94 JULY | AUGUST 2019
Wendi and Jason Shearer
of Jackson, founders of the
outdoor adventure company
Ordinary Epics, were dis-
cussing motorcycle routes
with motorcyclist Alan Grant
when they ran into another
form of racing—gravel bike
racing. Now, the Mississippi
Gravel Cup and gravel bi-
cycle racing has become the
fastest-growing discipline in
cycling today.
Wendi shares that she and her husband were far from
home when it happened. “The way that we started in gravel
racing was accidental,” she says. “We have family who live
in Kansas, and we were there visiting my brother and sister-
in-law. We heard about this gravel race called Dirty Kansas,
200 miles of gravel. That’s all it took for Jason—a challenge.
He said, ‘Nobody in Mississippi has ever done anything
like that, so I am going to take that on.’” And he did. Wendi
rode the 25-mile fun ride and then supported Jason during
his race.
The Shearers then heard about another gravel-ride op-
portunity and drove to Emporia, Kansas. “Rebecca Rush,
an athlete who is big in this field, happened to be in Empo-
ria and she had just written her book, Gold Rush,” Wendi
says. “She said that she had a race in Idaho called Rebecca’s
Private Idaho. I spoke with her as a part of the book-signing
process, and said, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do this.’”
Private Idaho consisted of two races, a 100-mile and a
50-mile race. Jason decided to do “The Big Potato” and Wen-
di went on “The Small Fry.” Apart from the races, the couple
discovered a great amount of camaraderie and the oppor-
tunity to soak in the countryside of a new destination.
“After we rode that race, Private Idaho, we wanted to
bring it back home,” says Wendi. “We wanted to figure out
how we could bring that community here for us. Jason knew
Alan and that he rode motorcycles on gravel roads all the
time.” When the Shearers returned to Jackson, they enlist-
ed Alan to help with their idea.
Wendi was impressed by the sense of community after
the Kansas races. “For me, just doing a couple of hours on a
ride, I came back and waited for Jason so that he could get
fueled and have the things that he needed,” she says of the
Kansas races. “That meant that I was in a couple of parking
lots in different places for several hours. There were moms,
dads, kids who were riding their little Strider bikes in the
parking lot waiting for the riders to come in, and it was just
a beautiful party.”
Afterward, it literally was a party with a street dance
and entertainment. “There were food trucks, vendors,
bands, and all kinds of things. It really showcased the city
of Emporia. I saw the community in that experience. I got to
hear stories from all the riders. We wanted to bottle it and
keep it. It was amazing.”
From that beginning was born the Mississippi Gravel
Cup. It started with 23 riders in Bentonia in February 2017.ADVENTURE & TRAVEL
MS Adventures
writer BUSTER WOLFE photographer KIRK GIESSINGERpounding
the
gravel
Competitive bicycle
racers take a
different path.