Amazing Grace on the BackBone

Who shakes the whole earth with Holy thunder

And leaves us breathless in awe and wonder?

The King of Glory, the King above all kings

This is amazing grace

This is unfailing love

That You would take my place

That You would bear my cross

You laid down your life

That I would be set free

Oh, Jesus, I sing for

All that You've done for me

This Is Amazing Grace, Phil Wickham, Josh Farro, Jeremy Riddle (2013).

The Minnesota Black Hills BackBone riders of 2025.
Amazing group of men that welcomed me for dinner at their Deerfield Lake campground.

In June 2020, Minnesota gravel cyclist Michael Grussing wrote a thoughtful message on social media about current events and eternal truths. With his permission, I shared it on this blog as a guest post. Yield Ahead. 

Since then, and perhaps even before, Michael has looked to the Black Hills and particularly the Black Hills BackBone as a destination vacation ride. He communicated with me periodically over a few years and even road tripped to recon over long weekends. Earlier this year, he said that it was finally happening and that a group of old and new friends were joining.

The wide range of experience, conditioning, equipment, desire, and time amongst the nine riders resulted in a modified route from the envisioned cross-state gravel ride:  Custer to Deadwood on the Mickelson Trail, a circuitous gravel route to and around Spearfish, and then the original gravel route of the Black Hills BackBone from Spearfish back to Custer. A support van hauling camping gear and provisions greeted them each night at a campground. Great plan for that group.

While preparing for the trip, Michael found a Bible verse that he thought appropriate for their anticipated struggles on the extended climbing on the BackBone route. He learned it was all that, and much more.

Here is Michael's report from their September 2025 ride. I hope they return soon.

Part of their camp at USFS Rod & Gun Campground at the end of Day 3.

We made it back safe and sound... little more rain and lots more food... lol.  Those guys were incredible!! 

I was not expecting all the food, hospitality, and Brotherhood... at least not on the level experienced.  

Last fall, in the infancy phase of planning the trip, I knew anyone that joined Chris and I (ourselves included) would not likely have experienced climbing like we would if we rode through the Black Hills.

A verse jumped out to me one morning during that time...2nd Corinthians 4:16-18. I thought of it in light of struggling up hills... bigger than we'd ever ridden, and focusing on the sights around the corner, or the descent, or the camp at night.

 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (New Living Translation)

This spring, that verse kept coming to mind as planning progressed and it started to look like it just might happen and I started to put that passage to memory.

Then I broke my collarbone in April... and I got off my memorizing routine... but after a while, planning resumed and the group got bigger, and bigger. .. and the route (true Black Hills BackBone) changed after I drove it and our logistics got way too big to overcome.

Thank God it did... we would have been in way over our heads with that many non-experienced bikepackers.

Anyways, fast forward to mid-trip. 

I wasn't able to sleep the third morning at Rod & Gun Campground much past 4am...I laid there and suddenly that verse...or bits of it came to mind...I tried and tried to pull the pieces together, but couldn't clearly. 

My phone never got reception there, in my tent, although a couple guys got very limited reception, out away from camp, the night before, briefly. 

 

Low and behold, I had a crumb of reception laying there in my tent, and frantically tried to remember the exact chapter and verse to look up in Bible app... over the next couple of hours, I read pretty much the entire books of 1 and 2nd Corinthians... lol... when my phone would cooperate and give me a bit more.  

Then I found it, and immediately saved a screenshot shot of it.

Screen shot from Michael Grussing.

When I laid there and started to meditate a bit on the passage, I realized that those men put such a deeper meaning to that passage...much deeper than the shallowish biking metaphor I'd thought of last spring. 

 "That is why we never give up"... the THAT mentioned in verse 15... God's grace reaching more and more people, great thanksgiving and more and more glory to God... was shown to me over and over by that group of men... those men whose words I barely understood most of the time... by their actions, generosity, care for each other and me,  hospitality... and so much more... all without preaching or going out of their way to express their faith out loud... except for prayers before eating and before riding. 

Those guys where a reflection of THAT... and much glory was given to Him, through those moments, as well as when we struggled with the climbs, break downs and weather... all temporary... but the THAT is everlasting.  

Addendum. This group of old and new friends came together for a challenging week of pushing their boundaries by riding all day, all week through unpleasant weather on unknown back roads. I hope to hear more of their stories.

This Is Amazing Grace, Phil Wickham (2013)