The Mid-South gravel team that won your heart last year *cough, Team Crust ,cough* is expanding! Matthew, Louie, Johnnie, Leo, Jimmy and Max will be back at Mid-South but I (Cheech) will be behind the scenes taking care of business and managing the team. Who will be the new dominant feminine energy leading this wild crew? The one and only Ashima Shiraishi. Those of you who are into climbing might recognize the name. I am so happy to have Ashima join the team at Mid-South. She is everything I admire in an athlete and person. Graceful, strong and humble all wrapped up in a small but powerful body. *Shout out to the shorties*. This will be her first century and gravel race ever. I am excited to see how she translates her climbing experience and skill in a cycling endurance event. 

Ashima will be riding her Evasion Step-Thru in Matte-Black, which happens to be matchy-matchy with her partner, David’s, Evasion. Catch them together in Oklahoma being the cutest couple ever. For Ashima’s build we were lucky to have our friends over at Sim Works gift her some components including handlebars, pedals, stem and more. We thought it was important to get Sim Works in on this build since Ashima is of Japanese descent and what better way to honor that than including Japanese bike components. We also received help from Velocity who hooked up Ashima with wheels and dynamo hub to ride deep into the night and of course SRAM! Build by Garrett and Latané. Huge team effort to get Ashima rolling on a beauty of a bike! Click the gallery below to check the photos in higher quality and get a full build breakdown.