Joel “Big Grin” Dyke
Class of 2023
Promoter, Innovator, Storyteller
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned/
From a good friend/
It’s ‘always be all in/
and go out with a Big Grin.’”
Big Grin, by the People’s Punk Band, 2017
As the gravel scene evolves and becomes more focused on results, sponsorships, and activations, it’s important to remember that one of the fundamental tenants of this sport is to have fun.
No one embodied this spirit more than Joel “Big Grin” Dyke.
A co-founder of the race that would become Unbound Gravel, Joel possessed an infectious ethos of “always bring a good time in your pocket” that would guide him throughout his cycling life.
Born in 1966 in Seattle, WA, Joel grew up in Corvallis, OR, where his mother was a professor at Oregon State University. Joel’s explorative adventures on a bicycle began there as he occasionally cut class to ride his bike out to the Pacific Ocean. Horsing around on a BMX bike was all well and good until his school report cards came out. However, his desire to explore and have fun was an education and impetus that Joel would carry with him as he moved to the Midwest.
In the early 2000s, Joel was inspired by the burgeoning endurance gravel scene, and together with Jim Cummins, in 2006, he created the DK200 gravel race in Emporia, KS. Taking cues from events like Trans-Iowa (and layering in his knowledge of the area, gleaned from his participation in John Hobbs’ “Flint Hills Death Rides”), Joel and Jim sought to create an event that would “keep it simple, but make it difficult.”
The event Joel and Jim launched would grow to become the World’s Premier Gravel Event, then known as the DK200, but now called Unbound Gravel. In its infancy, the DK200 was intended to be a small affair: small enough that Joel and Jim could alternate the role of race director, year-over-year, so that each could not only plan and create the fun but could also partake in it. In those days the race was offered up as more of a personal challenge, with little to no support, simple maps, rudimentary course markings, and no GPS.
But the smiles were ever-present, especially at the finish line. And particularly if erstwhile Race Director Joel had made one of his “pizza-by-bike” runs so there would be carbs on offer for the famished finishers. Joel always brought the fun.
As DK grew and became more time-consuming, Joel took a step back from the event to focus on another of his cycling passions: helping people, especially tall and oddly proportioned people, get onto appropriate, well-fitting bikes. Standing 6’5”, Joel knew well the challenges of achieving good fit for riders on the edge of the bell curve of size.
After attending the United Bicycle Institute’s titanium frame building course, Joel launched “Big Grin Cycles”, and in 2005 Big Grin serial # 1 was born. This layered in nicely with his already growing bicycle frame customization business – one that added a water bottle boss here, a derailleur hanger there – to make the machine match the rider and the effort… often with epic gravel events in mind. In this respect, Joel was innovating and tweaking bikes before the bike industry knew what gravel was.
2005 was also the year Joel met Michelle, his future wife and mother to his two children, Joseph and Lydia. Michelle was another cycling soul that recognized the contagious effervescence that Joel exuded when around two wheels.
“Joel always felt cycling should be about the fun,” recalls Michelle. “We met at a Bicycle Drag Race… which is what you think it is… drag racing on bicycles, but with the proviso that you had to be dressed in drag. When I met Joel he was wearing a pink mini skirt and a big grin. I myself was wearing a pair of jorts and a painted-on moustache.”
From a relationship forged in bicycle hijinks, Joel would add volunteering at events like bicycle polo, Bike Fris (bicycle frisbee), and cyclocross to his long list of getting people to have fun on bikes.
Tragically, Joel’s quest to put fun on bikes was cut short in 2017. The victim of a random accident in his bicycle workshop, Joel left behind a wife and partner, with one child already born and another on the way. The outpouring of support at the time was significant and underscored the special place Joel occupied in getting people on bikes for the right reasons.
He is missed by many – all that knew him and likely even some that never had the opportunity. Much of what makes the gravel cycling community special – the inclusiveness, the personal journey, the adventure, and of course the fun – are ideals Joel brought to the early gravel scene.
In this day and age, when gravel has transcended its roots and become the juggernaut that provides careers, products, media, and more, it’s important to remember those that did it not for financial gain or fame…but for the fun of it.
