About

Homegrown is a lovingly handmade gravel grinder that straddles the border of Alabama and Georgia. The gravel is vastly different between these two states, and the charming name belies the hardships ahead: the mental struggle to keep your legs going forward, and the physical battle of your bike withstanding the punishment of the terrain you’re riding.

Homegrown Gravel

Picture this: it’s the dark, dusty, distant era of mid-2015. Your brake cables are still on the outside. Gravel racing is wild and gritty and uncorporatized. It’s the weekend—it seems like there were a lot more weekends back then—and you and your bike are enjoying the wilderness together, plotting routes for the heck of it through your home state of Georgia and into neighboring Alabama.

Was that just us? Picture it anyway. Picture us with big muscles.

So there we were, young, ripped, and a little obsessed. Eventually, our obsession revealed a ton of gravel along both sides of the border. Though the roads mirror one another, the gravel is like night and day. Georgia’s trails guide you meticulously along ridgelines, meandering up and down for a smooth ride. Alabama says, good luck with that, suckers! We’re careening straight down this ridge and back up the other side, creek be damned. Both are a blast, and neither is better than the other, despite what the old-timers say.

We spent the next several years exploring the Southern countryside endlessly, studying Google and Gravel Maps, flexing our huge pecs and quads. Eventually, we discovered loops that straddle the border, 50% in each state, showing off the best of both. Out of that discovery grew Homegrown. Originally called Border Wars for the good-natured rivalry and bad border jokes the old codgers used to throw around, the event has evolved since its 2021 launch. We’ve become less interested in the idea of comparison and prefer to emphasize the way the two states complement one another. Today, we invite old friends and new to join us on this gritty, grueling homespun adventure.

Why does it have to be that weekend?

We want to put on the coolest event we can. Of course, the spring/fall gravel event calendar is packed, thanks mostly to those big, corporate, formulaic events that pull a lot of top pros who frankly can’t afford not to do them – and we agree they should go. Unfortunately, in the space that remains, it’s unavoidable that we’ll run up against other cool events and we want all events to succeed.

If you’re an out-of-towner with a flexible schedule, that means you can cram two weekends of awesomeness into one Southern escapade! (check out Southern Cross)  And if you’re local, tell your bike we said you’re welcome. But if you can only choose one great spring event each year, you have a tough choice to make. Whichever you choose, we understand.

Why did you change the name?

Originally, the name “Border Wars Gravel Adventure” came from the light-hearted feud between the border folk of Georgia and Alabama. We listened to years of claims that the trees lean more toward one state or the other. Our event, of course, is all “border” and no “war”—other than the battle between us and the gnar. But we liked the hyperbole of the name.

However, global tensions have continued around the world, humanity simply refuses to play nice. We’ve come to understand that sailing under our “Border Wars” flag could cause our participants some internal conflict, which was neither our intent nor a consequence we were willing to accept. So we changed it. Done.