Greg Willimas - Lost and Found Gravel Festival

May 10, 2022

This week we sit down with Greg Williams from the Lost and Found Gravel Festival and Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship to hear about this years festival and the work SBTS does in the Lost Sierra.

Episode Sponsor: The Feed

Lost and Found Gravel Festival

Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship

Support the Podcast

Join The Ridership 

Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

Lost and Found

[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport

I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.

Yeah. This week on the podcast, we have Greg Williams from the lost and found gravel festival and Sierra Buttes trail stewardship organization. Talking about the lost and found gravel event coming up this June in California. And all the great work that his nonprofit does to make the trails in the Los Sierra, an amazing place to visit. Before we jump in we need to thank this Week's sponsor the feed.

The feed is the largest online marketplace for sports nutrition. They've got all your favorite sports, nutrition brands in one place. If you've developed an affinity like I have for certain brands. You can hop on over to the feed and mix and match. So you get everything you need in one delivery.

If you're a frequent listener, you've probably heard me talk about the feed formula. The feed formula is a customizable nutritional supplement package. Available only from the feed.

Feed formulas were developed in conjunction with Dr. Kevin Sprouse. Of the EDF pro cycling team. And uses the same techniques he uses with top athletes. Ensuring they have all their nutritional needs covered. You can customize each packet from a base formula. And add on specific formulas for recovery, for aging, a bunch of different things.

If you're not already taking a supplement in your daily routine to support your gravel cycling career. I encourage you to take a look at these. They provide a convenient way in individually wrapped pouches to remember to take all the supplements you need to keep your body operating in tip top shape.

Podcast listeners can get 50% off their first order of feed formula by visiting the feed.com/the gravel ride. Remember that's 50% off your first order of the feed formula, simply visit. The feed. Dot com slash the gravel ride. Would that business behind us let's jump right into this week's episode with greg williams Hey, Greg, welcome to the show.

[00:02:26] Greg Williams: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

[00:02:28] Craig Dalton: I am T a man. , we're going to talk about the lost and found gravel grinder a little bit later in the broadcast. And it's a, it's an event that I've wanted to talk about for a couple of years now, actually probably four years, maybe because everybody who ever came back from it was like, this is an amazing event.

Let's table that for a minute, because I really want to just start with you and just get a little bit about your background and how you ended up in the region. And then let's talk about the nonprofit, because I think everything you do up there is so intertwined with the gravel event and why it's so special that I think it's important to start.

[00:03:02] Greg Williams: Yeah. A little bit of my background. My heritage is Milwaukee Indian up in the Northern Sierra and Nevada city region. And my, my tribe, was displaced almost overnight and my grand great grandfather went he ended up in Downieville actually during the gold rush and.

Met this family called the Shaughnessy's, who had, they were opening a supply shop. So shovels and food in town. And my grandfather started building trails and Downieville and running pack meals to the minds. And growing up, it was always, the story that my dad would tell me about Downieville and and it didn't really matter until I got into mountain biking as a teenager and started riding Downieville and I was like, okay, this is it, man.

This is my spot. This is, this is what I want to do. And as a teenager, I started guiding a mountain bikes, up in the region and then started running shuttles as well. I opened a bike shop in town 1991, and then started an event that was called the coyote classic in 1995. And now that's the Downieville classic.

Downieville has been, a part of my heritage, part of my. My personal economy, part of my survival story. And the town was really starting to transition. I would say, it was a mining town primarily when I got there a lot of dredging on the rivers. And then when that became illegal in California, a lot of the miners in the family started to leave.

And about that same time, a lot of the loggers were starting to leave as well. Recreation working with the chamber of commerce and the county kind of became this thing of Hey, will this work here in Downieville? And I think it has, Downieville is a, an international destination.

The motels and restaurants, all depend on mountain bike, recreation and tourism. So I think it's a great model of like how recreation can keep a town alive that was, could potentially, have burned out the economy was not doing well.

[00:04:59] Craig Dalton: It's so interesting. We often hear about how gravel cycling events have played that same role in rural communities. So it's interesting to hear you reference it back as to how mountain biking was playing that role back in the day for Downieville. Can you just for the listener who may be elsewhere outside of the state of California, can you position their minds as to where Downieville is located?

[00:05:23] Greg Williams: Yeah. So Downieville this region, we call it the Los Sierra, and it's basically north of Truckee and north Northwest of Reno. We're about two hours. Like in a car from Sacramento or like 45 minutes from Truckee an hour from Reno like an hour and a half to Chico. So this is zone up here.

