The Mid-South is a verb.

Located in North Central Oklahoma, Stillwater is home to Oklahoma State University, Red Dirt Music, The National Wrestling Hall of Fame, Eskimo Joe's, and one of America's premier cycling races, The Mid-South.

In 2020 I registered to race the 100-mile course, and I covered all my bases in preparation to ride. As anyone familiar with the history of this race will tell you, March rain in Stillwater is the ingredient that legendary situations are made of. You need to be a low-key meteorologist to track the Oklahoma weather patterns several days before the event. Rain was imminent, which meant mud, but not just any mud; it meant nasty Oklahoma red dirt mud that's not recommended for the casual gravel cyclist. The wet sludgy roads can envelop your tires, frame, components, and your feet in a way that makes a day on the bike seem like an eternity. I had to have a plan, and with this rainy weather prediction in play, I knew I had to leave my favorite bike at home.

With a titanium frame and a fantastic versatility for All-Road riding, my Bearclaw "Thunderhawk" is my wonder bike that I put the most miles on and have ridden in the most races, but there was one major problem. This bike has SRAM wireless electronic shifting, and the horror stories of such systems being torn to shreds by the build-up of this Oklahoma mud in the gears are as common as they are not. I didn't want to be coming home from this event and forking out a few thousand dollars in bike repair costs, so I opted for my single-speed. I tossed some tires I knew could shed mud and changed my single gear to the best climbing ratio I had. I knew it would be a much harder day on the bike because of only having one gear, but it would be a day I could at least finish because the single-speed setup has way fewer points of failure; it's just much more capable of surviving the abuse I knew was coming.

I was all packed and ready to hit the road, but as it turns out, I wouldn't get to go. The dynamics of owning a growing business during this new and barely understood pandemic left me uncertain, so I decided to sit this one out despite my excitement of finally participating in this race. Little did I know, it would be two more years until the Mid-South happened again and that the next time I planned this trip, I would be leaving my bike behind for my cameras, 75 rolls of Kodak film, and a hope of capturing what this race was like from the inside.

The shift in trading my bike for a camera was a gradual decision. During the pandemic, I dove hard into mastering film photography and found that it had many parallels with what I loved most about cycling. A bicycle operates from the user's ability, energy, and practice, and film is the same. No digital screens to review a photo or any help from automatic modes. It's up to you to make decisions and move the process along; there are no shortcuts. When you take a picture, you have one chance, and you don't get to see that photo until a few weeks after developing it. There is a wonder and excitement in this process that feels exactly like that feeling I get when I'm riding down a deserted gravel road, turn a corner and see a new scene open up in front of me. The bike and the film are both analog experiences where my mind meets the world in a sacred way, free of distractions, and focuses on what's in front of me.

By 2021, I had started combining these passions of mine and carrying a film camera on my rides; the photos were beautiful and always a rewarding surprise to see when finally developed. This process of capturing the world I saw on film while riding was a match made in heaven. It wasn't long before I started to think about what it would be like to try photographing a race. I envisioned photographs of the more personal moments and people who make up this amazing cycling community that had changed my life over the last five years.

When registration opened, I had a reminder alarm to register for the 2022 Mid-South because if you don't act fast, all the spots are gone. It's like Black Friday Shopping, but instead of getting a TV, you buy the right to torture yourself in the rural hills of Stilwell. As that day approached, I decided to do something crazy and sent Bobby Wintle a message that felt a bit crazy at the time.

Bobby is the man who started this race in 2011 from his beginnings with (the now established) District Bicycle Shop in Stillwater. That first race had one hundred and twenty-one riders who braved a soul-crushing 107 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing. From day one, Bobby was building something that would last; he was leading the way in this community we all call Gravel. I didn't know Bobby, but his reputation was that of legend, so I thought about what to ask and opened up my Instagram app. Within a few moments, I had hit send on a message that would end up resulting in one of the most fun experiences I've ever had.

I didn't know that Bobby was a guitar player, loved guitar pedals, and knew of my company JHS Pedals. We immediately hit it off and talked about our favorite music. Within a few days, I had fully decided to try this crazy idea of joining the media team on race week and documenting what I saw to film. I was going to be photographing the 2022 Mid-South, arguably one of the most dynamic and vital races in America, and the best part was that I had never photographed a race.