Defining the Ineffable with Jason "Jay" Clipse and Matt Simpson
The Fathers of the Black Fork Gravel Grinder
Gravel grinding is frikin’ hard. There’s no way around it. Steep, washed out hills on loose gravel with backroad dogs who like to chase. Numb wrists after long, chattery descents and crampy leg muscles after a 15% grade hill.
But it’s fun, because it blends two of the sport’s oil and water factions — mountain biking and road biking — to make something akin to avocado toast. The ingredients have always been around, but when we finally put them together, our tastebuds exploded.
So have sales of gravel-specific bikes, which feature rigid forks with more clearance for tires with widths between road and mountain treads — making this branch of cycling the new avocado toast. It’s one of the fastest growing sectors in the industry, as sales of these particular bikes swelled 109% from 2019 to 2021.
In Ohio, Jay Clipse and Matt Simpson have built a race and ride that has grown along with the gravel craze. I met with them recently over Zoom to talk about their love of cycling and how that led to the Black Fork Gravel Grinder.
Their race started out as a training route for two friends who wanted to get in shape for the Lumberjack 100 and the Mohican MTB100. They started training in the off season. The trails, in Ohio, were too wet. And the roads were too flat. (And they didn’t say this explicitly, so I’ll say it for them: riding indoors was too dang boring.) So the friends put together training routes on the dirt roads they grew up on, places like Gambier and Mount Vernon.
“We found roads that were washed out, rutted, pot-holed — I mean, it was more like mountain biking than anything,” Simpson said.
As they got more and more people to come out on their training rides, the more the friends thought about making it a more formal thing. They decided to build a website, put together a route, got some sponsors, rounded up volunteers for an aid station. They took all the things they loved and appreciated at other events and made sure theirs had those same elements.
“I knew that it didn’t matter about what we do … we’re gonna do it as good as we can possibly do it. It’s gonna be thought out and planned,” Clipse said.
The BFGG’s first year, in 2016, they planned for 30 people to register. The first day registration opened, 50 people signed up. And then 65 more ended up riding that day, making for a smashing success right off the bat.
“We couldn’t believe it, we were so happy,” Clipse said.
The race, now part of the Ohio Gravel Race Series, sells out within days every year. This year was the first time the directors re-opened registration after 500 participants already signed up to allow for 250 more. And it sold out again, within a day or two.
BFGG is certainly no Unbound, the 200-mile gravel race in Kansas that attracted 4,000 riders from all 50 states and 38 countries in 2022. But that’s on purpose, at least for now. Clipse and Simpson like the fact their race feels like a college party.
“But we want to grow, too. Big events are cool, too,” Simpson said.
Clipse echoed the sentiment. He said so far the duo has succeeded in making the BFGG feel grassroots and small-town. And so if they are able to strike that balance with thousands of riders, why not?
The race has three route options, currently. The 54-mile option is a timed race. The 23- and 30-mile options are just rides, with 10 spots allotted for folks who want to rock an e-bike. But the electrics aren’t allowed to compete in the 54-mile; competition is only for the conventional cyclists for now.
Part of my conversation with Jay and Matt was talking about the race and how it all started. And then we talked about their love of cycling, because, that’s what Cycotherapy is about. Talking about cycling and reminding readers that they, too, love to ride bikes. So the next portion of this story will be about that passion, split into a sort of Q&A session.
How many bikes do you have and what are they?
Matt: I have three bikes. The first is a Trek Top Fuel full-suspension. Then, I have a Niner, full-rigid, Air 9 carbon frame. That’s what I use for gravel. For a while, I switched out forks to make it a mountain bike and gravel. It’s just gravel now, I love it. It climbs like a goat. And then I have a Surly Karate Monkey. It’s my goofing-around bike. I use it for bikepacking. I completed the Ohio to Erie Trail on it in 2021 over four days.
Jay: I have nine bikes. I like to collect them apparently. I have three Surlys. I have a Fuji road bike. A Felt cross bike. A Surly fatbike. An Airborne dirt jumper. (Which, if I get 1 or 2 inches off the ground, that’s good for me.) I don’t know what my favorite bike is though, depends on the day.
When did you first get into cycling and why?
Matt: Just as a kid. I had a Huffy. I remember it being extremely heavy, huge seat. Thing weighed like 50 pounds. I also had a Diamondback Silver Streak. That thing was awesome.
Jay: Yeah, that bike (Matt’s Diamondback) was really cool. I had a Murray, when it was still a good bike brand. Just a BMX. It could jump anything and I could take it anywhere, not too heavy. It also had a chromoly frame. We thought we were the shit, for sure.
Describe the feeling that cycling gives you. Be as long-winded or as brief as you'd like.
Jay: If I don’t ride outside enough, my wife (just like my mom did when I was little) puts me outside. She knows what it does to me. It’s a release; it’s adventure. It cures everything. It doesn’t matter how hard or easy it is. You can’t have a bad time on the bike.
I’ve always said, like when I see someone out running while I’m on a bike ride, ‘you never see runners smiling.’ Well, you never see bikers not smiling. It makes you a kid again. That’s it right there.
Matt: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. It’s just like being a kid. Just out there having fun on a bike, shooting the breeze as you’re riding along. It clears your mind, lets you live simply.
Thanks for reading, cycopaths. And thanks, Jay and Matt, for taking the time to meet with me. You guys were fun to chat with.
Come back next week for another installment of defining the ineffable. In the meantime, get outside and on the bike.
Avocado toast is an apt description for the mixed blend of MTB and roadbikes!