We call it the Los Sierra. And it was really, there was a mail route back in the gold mining days. And the mailman would ski from Downieville up towards Quincy. And I think got lost a few times. And so it's a name we've stuck with. And part of it's loss of opportunities, loss of revenue.

Loss of pride. But we're bringing it back through trying to keep it up, keep it a positive, and that's part of lost and found was, come and find yourself up here.

[00:06:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah, amazing. So for the listener, who's obviously like my listener has a gravel orientation. The mountain biking in and around Downieville is absolutely exceptional. And as you mentioned, it's it's got a world renowned ship at this point. People from around the world have heard of Downieville and aspire to ride their bikes there.

What makes the trail system so special?

[00:06:28] Greg Williams: I think the fact that it Was built during the gold rush. There's a lot and there's a lot of trails, but these trails are like our super rowdy and steep, that's, the character of Downieville is like going fast through the rocks on a cliff. Being scared and then going for a swim and having a cold beer afterwards, so like for us as a trail stewardship, it's really important that we maintain the character of those trails.

They were built for mules to go from point a to point B. There was no sustainable running grade. There was no thought of people like enjoying themselves on these trials, or certainly wasn't, they weren't thinking mountain bikes would be on them, but They have the character that people love.

And so when we do all of our trail work, we're working really closely with the hydrologist to make sure that these trails are sustainable. They're not putting sediment into the creeks. Our region delivers a lot of clean drinking water to California, 65% between the Yuba and feather. Water's a big thing for us up here. And so as a rough and rowdy trails, so we're striking the balance in Downieville. You can't build those kinds of trails today. The forest service would just say out of spec, but the trails we build, today are just different. They're still as fun and enjoyable.

They just, they're just more sustainable.

[00:07:44] Craig Dalton: Was it that the fact that. Technically you already existed as mutual paths that you were able to get them effectively grandfathered in the format that they already existed in.

[00:07:54] Greg Williams: For sure. And these trails, like in.

the seventies, the forest service started to take them into their system. And at the time they were there, their solutions, these trails are open the motorcycles too. So you could ride motorcycles. You could ride e-bikes mountain bikes, hike, equestrian. So a trail for everyone.

Those are the best. Those are the trails we like up here. Cause we're not, densely populated. We don't have high use necessarily. A lot of these trails are directional and in a sense that, just how people use them. So it all works really well together. Yeah just

historic and some prehistoric from the native folks that were here.

[00:08:34] Craig Dalton: You mentioned the Sierra Buttes trail stewardship organization. Can you just talk about the origins of that and what the journey has been like over the time it's existed?

[00:08:45] Greg Williams: Yeah. Basically like we, we needed tools to put in people's hands. We were doing trail work days. And those started like with, a group of 10 and everybody had fun. And then the next time we'd have one, there'd be 20 people. And so we were getting these like work parties to where, there was like a hundred people showing up and this was before we had our nonprofit.

And so we were. We are struggling to put tools in people's hands. We're good at putting a beer in their hands, on a burger at a barbecue, but we were like, man, we need tools. And we formed our nonprofit status in 2003. And the first grants we wrote were really just to buy tools. And so we started tooling up and then We started hiring folks.

Henry O'Donnell who grew up in Downieville. He's our trail boss now. He's been working with us for 16 years and is built, probably a hundred miles of trail with his crews alone. As much as it was about taking care of the trails, it became about taking care of each other and the people and the communities.

We like to say we're in the business of revitalizing mountain communities and we use trails as the tool to do it. So we're surrounded by national forest up here. And there's, the jobs traditionally have come from logging and mining. So we see recreation as being sustainable and a chance like for us to be more resilient and retain working families and put kids to work and really educate people on the importance of this place so that

they can come up.

And join us as land stewards or what the next time there's a bill to vote on for land or water issues, maybe they'll vote. Yes. Because they care about a place.

[00:10:18] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. It's quite impressive. The scale of the organization at this point, imagining you starting it, it's quite straightforward to start a nonprofit, but it's quite difficult to generate a significant amount of donations or grants or funding. What did that path look like to obtain this type of scale, where you're able to meaningfully hire people in the community and do a huge amount of work in the last year?

[00:10:44] Greg Williams: Yeah.

I think one of the early keys and we didn't realize it at the time was just not being. Like, we could have easily said, Hey, we're Downieville mountain bike organization. Cause we were all mountain bikers. We rode dirt bikes, we all hiked. But because we really landed on trail stewardship and we're more inclusive.

