BLUE’s own Dean Myers took on the Dirty Kanza 200 and successfully finished the 202 mile relentlessly rough, tough, and dirty course with 10,000 feet of climbing on his Hogback gravel bike. Here he is at mile 180 taking a short rest on the infamous “Chase the Chaise” couch. Equipped with Shimano Di2, Stages Ultegra Power Meter Crankset and Aerus Carbon 35GR wheels the bike withstood the beating with no mechanical issues. He road on tubeless 700x38mm tires without a flat but a majority of people had at least one. A tidbit of advice he gave us after his first try at this event is “make sure you eat all you can in hours 2 through 6 as so many people didn’t finish because of nutrition and they hit the wall half-way through and can’t recover. I almost didn’t get back on my bike at mile 121 with leg cramps and total fatigue but got a boost from the aid station volunteers and my “all-in” playlist to get back on and kept going. It is so hard to make yourself eat when it’s hot, the road is so rough, and your stomach doesn’t want to process anything but you gotta shove it down anyway”. BLUE had a great time exhibiting at the event and plan to come out and participate even bigger in 2020.