INDEPENDENT STORYTELLING PLATFORM DOCUMENTING GRASSROOTS RACE CULTURE AND THE COMMUNITIES BEHIND IT
Race mornings in small towns are special. I love watching these communities come alive in a different kind of way.
Coffee shops and breakfast places are packed before sunrise. Bike traffic noticeably spikes around town. Hotels that might normally sit half-empty during shoulder season are booked out. Downtown streets buzz with energy.
For many rural communities, cycling events such as gravel races, mountain bike festivals, fondos, and stage races provide an immediate and visible economic boost.
Last year, I stood on the side of a wide Eastern Oregon highway and watched a field slowly come apart with the snow-capped Wallowa Mountains in the background.
Not explode.
Not some dramatic highlight-reel moment.
Just … come apart.
There was a time when posting about your race on social media actually meant something.
You could share a few photos, write a quick caption, maybe tag a sponsor or two, and people would see it. Riders would register. Momentum would build.
That time is gone.
Not completely. But enough that it’s worth saying out loud. Social media is no longer a reliable way to grow a race.
LOAM didn’t begin as a media project.
It started with coffee. Over time, something unexpected happened.
The coffee became an excuse to pay closer attention to the world around me. The riders showing up before sunrise. The volunteers marking courses. The small towns hosting races that most of the cycling world never notices.
That realization is what led to the next chapter of LOAM.
In 2015, I started LOAM with a simple idea: good coffee belongs outdoors. At trailheads. On race mornings. Along dirt roads before the day gets loud.
What began as a way to raise funds for a mountain bike guiding company slowly became something else. The coffee took off. The brand grew. Nacho the Van showed up at gravel races, mountain bike events, and trail building days. What started as a side project became a real thing.
But over time, I realized something important. The coffee was never the center. It was the excuse.
What a summer.
Between the dust, the caffeine, and the thousands of miles in Nacho the Van, I spent the past few months chasing bikes either with a camera in hand, a coffee kettle on the boil, or sometimes both. From the high desert of Bend to the red dirt of Arizona to the breezy Oregon Coast, I served up pourovers and snapped photos at more than 20 cycling events across the West.