I think that was a real gift that we gave ourselves early on. Cause in this whole region we work we work in wilderness areas. We maintain huge chunks of the Pacific crest trail associate. Pacific crest trail. We put outdoor classroom and trail on every school campus and Plumas and Sierra county for the kids to get a trail experience and outdoor classroom.

And then we build dirt bike trails, we build mountain bike trails. So if there's a trail in our region, like we want to be able to help. We want to be able to maintain it, build it and engage. Any type of recreate or we can become to come join in. So I think that's been a real key to our success.

And then also I think, for me, like just growing up a young entrepreneur, like always having to make my own money not, having a big like support system. Get to be like a survivor, and scrappy and your heads up. And, you're just like, okay, what's the next thing.

And we've just honestly had that approach with grants and projects, knowing what key projects to take and not take on too much. And and then in times, like with the pandemic and the big fires we've had up here is to really be able. Quickly react and a thoughtful way, like not just panic and not start down a road or a trail, that's like going to be the wrong one, and if it feels wrong in the beginning, we're like, Hey, what are we doing here? Do we have to do this like quick analysis? Like check-ins And so we've just, I think that's just like part of the nature of being up here. If you're raising your family up here and you've been here For generations, you just know like how it is, and it's, it takes everything sometimes.

[00:12:38] Craig Dalton: For the listener who wants to support the organization? Do you accept direct donations or is it all grant based? How do you fund it?

[00:12:45] Greg Williams: So we fund it. It's interesting. Cause like in 2019, I would say. Okay. Here's how we fund ourselves. We had lost and found we had the Downieville classic. We had grind Duro. We had a UBA expeditions, which is our guide outfitter business and shuttles like shuttling, almost 9,000 people up the hill.

That was like 30% actually Yuba was like 28% of our gross revenue and events were up around like 35%. And and then the pandemic hit and took away all of our events took away our shuttles for a whole year limited our operations as a guide service, and then also took away barbecues and volunteer big days.

So we got hit really hard. And during that time, We were like, man, what are we going to do? How do we bring up like donations, like to a higher level without events. And so in 21 when that year closed out, our donations were 38% of our gross. When they were at 3% in 2019, we still had no event.

Income. Grants are running a right around 40% of our gross. Basically, we have we have public funding, like through grants and programs. We have private funding, we have foundations and then we have Yuba and we're bringing lost and found back on. So really trying to strengthen all the different, legs of the organization.

So that. We're more, we can react more. We can be survivors. Like we want this to be A hundred year organization. And like those two years are just really just a little blip, but but at the same time, like when you're in the middle of it, it's like a big mountain in front of you, and so I think just, we've learned so much, we've learned like what we're made of, we know we know how to better support each other as staff and families. So there's really we're pretty confident in that we just need, honestly, we need an investment up here. We have some big projects.

We need people sign up for lost and found whether they're going to come and race, or they're going to come and ride and enjoy the aid stations, or they just want to come help volunteer, just like just help us. And that.

[00:14:53] Craig Dalton: percent. Yeah. I hope, I hope for any non-profit that's suffered with the elimination of in-person events over the last couple of years, that as you mentioned, just like stepping up their constituents, willingness to donate directly. And hopefully that can become habitualized. So you keep that 30 odd percent of direct donations.

Plus you've got event revenue and all the other in-person things you were talking about and you come out of this even stronger than when you began.

[00:15:23] Greg Williams: Yeah. That's certainly the goal and like this year we've we're looking at like peer-to-peer crowdfunding. It is one of the components to folks that are lining up or volunteering. But I think it's new, for people they're like, what do I do? How do I do it? Like my son has type one diabetes.

And so I do a ride that benefits. It's totally built in, right? Like you're like, oh Yeah.

of course this is what you do. This is how you do it. And so we want to get there with each one of our events and have the funding, help us with our operational costs, help us match up grants, no grant is free.

It always costs whether it's time or money or volunteers, there's always a cost. So that's like we want, and we want people to be aware, like not just come do the race and be like, Yeah.

that was awesome. But really. Have some ownership and some pride and help us like move this, these communities forward a little bit,

[00:16:15] Craig Dalton: yeah. Yeah. I think anybody, you put some rubber on the road or on the trail in the Los Sierra comes away knowing it's a really special area. I'm sure as we get more people up there, they're gonna have a similar love for it and loyalty to it. One of the things that I saw mentioned and saw a couple of friends in the gravel community talking about where was the connected community project.

Can you talk about what that's all about?

