Original article published in the Mower County Independent, Thursday, March 14, 2026. Reprinted with permission and gratitude.
By David Phillips
The back roads around Spring Valley take people away from the bustle of modern life to a tranquil respite amidst the beauty of the rolling hills of southeastern Minnesota.
For gravel bicyclist enthusiasts, those crushed rock roads provide all that, but also an opportunity to challenge the body, mind and spirit. Facing those challenges with others builds
camaraderie, even romance in some cases, with like-minded individuals who enjoy spending a day powering their bikes for hours on gravel roads through the winding ups and downs of the
region.
Many of them will get together at 8 a.m. on Saturday, May 16, for the start of the 2026 Spring Valley Wilder 100, a race that has its origins 20 years ago in Rochester and has been
held in Spring Valley since 2010. The race has changed names and organizers over the years, but the 100-mile course has maintained pretty much the same route while a 60-mile race, now
65 miles, was added in 2024.
Paul Vogel, a former Spring Valley resident living in the Cleveland area, has participated in the race for the past 11 years and helped keep it going through a difficult period starting in 2019.
The race is “considered the granddaddy of all grassroots gravel races in the world, and considered in most gravel bike race circles as the race that put gravel on the map,” he said.
“The roads less traveled in southeastern Minnesota offer picturesque farmland that windsbetween towering bluffs and lush green valleys that many people have never experienced from
the quiet perspective of doing it on a bicycle,” he said. However, he warned, “don’t let the serenity fool you, the route can humble even the strongest of riders. Epic climbs, a river
crossing, a brief pedal through the forested canopy of Forestville State Park, and challenging downhills all contribute to the taxing, but rewarding experience. I personally find it exhilarating
bombing downhills at 45 miles an hour on a bed of misshapen marbles on a bicycle.”
Mike Blakeslee, who grew up as a neighbor to Vogel and now lives in Canon Falls, said Vogel got him into the sport, and now the ride has become a yearly tradition for him, as well as
his children and friends.
“We are not hard-core riders, so it;s a huge physical and mental challenge,” he said. “We look forward to getting together for the ride with a sense of anticipation and anxiety in not
knowing what the weather will be like and/or if we are in good enough shape to finish it. We keep each other motivated and always finish with good stories and a huge sense of
accomplishment.”
Another former Spring Valley resident, Todd Keune, who now lives in the Cresco area, said his motivation initially started 15 years ago with a decision to drop weight and get healthier at a
time when he was 70 pounds heavier than he is now.
He tried other sports, such as running and volleyball, before some fellow bicyclists at work nudged him into bicycling. He bought a nice road bike, but it disappeared a few months later.
However, when gravel bicycling exploded and he heard about the race in Spring Valley, “I was like, wow, this huge, world-popular race is in my hometown. So I decided to get a gravel
bike,” he said.
He has kept at this sport as this is his fifth gravel race in Spring Valley. Part of his motivation is to keep fit so he is around a long time for his 9-year-old special needs child, of whom he has
custody.
Another motivation is his girlfriend, Mackenzie Adams. When they met five years ago, she wasn’t fond of running or volleyball, but she thought bicycling sounded fun.
“So, only six weeks after meeting, she bought herself a really nice, brand-new bike,” he said. “Now I mostly just bike, as it’s what we do together. We do over half a dozen gravel races per
year together and ride a lot on our own together. It’s our thing.”
Adams said the challenge, as well as adventure, motivate her. “I am always looking to see just what my body can do for me,” she said. “I am always motivated to encourage other people
to just get out for the adventure.”
This will be her third year riding the Spring Valley race. The first year she wasn’t an official finisher as the only option was the 100-mile route, which she cut short before coming to the end.
Two years ago, the 60-mile route was added and she was an official finisher, quite an accomplishment as many dropped out due to the grueling wind that year.
The Spring Valley race started in 2007 as the Almanzo 100 by Chris Skogen of Rochester. In 2010, he moved the race to Spring Valley, where it quickly grew in reputation and in numbers
to a peak of more than 1,500 riders. However, in 2015 Skogen made a decision to give up the race, handing it over to Kathy Simpson and Spring Valley officials, but in 2018 he returned and
in 2019 moved it to Northfield with little advance notice.
It appeared the Spring Valley race was dead, but Vogel, a 1982 Spring Valley High School graduate, and Blakeslee and Alan Matson, both 1981 graduates, decided to do a farewell tour,
which attracted the attention of Drew Wilson, a well-known race promoter from Stewartville who helped organize an event in 2019 with 125 riders in what was called Keep Gravel Weird,
Volume 1. In 2020, with the pandemic raging and Wilson taking on another business venture, the three SVHS graduates decided to do a social distancing race called the Quarantini 100 with
14 participants showing up after a last-minute Facebook post.
The three kept the race going until this year when it was turned over to the Spring Valley Tourism Committee with Tamra Voigt taking the lead. She has been “drinking through a firehose
as I pass down all the lessons learned and best practices the tri-chairs accumulated over the past seven years,” said Vogel.
The race, now called the Spring Valley Wilder 100, is special to Vogel because of his connections to the community. His family moved to Spring Valley in 1977 and in 1985 he
married the love of his life, the former Kris Bonnerud, who died in 2020 from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Although they moved away shortly after marriage when Vogel started his 35-year
career in the U.S. Coast Guard, his parents and in-laws still reside in Spring Valley.
“It will always be considered my hometown, hometown proud,” he said.
It’s not just the allegiance to Spring Valley that makes this his favorite gravel race, noted
Vogel, who has ridden several others in the area and in Ohio.
“This is the one that keeps me coming back year after year. I find this offers the most challenging mix of all the gravel courses I’ve ridden,” he said. “While the route remains generally of the same character, the teeth, or the bite, is ever- changing, the location and amount of hero gravel (where all gravel has been swept aside over time and a smooth bed of limestone dust remains), fluffed-up gravel, freshly laid, spring boils, and mud, change from year to year. You can be assured there will be some of all. That’s part of what’s so inviting about the gravel roads in this part of the country; once you’ve ridden them once, you’ve ridden them once, you know what to expect, you just don’t know where you’ll encounter the changes from year to year.”
Keune, who lives close enough to train on the roads of the route, considers this his favorite as well, not only because Spring Valley is his hometown, but also “the history of the race and its
iconic route.”
Although Adams doesn’t have any ties to Spring Valley, she has a special spot in her heart for this race since Keune introduced her to this event.
She also understands the importance of community and small-town events. “I knew it was one that aligned with my own ‘small-town’ history, having grown up in northern Iowa,” she said.
For Blakeslee, who has also done several other races, the Wilder 100 is “probably the most scenic and challenging ride I have done,” he said. “Whether you are riding the 60- or 100-mile
route – with about 10 miles to get to the finish line, you have to climb Oriole Hill! When you get to the top, you think you’re finished climbing, but you are not; you still have to climb out of Masonic Park. It’s epic, and the reason a group of hard-core gravel riders come back every year.”
He is also amazed that much of the ride is on the same roads he and Vogel traveled on daily while growing up. “I never thought I would be riding a bike on these roads,” he said. “It’s great
that Spring Valley is keeping the ride going. It’s a great opportunity for Spring Valley and the community.”
Vogel echoes the appreciation for Spring Valley residents who are keeping the ride going. “Thank you, mayor, city officials, EDA (Economic Development Authority), and the tourism
committee for continuing this historic event — 17 consecutive years in Spring Valley, 20 years since the founders’ inception in 2007 in Rochester. Congratulations!”
Courtesy of the Mower County Independent, 135 E Main St. LeRoy, MN 55951, (507)-324-5325
