These Guys Finished Unbound Gravel on Beach Cruisers from Walmart

According to Walmart’s website, the Kent Bicycle 27.5″ Men’s Seachange Beach Cruiser Bicycle is “the perfect bicycle for teens and adults going on long summer adventures.”

When Stephen Fitzgerald rolled into Emporia, Kansas last Thursday after the long drive from Denver, he and his two buddies Nick Gilroy and David Hornick went to the neighborhood Walmart.

There, they bought four of the steel beach cruisers for $198 apiece. They unboxed the bikes (three of them, the fourth was a spare), stripped them of parts, and spray painted them with “sick fades.” Then, they reassembled them, only replacing components that simply didn’t fit — seatposts — and ones that could cause grave problems — saddles. They hoped to replace the flat pedals with clipless ones but the cranks had the wrong spindle spec.

Knowing that the stock plastic pedals had a huge potential for failure, they made a second trip to Walmart to buy metal ones.

They did not replace the wide swept-back handlebars, wheels, tires, or plastic cranks One of them added a basket, another a canvas handlebar bag. They all added bottle cages. They renamed the Seachanges the ‘Rodeo Ken.’

Then, 24 hours before the start of Unbound Gravel, the notorious 200-mile gravel race through the Flint Hills of Kansas, they announced their intentions.

“We aim to complete the Unbound 200 on these bikes, and moreover we aim to have fun along the way. We do not know if either objective is actually attainable. Failure is possible, and depending on who you ask, probable. And therein lies the allure of it all: The absolute unknown of what tomorrow holds.”

As you might imagine, Fitzgerald and his buddies didn’t buy the beach cruisers at Walmart because they didn’t have bikes or needed last-minute replacements.

To the contrary: Fitzgerald has a lot of bikes. He actually makes bikes for other people. He is the founder of Rodeo Labs, a boutique brand based in Denver that produces two stock gravel bike builds, the Flaanimal and the Trail Donkey, in addition to custom projects.

It was in the spirit of his own brand, he said, that he and his friends decided to take the Walmart beach cruisers on a 200-mile joyride in Kansas.

“When Rodeo started 10 years ago it was nothing but the unknown in front of us, and we had so much fun living it up in the great outdoors, in the Adventure Lab,” Fitzgerald said. “So, with this year’s Unbound, we’re going back and embracing the spirit of our early years.”

‘A comfortable and relaxed ride over a variety of seaside terrains’

At 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, Fitzgerald, Gilroy, and Hornick lined up in the back of the massive scrum of 1,000 amateur 200-mile riders with their Rodeo Kens. The bikes had coaster brakes so they wanted to make sure they were out of the way. Being in the back turned out to be the perfect kickoff to the adventure.

“The vibe in the morning for the first 30 miles was unreal,” Fitzgerald said. The party is at the back 100 percent and we cracked jokes and laughed so much with all the people we met.”

Nevertheless, a cyclist on a beach cruiser is still a cyclist. As the Rodeo Kens began to pass people, the vibe darkened slightly. We all know that certain cyclists cannot deal with being passed by say, a woman, or even other men riding beach cruisers with flat pedals.

“Nobody felt threatened by us [at first] but when we moved up the more we started to get into people’s egos,” Fitzgerald said. “People were still rad but some for sure felt threatened being passed by us.”

Nevertheless, the crew’s spirits remained high, as did their handlebars. Gilroy had slammed his, Hornick’s were a bit higher, and Fitzgerald “pointed his sky high” to give his back a break. All three frequently deployed an aero tuck by grabbing the bars near the stem.

The first 70 miles of this year’s Unbound course were mostly flat and fast and didn’t see a ton of mechanical issues for any riders, the Rodeo Kens notwithstanding. In fact, none of the three riders had a single flat tire or mechanical all day. Fitzgerald credited the stock tires, which were not tubeless, for the lack of punctures. Before the race, he and his friends added quite a bit of sealant into the tubes through the valves for posterity.