[00:16:40] Greg Williams: Yeah connected communities is really, it's a project that the trails master plan got funded through Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which is a state agency. And and I got invited to, to talk at this mountain venture summit. And I was like, okay, I can just talk about all this stuff like we're doing or the normal stuff, but let's do something cool.

And our board president Greg Carter, and I got together and we just had this huge regional map and we just started like laying out sticky notes about each of the towns. And how man, could we connect these with trails? And at the same time, like they're already connected with dirt roads, but how do we promote this?

How do we make it to where people can look at a map that's readable? Cause there is 10,000 miles of dirt roads in those regions. So trying to plan a trip is holy crap. I don't even know where to start. There's so many roads. So a big effort is we're going to map out all the high quality gravel, dirt road.

At linking the towns so people can start, doing bike packing. Part of our Yuba expeditions guide service will be what we're calling a mountain mule, which is basically hauling your gear from point to point which would be a combination of like overnight camping and then getting you into a town and do some accommodations and restaurants.

And then we're going to build 620 miles of single track to connect these towns. part of that's already in the works. Some of it exists already. Some of it's been planned out for a long time. And we're in construction, like connecting Quincy to Taylorsville the next town over. So we have this big project and.

It's rolling. It's not, we're not just waiting for the plan to be done. We're actually implementing parts of it. Some of it's an environmental review, so heritage botany, wildlife hydrology surveys are being done. We have two crews that are out ground-truthing all the mapping to ensure that those trails are in the optimum location.

But when it's done 15 mountain towns, including Reno and Truckee will be connected all throughout the Los Sierra region was single track. All the dirt roads will be mapped out in such a way that you can plan your adventures. And also know what kind of services each of the town has. And then another component of this is to look at the potential overnight hot locations.

But really we want to drive people riding with the main street of the downtown, with their credit card. To patronize these businesses because outside of Reno and Truckee, all these communities are severely disadvantaged economically. So everybody's struggling. And some of these businesses are just hanging on.

So this is an opportunity to drive an economy into the region. That's going to last for generations.

[00:19:14] Craig Dalton: Yeah, amazing. I love it. I love it so much adventuring to be had in the Los Sierra. No question about.

[00:19:22] Greg Williams: Absolutely. We have plenty of room for everybody.

[00:19:23] Craig Dalton: Let's move on and let's talk about the lost and found gravel festival. It's coming up here in June, and there's still some slots available. So I want to make sure that people walk away knowing what's the festival all about what's the vibe let's get into it. And I'll ask you some questions to just to figure it all out.

[00:19:39] Greg Williams: Yeah. This is an interesting one. And just in terms of how we got into this, and we'd been doing Downieville for a long time and Chris McGovern who's a frame builder. And who also grew up in Nevada city, went to the same high school as I did. I ran into him at Interbike in 2013, and he's dude, you need to do a gravel event.

And I'm like, What is that? And And I, and it was just like, man, this is what we used to do when we were kids like ride all these dirt roads, it's oh, that's a thing now. And Chris put this bug in my ear, we started talking more, doing some mapping, invited him and Cameron falconer.

Up and we just started like testing routes, like those guys are both super fit. I'm like, I'll drive the support vehicle and meet you guys, here's the map. And so we just started really laying out this course, it started just north of Portola and like Davis and and we got the permits pretty quickly working with the Plumas national forest.

And the first year we had around 290 racers and

[00:20:37] Craig Dalton: What year was that? Greg?

[00:20:38] Greg Williams: I was in 2014.

[00:20:40] Craig Dalton: Okay.

[00:20:41] Greg Williams: Yeah. And we had great folks like Paul components and WTB who were like, we're doing an aid station. That's going to be a party of its own, and so we had these perfect elements to pull this gravel event off.

And then, the second year we doubled the entries the next year, we doubled that again. And like in 2019 we had around 1700 people signed up, we were going to cap it at 2000. And I think just the recipe of like how we do these events, we make them super fun. The courses are great. The aid stations are suburb, just an overall great experience camping live music, all the stuff that we like.

And then at the same time, how do we introduce people to this whole new area, and bring them into zones that they wouldn't otherwise get out. So really showcases this region as we're calling it the gravel capital of the west. And

that's because it has 10,000 miles of dirt roads.

Like you can't find that anywhere in the U S and

and there's, great rivers, there's great lakes. There's a fire lookouts. You can visit some of them you can rent for overnight stays. So this is it. This is the gravel capital of the west.

