Mud, Sweat, and Gears

“Mud, Sweat, and Gears is not only an incredible human-powered journey, but it’s also about the intricate, poignant and often hilarious family dynamics that result. The Metal Cowboy’s most compelling book yet.”       —Heidi Swift, The Oregonian

After seventeen years, who would road test a perfectly good marriage by putting it on a summer-long, self-contained bicycle adventure across Canada?

     Only the Metal Cowboy, of course. Beth Biagini Kurmaskie, the woman behind the manchild, has finally saddled up on her own volition, if only to bring a bit of parental supervision to the mix. She struggles a bit at first, while celebrating summer, speed, the simple pleasures of a road trip powered by one’s own muscles, and family—what it means to be part of one stripped of the “comforts and noise” of the modern world, riding sixteen feet of bicyle train.  With three sons aboard, one celebrating his first birthday, a nursing mother finds her inner Xena Warrior Cyclist and all the reasons why she's stayed married to a whirling dervish of a husband. And Beth’s progression from newbie cyclist to totally ripped veteran will be an inspiration to anyone considering taking to the road on a bike.

     Mud, Sweat, and Gears brings together absurd and sublime moments, introduces an American family to the wilds of Canada, uncovers choice characters (man and animal), and finds all the humor and pathos a Metal Cowboy adventure is famous for.

     If Momentum Is Your Friend was about fathers, sons, and hometown heroes, Mud, Sweat, and Gears is about mothers, wives, family, and the glue that holds the world together. With a extra twist: revealing and outrageous footnotes from Beth throughout, filling in the backstories to many previous Metal Cowboy tales and seventeen years of marriage.


Joe Kurmaskie is a legendary touring cyclist and hilarious writer. He is the author of Metal Cowboy, Momentum Is Your Friend, Riding Outside the Lines, and Mud. Sweat, and Gears.