“The tread pattern was baller,” he said. “Fast rolling. And the casings are way thick. The tires were fairly wobbly and poorly molded but it wasn’t a functional issue. All six wheels had to be trued quite a lot, they had mega wobble.”

According to Fitzgerald, the 75 miles between the race’s two checkpoints were the toughest, both mentally and physically. Relentless punchy climbs, seemingly endless rolling hills, and chunky gravel taxed the riders’ bodies and minds. The sun came out and the temperatures rose.

It was a fight to pedal the heavy bikes (although “not heavier than a loaded bikepacking bike!” Fitzgerald said cheerily) up steep grades, and the trio hiked a lot. However, on flat terrain and descents, the bikes “actually flew at times.”

“In the last 60ish miles we upped the pace and passed about 140 people,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald, Gilroy, and Hornick realize the privilege of taking on the race on the beach cruisers. Their fitness and resources allowed them to make an inherently challenging race even harder. However, what they may or may not have foreseen was that the unconventional approach to equipment would pay psychic dividends in the end.

“To the average riders, I’d say this would be extremely challenging, but to people who sort of do challenging things often enough this was maybe 10-20 percent harder?” Fitzgerald said. “But this was also the least stressful and most fun Unbound I’ve done in any of my eight times doing it, and that counts for a lot.”

‘Simple and easy to use’

Fitzgerald and Gilroy finished Unbound in 16:50:49, making them the 721st and 722nd finisher out of 904. Hornick crossed the line an hour and a half later.

During and after the race, Fitzgerald had many revelations about the durability and capability of the Kent Bicycle 29″ Men’s Seachange Beach Cruiser Bicycles. He got a lot of messages on social media asking him for his thoughts on the experience. One — “if a Walmart cruiser can survive Unbound, then are all gravel bikes overbuilt?” — gave him pause.

“There was no point in our ride where we didn’t wonder if a tire would spontaneously explode or a wheel taco or a pedal fall off,” Fitzgerald said. “All day we remarked to each other how surprised we were to not have called for a pickup. If you asked anyone before the ride if we would succeed my guess is that it would have been 80 percent ‘no way.’ So there is something to be said for a bike that is built for the task.

“But does anyone need a $5,000-10,000 bike? No way. The world would be just fine if we all rode durably-built and well-specced cheap bikes.”

The fact that the bikes performed so flawlessly led Fitzgerald down many mental rabbit holes.

“It actually made me think, ‘why does all of this have to be so complicated?’”

As someone who builds and sells those $10,000 bikes, Fitzgerald’s perspective might seem duplicitous or deceptive. ‘Sure, this is easy for him to say.’ But Fitzgerald says that Rodeo Labs was built from the same ethos as riding Unbound on a beach cruiser. And riding Unbound on a beach cruiser was a reminder that he wants the brand to stay true to its roots, despite the constant call to heed “the desperation of capitalism.”

“We started with silly bike rides and having fun before there was ever an idea to make a bike,” he said. “In 2014, for instance, we rode Denver bike share bikes up a 14,000-foot mountain. We are a bike company now, and I’m proud of our bikes, but we’re not a product first company. Products come from the inspiration that comes from going out and actually riding. We will keep making bikes, and I’m proud of what our team creates, but we will always go wider than that, we will always celebrate the joy of riding first.

“Is that hot air? I hope not. It’s hard not to get lost in the commerce of it all, but we’re doing our best.”

Fitzgerald said he’s received over 500 messages on Instagram since the Friday before Unbound, mostly along the same lines: relief that the sport can still be simple and fun.

“There is a lot of fatigue out there towards being marketed at non-stop,” he said. “‘Could we please pause the marketing machine for a second and just go outside and enjoy our common sport and culture?’ That’s what I heard from so many people.”

As a bike brand owner, he feels accountable and he’s taking the messages to heart. He’s also taking the Rodeo Ken — which he originally planned to refresh and donate to Goodwill in Emporia — home to Colorado. Turns out the $200 bike was indeed the “the perfect bicycle for teens and adults going on long summer adventures.”