It’s winter forever up in Minnesota. Even though Alexandera is trying on the “snowbird-live-in-her-truck” lifestyle, she makes it back to Minnesota a few times every winter to plan and participate in a group ride along the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon race course. What started as a fun group ride back in 2019 has turned into a journey of discovering what it really means when someone’s name becomes an identity outside of their personhood. John Beargrease is a very important person, and probably the first Anishinaabe endurance athlete she ever heard of. He was fundamental in the information exchange in the north country of Minnesota, delivering mail via sled-dog in the blustery winter months when boats weren’t able to. Stay tuned for more videos on her winter touring kit and this year’s journey!
2022 Milestones
This was another exciting year to watch our Chumba riders compete in loads of ultra-race events. They put the practice in and really smashed some amazing accomplishments this year!
In addition to our timeline above:
This year Alexandera Houchin also started posting some videos on our youtube channel and will continue to through 2023 so give us a follow over there. She also partnered up with Katie Strempke of the team and friends to launch the new Town Bicycle online publication highlighting womens and under-represented stories.
Jerod Foster had a particularly prolific year creating routes and resources for other riders, we’ll post about that soon with links and photos!
We launched new finish options with anodized graphics on our titanium bikes.
Duncan Ledingham finished an epic Atlas Mountain Race! Roberto Garcia Lema and his pup Kepa rode a snowy Montañas Vacías in Spain!
Shout out to Brett Stepanik riding on his Stella Ti and Terlingua Ti to accomplish:
- January 2022 earned the first ever completion of the Ozark Gravel Doom route in 20 degrees
- August 2022 was the only person out of the entire entry list that rode to gravel worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska. 550 miles to race 300
- October 2022 First place singlespeed Arkansas-high-country-race
Loads more happened and we are so grateful to all who commit their travels and time to riding our bikes, thanks for fueling our stoke! See ya in 2023 - Chumba
New Video: Alexandera's Arizona Trail Race Reflections
Alexandera Houchin reflects on 3 things she could have done better on her AZT 800 run this year. Being prepared is the name of the game in bikepacking, and this year Alexandera was a slow to double check (okay, totally didn’t check at all) some things on her bike before she left. Errors aside, Alexandera was a full three days faster than her 2021 record, earning her the current Women's Singlespeed Record at 12 days, 16 hours, and 38 minutes (12d:16h:38m)
Alexandera also just wrote a beautiful piece for the Town Bicycle here on incorporating ceremony into bike racing and she was also awarded Best Film 2022 from Bikepacking.com for her film: Identity and Endurance with Alexandera Houchin // Stronger Together