What is IRR all about? #Getamongst
IRR 12.0 IS BEING BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FOLKS BEHIND PURE VERMONT GRAVEL (with a little assist from yours truly).
Most IRR isn’t this lovely, but some of it truly is.
“90 percent amazing, 10 percent unspeakably offensive.”
IRR strips away every layer of a person, until they are just themselves. There is no more posturing.
First things first, the Irreverent Road Ride is unlike any other gravel grinder/adventure ride/road ride or whatever you'd like to call it. Period. IRR is more than just a bike ride, it's the embodiment of an ideal; of a sense of adventure, of a test of mind, body and will. And while every ride should be a little irreverent, not every ride can or should be IRREVERENT. To paraphrase Sean Burns (pro BMX rider), "You can't ride like a dead man everyday."
I moved to Vermont in 2008, and started riding my road bike "places I shouldn't." There is a weird stigma about riding even the most tame dirt roads on a road bike. But here's the thing, every bike is a gravel bike. Fast forward a couple years when I met Hubert, founder of Cycles d'Autremont and 27th Letter, and he told me about some incredible roads right near Burlington. Rad, but what else is there?
So we got to scheming. And dreaming.
2012 saw the first official Irreverent Road Ride. The tag line for the ride was "Roads of questionable character and content." which holds true today as much as it did 6 years ago.
Irreverent Road Ride is about finding out what else...? What else is out there? What else is left in your legs? What else can you see today? What else can you do?
IRR is truly much more than a gravel grinder. It is above and beyond the single most challenging dirt road ride you can sign up for. #truestoryIt will test your legs (obviously), but also your equipment and your will to carry on. The Slow Ride Podcast recently quipped that in gravel racing, anything behind first place doesn't matter (true) and that the winner's name should be recorded in a dusty notebook that is squirreled away at the town library. This suits us just fine.
Click the photos below for a brief report of IRR 1.0 through IRR 9.0… maybe not exactly
