preview)
-What happens if a bike shop hates you for thinking you are a cool gravel guy? (You probably deserve it)
The audio file episode that used to be here was horribly corrupted (that fact that no one seemed to notice is a testament to how insane we are maybe). Instead enjoy this Easter Egg from a Flint Hills local.