[00:21:50] Craig Dalton: I love it. Put a stake in the ground there. What community is Los and fountain based out of.

[00:21:55] Greg Williams: It's it starts in the city of Portola, which is right on the headwaters of the middle fork of.

the feather river next to the Sierra valley, which is the largest Alpine valley in north America sits around 5,000 feet of elevation with a great big mountain right behind it called Beckworth peak.

And right from there, you can hit all these roads, just right off the main paved road. It's perfect.

[00:22:18] Craig Dalton: Are you offering multiple course distances?

[00:22:21] Greg Williams: Yeah, we have a 35 mile course that has two flagship aid stations on it. And then we have a 60 mile course. That has four aid stations on it. And then we have the hundred that has six aid stations on it. They overlap for the start. Everybody does the first 10 and a half miles, which is a climb up to 7,000 feet.

Those are essential in any event is to have a big climb that, that separates people,

[00:22:46] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for

[00:22:47] Greg Williams: And so those Are elements we learned throughout this. Cause we've had different courses over the years. Some of them were great. Some were like, oh man, don't do that again.

[00:22:55] Craig Dalton: Are they what's the starting elevation up there in Portola.

[00:22:58] Greg Williams: Yeah. It's I want to say the town is like 5,100.

[00:23:02] Craig Dalton: Okay. So starting at 5,100, going up to 7,000 with that first climb, I agree. I feel like back when the events were smaller, it was okay to start off on some single track or something like that. But in this day and age, when you've got a thousand people on a course, definitely great to break it up and to have people find their own, their own tribe in the event.

[00:23:21] Greg Williams: Yeah, and we have, we have a great relationship with city of Portola. Going into this year, we were hesitant of man, we don't want to, the last thing we want to do is have to cancel another event.

And COVID was still a thing. So we got a late start on this thing, like we're really looking at this as like a rebuild year.

We realized like, Hey, we're late to the table here. We also conflict with

the Kansas ride. So there's a couple of things like working against us, but at the same time This is going to be a hell of a party. Like we're throwing everything we have at this thing to make sure everybody has a great time and comes back, brings friends the next year.

And it, like I said, it was important to city of Portola. They approached us and they were like, Hey stewardship, like we need this event. We just went through two years. Our businesses are hurting. The city helps provide a lot of the camping and infrastructure in the town. So they were a real true partner.

And then the Plumas national forest has road crews out there right now, like dialing in all these roads. And what we're hoping is developed, like what we're calling a signature route to where every year the road crew has priorities to take care of on the lost and found routes. So it's every year it's just dial Primo.

[00:24:30] Craig Dalton: Yeah. It's one of those events, I didn't realize actually it had been around as long as it has, but that makes sense because I feel like at least in the bay area and Marin county, like you talk about gravel riding and. Lost and found, always comes up and it always comes up with two thumbs up saying oh, you gotta do it.

It's great. Riding just a great overall community vibe in a sport that is maybe changing a bit to say the least in terms of the amount of resources and the amount of professional athletes coming into it. I think events that just maintain that community vibe are always going to be the ones that are in people's hearts and that they want to do.

[00:25:10] Greg Williams: Yeah. And we, we realized like we get top athletes that come here to put it to each other, but the majority of people are here to just go on a bike ride with their buddies, have the aid stations be able to camp out, have the music like that festival atmosphere.

That's where we're really trying to position ourselves as Hey, if you want it. There, there is alternatives if you're just purely eraser, but if you want to come and ride like one of the best courses in the world and have some top brands like cater to you throughout the course that their aid stations, like this is where you want to come.

And if you want to help support a community recover after, the wildfires and the pandemic and help an organization. With the, with a grand project, a legacy project, like this is the spot like everybody's welcome. And whether you're writing a check or picking up a shovel your help is welcome.

[00:26:01] Craig Dalton: Amazing. You talked about a little bit more about from a mountain bike perspective, the type of terrain that's up there for the gravel course, for those who are coming from outside the area. What type of equipment is important to have underneath you to be successful at lost and found

[00:26:17] Greg Williams: Yeah, big tires. I think that's the number one thing is the first year we had people like on road bikes because people didn't really know it. Like gravel racing was anyway. They're like, oh, it's this thing. But these you're in the Sierra Nevada up here and it's, there's spots where man, you're like, it's rough.

I think like one year, like Carl Decker rode a hard tail man. Fully rigid. So it's just kinda like a mix. And I think, the course that we have this year, I would say you're totally dialed on a gravel bike, but you're going to want like a 40 C tire maybe with a little thicker casing.

