THE LITESPEED TOSCANO TAKES ON DESERT GRAVEL 2026
Colorado's Western Slope (everything west of the Continental Divide) hides a vast gravel playground full of unique and challenging terrain that begs to be explored. This terrain is what makes Desert Gravel such a special event.
Desert Gravel starts in Fruita, Colorado, and heads toward the Utah border. There are five distances to choose from, and this year, I raced the 125-mile event for the second time. I came with one very specific goal: hold on to the front group for as long as possible. Since I'm a fairly average cyclist, I blew up spectacularly. What followed was a 5-hour journey of self-discovery and suffering in this arid wilderness.
You can watch the race unfold in my video recap:
The Desert Gravel Race Plan
With its distance, difficulty, and date, Desert Gravel served as an ideal tune-up race for my biggest goal of the season: UNBOUND Gravel. I've been working with a coach for over a year to get fitter and hopefully improve my UNBOUND finish time. At my first race of the year, Mid South Gravel, I was excited to put all my fitness gains to the test, but I ended up crashing.
Understandably, I felt like I didn't really get to test myself. This crash also left me with some nerves that I felt like I needed to resolve before my A-race. So, at my coach's suggestion, I used Desert Gravel as a place to test my limits in an event with lower consequences than UNBOUND.
Obviously, pacing an endurance race as evenly as possible is the best way to get the fastest result possible. That's what I did at Desert Gravel last year to achieve a finish time of 7:17:24. With my current fitness, I should smash that time with a similar pacing plan. But this race wasn't about playing it smart. It was about gathering data and learning lessons.
My coach wanted me to push myself to find out "how deep I can go and how far is my drop-off." This would provide crucial information on how to pace UNBOUND to get my best result there. My coach theorized that I would be fit enough to continue averaging 180 Watts (my average power the previous year) even after blowing up in the first hour.
So, I decided to push myself MUCH harder than I usually do in races. I ended up hanging on to the front group of the fastest riders for just over an hour, and a very strong chase group for another hour. After all that, I felt destroyed! But my coach was right. I was still able to average over 180 Watts (I actually managed 190 W!). Despite wrecking myself, I still finished around 20 minutes faster than the previous year.
On paper, my results, strategy, and experience were unideal. But in reality, it has given me a ton of confidence going into the biggest race of my year. I have a good sense of where my limit is. I understand how quickly I can recover in a race situation and just how much grit I actually have when things get tough. I think I can try harder than I originally thought, and stick with faster riders than I normally would. By being a bit dumb and reckless, I've learned how to be smarter and more calculated.
The Bikes: Litespeed Toscanos Take On the Desert
For Desert Gravel, I rode my trusty Litespeed Toscano with the same 50mm Schwalbe G-One RS tires I used at Mid South. It's Litespeed's premier gravel race bike, and it's ideal for a fast and rough event like Desert Gravel, especially with the addition of a suspension fork. The gravel at the beginning and end of the course is some of the roughest gravel terrain I have raced on, and having a fork not only makes it more comfortable, but it can also save your butt when you smash your front wheel into a deep rut. My Cane Creek Invert SL got me out of trouble on more than one occasion!
This is also a major reason why our friend Alex Kenworthy also chose to equip his brand new Toscano with the DT Swiss F 132 ONE suspension fork:
Alex works for Bikerumor, the world’s largest cycling tech blog, and he wanted a suspension-equipped Toscano to take on the Desert Gravel 50-mile course, which would be his first gravel race! We were able to deliver Alex his bike at the DT Swiss headquarters in nearby Grand Junction, Colorado, and he went on to finish 16th overall and WIN his age group.
"My race went well!" Alex said. "It’s the first race I’ve competed in, and I loved the pace of it. The wind was whipping, which was difficult, but it’s all part of the fun. The course was in great shape, lots of varied terrain, and I met some amazing folks on the ride."
Of course, it's the engine that matters most, but having a good bike doesn't hurt! Litespeed is the first OEM to bring the DT Swiss F 132 ONE to North America, and Alex's Toscano FI is the first one I've seen built up with the fork.
If you look closely, Alex's bike is also the first to get shipped out with the new Litespeed "Heritage Logo" anodized on his downtube, celebrating our 40th anniversary. Stay tuned for more details about that!