Just so you're not flattened.

[00:26:53] Craig Dalton: Yep. Are you staying primarily on fire roads through the mountains? There are you getting off into this single track?

[00:26:59] Greg Williams: We're at, this is a no single track right ride, but some of the roads have single track?

lines, right? Like you want to be, you want your head up, you want to be paying attention. There's ruts there's rocks. There's a smoother line, especially on a gravel bike. You don't want to give yourself a whiplash or, too much excitement.

But I would say you're paying attention the whole time. You're not, zoning out because the road is just smooth and you gotta pay attention, plus it's so beautiful out here. Like the wild flowers are gonna be coming out. The rivers are flowing the mountain stuff, snow on them.

People will be looking around, but they really need to pay attention.

[00:27:35] Craig Dalton: once you get a top that first climb, are you doing a commiserate elevation drop? Is it a big descent?

[00:27:41] Greg Williams: It's a sweet so the roads were using too are like some of the better system roads, like we've taken people in some pretty primitive back country roads, and there is a mix of this, but this particular road is one of the nicer maintain. Like around a set, like a price of 5% running grade.

So you're able to just like big ring paddle through like really big sweeper turns super enjoyable. And then you have another climb that's around 700 feet, another like descent of a thousand. And then a lot of rolling train. Cause you're connecting all these Alpine valleys as you go. And then for the final you come down like the smoothest road in Plumas county.

And and then into this tube that goes under the highway. That's a we negotiate this deal with the landowner there. It's a handshake deal, Hey, races are going to be coming through here, your insured. He's great. I'll have my lawn chair and a cooler of beer here to watch, and that's part of what makes the specialty, right? It's just all the community coming together and people working together and allowing stuff like that riders to come through private property, like ordinarily the guy would not allow that,

[00:28:45] Craig Dalton: Yeah, you mentioned you've got ample camping situations up there for athletes and families coming up. Are there also other accommodation possibilities?

[00:28:54] Greg Williams: Yeah.

There's resorts up here. There's motels. there's a ton of camping, honestly, there's forest service camping around like Davis and some of the valleys that the ride's going to be going through. And then city of Portola they have a city park. That's all grass that has like baseball, baseball, diamonds, a swimming pool, the showers are open.

And then there's camping all along the middle fork of the feather river, right in downtown. So the idea is get people to stay in town and then they can just ride their bike to the coffee shop or, head over to the pizza place. So that's part of the reason we moved the race down from starting at lake Davis was like, let's get people downtown.

Plus, when the lakes full the amount of land we have to work with, decreases quite a bit. It worked great the first year with 200 riders, but now that we're up around 1200 to 2000, we need more. And this park really allows people to spread out. And then we have a little amphitheater for the music and and then there's nothing like just starting in the middle of a downtown, and then finishing at the same place coming through town.

[00:29:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I had one final question on finishing. So I've been out there on a great adventure on my gravel bike all day. I crossed the finish line. What's the vibe. What's the scene. When I crossed the finish line at last.

[00:30:05] Greg Williams: Yeah. So you're going to get greeted by our local bike team, the Los Sierra composite team. They're gonna, they'll take your bike. They'll wash it. They'll put the, lock it up and the tennis courts. So like a fully secured bike zone. And you're going to walk over and grab a cold Sierra Nevada beer. And then we hire this, like top-notch catering company and mountain magic to do like a top quality meal for ya.

Then you're gonna pull up a chair in the park, enjoy a beer, enjoy some live music, eat some food, tell some stories, and then if you have it in you, like the music goes and you can dance all night.

[00:30:41] Craig Dalton: I love it, Greg. I think that's an amazing point to end on, and I hope everybody's as stoked about this event as I am. And as stoked about the work that you're doing in the Los Sierra, it really is a special part of California. And I hope everybody clicks on the links in the show notes and goes and checks out the Los and found gravel grinder festival as well as the work you're doing at Sierra.

[00:31:04] Greg Williams: Yeah, come on up and play with us.

[00:31:06] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Greg Williams, be sure to check out the lost and found gravel festival. It's definitely going to be an amazing event this year. I've heard only good things about it. So I encourage you to check it out.

And grab one of those last available slots. Huge, thanks to our sponsor, the feed. Make sure to go check out the feed formulas to get 15% off. Just visit the feed.com/the gravel ride. If you're interested in connecting with me, I encourage you to join the [e-mail].

And if you have an opportunity, please leave a rating or review or visit [e-mail] slash the growl ride to support the podcast. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels