Mountain Flyer Number 15

DEFINING THE ROCKY MOUnTAIN CYCLIST

Derailed in Durango

A Singlespeed Soap Opera At the World Championships

Trailer Tales

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Into the Vortex

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editor/publisher brian riepe publisher steve mabry managing editor caroline spaeth art director chris hanna creative editor james e. rickman roving artists david r. delano & gloria sharp copy editor trina ortega writers

Christopher Bagg T. Herb Belrose Eddie Clark Jim Fitzgerald

Graham Gifford Rebecca Kane David Ochs James E. Rickman

Justin Schmid Lizzy Scully David Walker

Mark Hawthorne Brian Leddy Shawn Lortie Fred Marmsater Rob McPherson Bryce Pratt

James E. Rickman John Shafer Scott DW Smith Michelle Clark-Smith Andrew Wilz

photographers Tom Alexander Devon Balet Stephen Barnes Eddie Clark Brandon Donahue Xavier Fane

publisher secret agent publishing, llc

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mountain flyer p.o. box 272 gunnison, co 81230 970.641.1804 adsales@mountainflyer.com subscriptions@mountainflyer.com www.mountainflyer.com send your letters to: editor@mountainflyer.com cover photo:

2009 © Eddie Clark 2009 © Photo-Cycle.com Men’s Open Category racer Troy Heithecker never let up, and his suffering was rewarded with a victory at the fourth cyclocross race of the Boulder Cross Series in Boulder, Colo.

subscribe online at www.mountainflyer.com or mail subscription card to: mountain flyer magazine, p.o. box 272 gunnison, co 81230 Mountain Flyer magazine is published quarterly and is available nationwide through select Barnes & Noble, Borders and REI locations, as well as fine bike shops and coffee stores throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

When you’re finished reading, pass it on!

Nothing in this publication can be copied or reproduced without prior written permission of the publisher. All material and images are compiled from sources believed to be reliable, but published without responsibility for errors or omissions. Secret Agent Publishing assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or images. But we’ll sure consider them.

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Photographer: Mike Tittel twenty Rider: Kyle Coxon Colin Cares Wasatch Foothills, I-Street, Salt Lake City Location:

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Mountain Flyer Magazine (ISSN 1944-6101) December 2009 is published quarterly by Secret Agent Publishing, LLC, 309 South Main Street, Gunnison, Colo. Periodicals postage paid in Gunnison Colo. and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Mountain Flyer, PO Box 272, Gunnison, Colo. 81230 Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation—Publisher: Secret Agent Publishing Group, LLC; Editor: Brian Riepe; Bondholders: None; Circulation: Average number of copies distributed per quarter for period January 1, 2009-July 30, 2009—13,500 as follows: paid and or/requested mail subscribers—11,888; Free distribution—1,562. This statement has been filed on PS Form 3526 with USPS on 10/17/09 and is published herein in accord with USPS regulation 39 USC 3685.

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[what’sinside] 10 12 18 20 24 28 40 42 44 54 58 60 62 66 70 72 74 77 90 98

number fifteen Editor’s Note Gallery Oysters in Moab by Christopher Bagg Profile: Colin Cares by Lizzy Scully Road Apple Rally by James E. Rickman Images from a Season of ’Cross Moab Ho-Down Tour of the White Mountains Derailment at the SSWC09 by T. Herb Belrose Red Bull Burner by James E. Rickman Fall Tilt in Telluride Vapor Trail 125 by Eddie Clark Crested Butte Classic by David Ochs 24 Hours of Moab 25 Hours of Frog Hollow Trailer Tales by Rebecca Kane Amp Up Your Training by Graham Gifford Paraphernalia Swirling into the Vortex by Justin Schmid Tailwind by James E. Rickman

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[editor’snote]

As I work my way up the shady side of the climb, the snow on the trail provides surprisingly good traction. It’s so cold out that my tires squeak with friction as they rub against the snow crystals. As I ride in and out of sticky snow patches, tiny pebbles grip to my tires and then fling off into the air, making hollow clicking sounds as they bounce off the paper-thin, carbon-fiber down tube of my singlespeed. The cool air tingles my face, and my feet are, well, I can’t feel them anymore. I’ll pay for that later.

Knowing this could be my last ride on these trails until spring, I forge on, riding the rolling singletrack as my shadow chases me, darting through the sage, growing longer—like Stretch Armstrong on a bike. My shadow catches me as I pass through drainages, becoming my silhouette against walls of rock until it departs my company, slipping away with the dying light.

Earlier that day, I had been sitting at my desk scrolling through photos, making selections for this issue. I was enjoying the visions of wet, mud-spattered racers slogging through snow and mud—suffering for the delightful reward and memory of their experience—and I began to feel an urgency to ride.

I’d been staring out the window all day at the foothills southwest of town and feeling the pull of the trails that weave through them, but I knew the mercury was hanging well below the freezing point. I wanted to get out and ride. I needed to get out and ride. But I wasn’t mentally prepared for the frigid discomfort of winter riding.

It was 3:30 p.m. I looked over a few more photos of riders mucking through snow and mud and decided I had no excuse.

Seeing those images reminded me that once I made that initial step out the door, the reward of the ride would be worth it.

I had two hours before the sun would set so I shut down, scrambled home and rifled through my drawer of winter riding attire. I found tights, jacket, gloves and a thin hat but couldn’t locate my booties. I dressed frantically, jumped on my bike and headed out the door.

And now, as I ride on and watch my shadow companion fade into the chilly winter night—despite my flash-frozen feet—I feel rewarded, content. Soon enough winter will arrive in its full icy glory and cover the trails with snow and the roads with slush. With that in mind, I ride until I can’t see the trail.

As you read this issue, if you find yourself gazing out the window at a glacial landscape and you’re contemplating trading the bitter sting of frozen toes and frostbit lips for a safe evening sipping hot cocoa and watching reruns of Seinfeld, remember the reward. Ignoring that nagging desire to ride and trading the experience for warm toes would be a betrayal of your own eventual delight.

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Photographer: Shawn Lortie Title: Dig It Location: Blue Sky Velo Cup, Longmont, Colo.

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Photographer: Andrew Wilz Riders: Nick Simcick, Brian Buell and Mike Buell Location: Central Utah, west of Green River

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Photographer: Eddie Clark Riders: Danny Summerhill, left, and Matt Pacocha Boulder Cyclocross Series No. 3, Boulder Reservoir, Boulder, Colo.

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Oysters in Moab: Two Love Stories

Illustration by David R. Delano

by Christopher Bagg I woke up several times during the night to check on the turkey. Amy’s brother, Eric, had told me about the coyotes around Glenwood Springs, Colo., and I was fairly confident that our Rubbermaid swivel-top cooler (which contained a 12-pound bird swimming in brine) wouldn’t keep predators at bay for long.

“Bears sometimes come down out of the hills, too,” he’d casually mentioned while brushing his teeth. It was the night before Thanksgiving. We’d stopped at Eric’s to break up the drive to Utah, and I’d be damned if coyotes or bears were going to ruin our first holiday alone together.

Amy and I had decided to skip family last Thanksgiving.

We’d both recently moved from the East Coast, Amy landing in Colorado Springs among the triathletes and mountain bikers, and me in Portland, Ore., among the cyclists and ’cross-istas.

Going home would have been costly and fruitless: two days of travel-snarled airports for the traditionally bittersweet Thanksgiving meal. One day that fall, as we were waking up on one of our rare mornings together, she’d said, “Why don’t we go to Moab for Thanksgiving?”

“Because I’ve never ridden a mountain bike, Babe,” I replied.

“You’d be fine,” she’d said sleepily and rolled over.

So I’d flown out to Colorado Springs Tuesday night before the holiday, ran around Wednesday collecting a rental bike and 18

four bags of groceries from Whole Foods, slipped the turkey into its white, salty coffin, packed what I hoped would be enough wine and beer, threw a bag together for Amy, picked her up from work, and we drove over the mountains toward Glenwood Springs.

The coyotes didn’t get the bird, after all, and we headed out of Glenwood on Thanksgiving Day under gray skies, undercaffeinated and worried about the rain, which continued as we passed the glum countenance of Grand Junction before hitting the border, where the landscape changed to featureless, gray desert: Utah.

Moab on Thanksgiving Day, on a cold, raw afternoon, is a quiet town, sleepier than normal. We plunged into our motel, struggling through our respective dinner assignments.

I deciphered the centuries-old dials on the kitchenette oven and tossed in the butter-slathered turkey; Amy started a dish of stuffing. Then we both pulled on the various Lycra and nylon necessary for riding in 40 degrees of rain and got back in the Jeep, this time heading for the trailhead.

From a description in our guidebook, we’d settled on a trail called Amasa Back, which the author described as “moderately strenuous and somewhat technical.” The first section of trail looked, to my road and cyclocross eyes, more like a cliff.

“What do we do here? How do we start?” I asked my sanguine girlfriend. She smiled at me and said, “Well, ride it if you

can, but just walk if you can’t.” Okay, I thought. This will be different.

But it wasn’t that different. Soon, after passing through a sandy wash, we started climbing up to the canyon rim. I was surprised how easily my bike rode over large obstacles, and how, if you popped the front wheel off the ground and stomped, you could hop over little steps and soccer-ball-size rocks. Soon my heart rate rose into road biking strata, and I looked at the moments when I had to dismount as cyclocross barriers; the landscape fell away beneath us, and we began to follow a trail that skirted a vertiginous drop. The rain continued, but we were warm. We topped out on a moonscape of slickrock, scrubby desert bushes and sand. I turned to Amy, grinning.

“This is more fun than I’ve ever had on a bike,” I said.

“I knew you’d be fine,” she said, and grinned back. We paused for a second, staring at each other. It was one of those important moments in your life with someone, when you realize that all you want to do is to keep playing with that person forever. The empty,

alien, beautiful desert stretched away around us, and she sensibly broke my sentimental mood. “We’d better turn around, though,” she said. “Shouldn’t the turkey be done soon?”

She was right. We had to get back to the motel, and quickly, before the turkey overcooked into a dry bowling ball. What had been a heart-raising climb flipped into a stunning descent. Several times the rear suspension of my rental bike bailed me out of difficult situations when a ’cross bike would have jettisoned me right over the handlebars. Amy wasn’t so lucky. Hampered by some chain suck and no rear suspension and hoping not to delay our rescue of dinner, she paused during a technical moment and then seemed to dive off the bike, as if into the shallow end of a swimming pool. When I got to her she was laughing and holding her side in a manner recognizable to anyone who has broken a collarbone.

“I’m fine,” she said, laughing. “But I’ve got to stop laughing; it kinda hurts.”

She looked up at me. “You better leave me and go save dinner.”

“No way,” I replied, relieved she was joking. “We’re not far from the Jeep.

We’ll get back together.”

We bumped back to the motel in the Jeep, Amy grimacing as we drove over the washboard roads, and I pulled the gleaming, slightly overcooked turkey from the oven. Amy showered and took some ibuprofen. She claimed to be all right, but we would later discover that she’d cracked a rib.

(She rode the next three days anyway, ignoring the pain.) While she got ready for dinner, I opened a bottle of wine and 12 oysters, a treat I’d hidden in one of the coolers.

My legs sang, a different kind of tired from any other riding I’d ever done, and I looked out the window at our bikes, painted red by the dust.

There was nowhere on Earth, I realized, that I’d rather be at that moment: in love with the perfect woman and falling in love with a new aspect of cycling, all in a sleepy desert town on the fourth Thursday in November. Amy came out of the shower, brushing her hair and holding her arm close to her body. She spotted the oysters.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “You are so getting lucky tonight.”

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by Lizzy Scully Just outside of Colorado Springs, Colo., on Pikes Peak, the Incline rises 2,000 feet and one hellish mile up an old set of railroad ties. Twenty-twoyear-old Colin Cares regularly follows this shockingly steep set of stairs upward on his mountain bike two, three and even four times a day.

“It’s a pretty uncomplicated test of fitness,” Cares says.

And with his busy schedule— winter training 22 hours over six days each week, a pro mountain bike and cyclocross race schedule from March to December and a full load at Colorado College—a few hours of “embracing the hurt and slogging” helps keep him sane.

Eddie Clark

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“He’s an incredibly good climber, especially at altitude,” says Andy Schultz, one of his teammates on the 2009 Kenda/ Tomac/Hayes team. “Being born and raised in Colorado, he would go to these ski resorts and climb from 8,000 to 10,000 feet over the course of a lap of a race. Now for the majority of the year, he is racing against guys in their prime, but on a good day he can still out-climb most people.”

Despite his mutant climbing ability and numerous podium finishes this year, Cares doesn’t act like a chest-puffing jock.

He looks like your average jean-clad Joe Schmoe college student. Lanky and understated, he slouches low in a chair outside Amante coffee shop on a visit to Boulder, Colo., talking about his achievements. Yeah, he won the 2009 National Championships in the Under-23 category, which was cool. But, he says, he just barely beat second-place finisher Rob Squire, who gave him a tough and exciting challenge right up to the finish line.

“Colin views his accomplishments in a ‘no big deal’ manner,” says his coach and national mountain bike champion, Heather Irmiger. “To him, working super hard, training smart and pushing himself to the next level is just what he does—mental strength like this is huge.”

Plus, he’s just relaxed in general. Cares generally lives up to both of his nicknames CareBear and Big C. “He’s an easygoing guy who likes to have a good time and work hard at the things that make him happy,” says schoolmate Harry Precourt.

Having grown up in Boulder, Cares tried many sports, from soccer to ski racing. At 14, he discovered mountain biking and was completely hooked on the freedom of wandering the hills and endurance riding—going three or four hours at a time as hard as he could.

“It was the first time I felt passionate about anything,” he says.

He rode the Marshall Mesa trail almost daily because it was one of the few rides his parents let him do alone. Then he joined the Singletrack Mountain Bike Adventures junior mountain bike program and visited Hall Ranch Open Space in Lyons, Colo., and other bike paths and open space. He began racing at age 15.

He didn’t fare well in competitions early on. “I remember the challenge was just to finish the races,” he says, adding, “I didn’t care how I placed because it was really just an accomplishment to compete a 20-mile course for kids my age.”

However, by the time he turned 18 he earned his way to the 2005 Junior World Championships in Livigno, Italy. That trip was an eye-opener.

“The juniors over there would do well in the professional races over here,” he explains. “It’s a whole other program over there. They have mountain bike clubs for 10-year-olds. They just grow up doing it.” Though he worked out before that trip, after Italy he began to take his fitness more seriously. He trained hard with coaches Irmiger and her husband, another national champion, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski.

“Working with coaches gave me a feel for how training works and, more importantly, how resting works,” Cares says.

Plus, that next year sponsors lined up to support him, and he made the U-23 National Development Team.

“It was a huge step up for me, which definitely was a big

motivator,” he explains. “I made it to the next level. The races for juniors are just junior races, but when you turn 19, you’re with all the professional men, traveling with them, everyone in the same motel. It was cool.”

However, unlike many young, super motivated mountain bikers, Cares chose not to jump 100 percent into racing. He began attending Colorado College in Colorado Springs. He thinks it’s a boon to his lifestyle.

“It’s helped me a ton to be able to have a diversion in the off-season,” he says. “It’s balancing. I’m keeping racing fun for the long term versus just trying to do well at one race, one summer, one year. Mountain bikers tend not to peak until their late 20s. Having a long-term outlook is important.”

Schultz agrees. “A lot of racers get really intense about racing and then end up burning themselves out and never reach their full potential. Colin has a good head on his shoulders and found a really good balance between training, racing and recreational activities away from bike and school. I think he’s going to be in the racing scene for the long haul, and we will see really good results from him.”

In fact, says Ben Turner, the manager of Clif Bar Development Team, Cares’ ability to diversify but still maintain focus and be an excellent rider is one of the reasons he recruited Cares to train and race with his cyclocross team the last two years.

“He’s a really well-educated, bright, responsible college student,” Turner says. “He’s one of the team leaders. He helps mentor younger kids on the team, and he sets a great example for how to be a well-rounded, professional bike rider.”

Plus, Cares kicks butt.

“Coming from a mountain bike background, he has really advanced technical skills,” Turner says. “He’s also a big, tall guy with a lot of power that he can put into the bike. He’s able to really succeed on the parts of the course where it can be less technically challenging and more demanding for just pure horsepower.”

His only weakness, Turner says, is his inexperience. Cares agrees. “I definitely haven’t peaked yet. I’m optimistic I’ve got a lot more improving to do, and I’m motivated to fulfill that.”

Cares aspires to climb on some national podiums next year, do the Leadville Trail 100 and eventually make the Olympic Long Team, which is USA Cycling’s team of 35 athletes who are eligible to represent the United States at the Olympic Games in the disciplines of mountain bike, track and women’s road cycling. He raced this year in Camber, Australia, came in 46th out of 62 in the U-23 category and placed 14th with his relay team—Irmiger, Horgan-Kobelski and Russell Finsterwald. Cares was disappointed with his 46th place but feels it was a positive experience overall.

“I guess not having a great race confirmed the up and down nature of this sport. It’s easy to get bogged down in poor results, but hopefully there will be good World Championships down the road.”

Irmiger certainly thinks so.

“Colin can go as far in mountain biking as he desires,” she says. “He’s strong, smart and very talented. He is so unbelievably young—he’s really only just getting started. He’s been on the podium with the big dogs; there is no reason he can’t be a regular fixture there.”

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[road apple rally]

Everything Old is New Again at the Road Apple Rally FARMINGTON, N.M.—Living legend Ned “The Lung” Overend has delivered hope to senior members of the mountain bike racing crowd.

The 54-year-old racer scored a hands-down victory at the 2009 Road Apple Rally mountain bike race that took place in early October.

Now in its 29th year, the Road Apple Rally has been attracting plenty of local and regional talent since the days when video killed the radio star—a musical reference that Overend himself might appreciate, but one that likely predates most of the members of the early-20s-something mafia that seems to dominate regional races these days.

The Rally, in fact, was Overend’s first-ever competitive event when he began racing back in 1983, two years after the Road Apple Rally’s inaugural run. That first race, coincidentally, happened to occur shortly after MTV launched a new paradigm for music with a portentous video by the new wave band, The Buggles.

“It’s pretty good to win one at my age,” Overend said. “I had trained hard for Singlespeed Worlds, and I still had good power in my legs from trying to push a big gear there. I’ve been doing this race for so many years, it’s nice to come back and win one.”

Overend, of Durango, Colo., was the senior member of the professional men’s crowd by at least a decade and a half by most estimates. Yet his performance on the trails this year was anything but antiquated. In a three-way match with fellow Durango rider Cale Redpath, and Santa Fe, N.M., standout Michael McCalla, Overend kept the pressure up on his competition, despite a couple instances of taking wrong turns on the course.

Early in the race, McCalla and Overend had pulled away from Redpath, but got lost in the maze of singletrack and dirt roads that wind through the scrub north of Farmington, a regional center of oil and natural gas production. Overend bided his time until the course widened into one of the dirt roads.

There he attacked, and soon Redpath and McCalla, who finished second and third, respectively, were out of sight.

Overend, holding true to the No. 1 bib number that has been reserved for him over the years, finished in an impressive 1:44:07, nearly three minutes ahead of his competitors.

A victory on the women’s side by Jennifer Smith of Gunnison, Colo., made this year’s wins a repeat of the 2004 Road Apple Rally. As one of only two professional women participants, Smith raced hard nevertheless. She rode at an easy pace and still finished with a time of 1:55:32. Her win makes Smith the first female finisher since 2002 to bust the two-hour mark. Nina Baum of Albuquerque crossed the finish line 11 minutes behind Smith.

The nearly 30-mile Road Apple Rally long course was a bit softer this year than usual, adding some semi-treacherous sand pits to the speedy singletrack. Beginner riders still enjoyed much of the same terrain as the professionals, but with about half the distance. –J. Rickman 24

[road apple rally] Charlie Ellis of Durango, Colo., hits a corner with speed during the 2009 Road Apple Rally.

Ellis took first place in Sport Men 19–24.

James E. Rickman

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[road apple rally]

Although Mike Barnhart of Farmington, N.M., rode in the Sport category during the 2009 Road Apple Rally, his serious riding style and first-place finish in the 40–44 age group show he may be ready to move to the next level.

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James E. Rickman

100%

of the race proceeds benefit at-risk youth mentoring.

What is it? A 12 hour mountain bike relay race on a stellar network of singletrack in the shadow of Mesa Verde.

Why do it? Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductees: “That is one of the most fun loops I have ever done...” - Local Rider, Ned Overend.

"Excellent event. Well organized. Great course." 2007 1st Place Overall, Joe Murray.

Where is it? At the epic Phil’s world trail system in Cortez Colorado (SW corner of Colorado, 40 Minutes from Durango) When is it? Saturday May 8, 2010 (Mothers day weekend) How to sign up? Registration opens 1/5/2010.

Visit www.12hoursofmesaverde.com or active.com. Don’t delay, categories are expected to fill even faster in 2010 than 2009.

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[boulder cup] Raw horsepower is what it takes to get through the sand quickly, and Jeremy Powers shows he has plenty of it at the late-fall Boulder Cup cyclocross race.

Eddie Clark

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[blue sky velo cup] Five-time U.S. national cyclocross champion Katie Compton floats to another victory at the Blue Sky Velo Cup in Longmont, Colo.

Eddie Clark

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[blue sky velo cup]

Singlespeed to the core, Cristina Begy still gives the cyclocross Pro women a run for their money with just one gear— and a sweet pink bike.

Eddie Clark

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[blue sky velo cup]

Shawn Lortie

Jamie Driscoll powers out of a tricky, sloppy corner during the Blue Sky Velo Cup at Xilinx Campus, a corporate center in Longmont, Colo., that allows the use of its grounds for sporting events like this cyclocross race. The race was one of the big UCI events during the Boulder Cup weekend in October, which brought the best cyclocross racers in the country to the Front Range of Colorado.

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[blue sky velo cup] Four racers head straight into the frozen soup at the Blue Sky Velo Cup. The new course this year had racers struggling in the cold through sloppy mud, up stairs and across a double-sided pit.

Shawn Lortie

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[castle cross]

Shawn Lortie

Conor Mullervy grits his teeth and hammers through the mud for a strong fourth-place finish at a muddy Castle Cross race in October in Castle Rock, Colo. Mullervy is a great example of the next generation of cyclocross racers coming out of Colorado. He and his teammates on the Cliff Bar Development Cross Team are a regular fixture on the Colorado ’cross circuit where they get to test their chops against the big boys in the Men’s Open class.

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[veldrijden crusade]

Shawn Lortie

Three riders keeping the racing tight during the Colorado Veldrijden Crusade cyclocross race, held in November at Bear Creek Lake Park in Morrison, just west of Denver. One of the many great aspects of racing is that no matter what class you’re racing in or where you are in a particular race, your work is never done. Someone is always chasing you or you are always chasing someone else.

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[veldrijden crusade]

Shawn Lortie

Two riders snake through the dry leaves and wet track at Bear Creek Lake Park, Morrison, Colo., where the course takes the racers away from the announcer’s voice and the din of cowbells. There are so many different race venues along the Front Range of Colorado, and each has its own personality. Some are short laps hacked out of an open field on the plains, while others send racers out into the woods on existing trails.

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[boulder cyclocross series no. 3] Big flakes fall—and Norse snow god Ullr laughs—as Laura Mizner leads a pack of Cat 1 racers through the endless sand pits of Boulder Reservoir. She held on to snag first place in the third of the fourrace Boulder Cyclocross Series held throughout the fall.

Devon Balet

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[moab ho-down] High on the upper reaches of Porcupine Rim trail, Chad Cheeney hopes for another Broncos’ victory at the Moab Ho-Down Super D race on Halloween weekend. Cheeney didn’t win—and sadly neither did the Broncos—but he jammed to a respectable fifth place in the Men’s Open category. Miles Venzara and Nancy Morlock scored victories for the day.

Rob McPherson

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[tour of the white mountains]

Riding among the Ancients, Nelson Cronyn glides past a craggy old Alligator Juniper at the 2009 Tour of the White Mountains near the northeastern Arizona town of Show Low. The annual ride takes cyclists on miles and miles of singletrack that weave through the largest Ponderosa pine forest on the continent.

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Brian Leddy

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Jon Bailey, the Passion Productions creative hit man, lives in a condemned building next to Durango Cyclery. His place is now wallpapered with hundreds of 2009 Single Speed World Championships coloring contest entry forms, sent in from racers all over the world hoping for a chance at singlespeed glory in Durango, Colo., this year.

Scott DW Smith

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by t. herb belrose

As the championship jungleball game rages on outside to decide the locale of next year’s race, 2009 Single Speed World Champion Heather Irmiger takes her trophy in ink and blood. Ross Schnell also earned a Single Speed World Champion tattoo that fateful day.

Scott DW Smith

I landed at La Plata County airport with empty pockets.

Passion Productions hired me to cover the 2009 Single Speed World Championships. The race organizer, Chad “Chainsaw” Cheeney, the Dark Knight of Durango, the Head Honcho of Pedal Crush, was scheduled to pick me up from the airport and float me some dough.

I caught up with him in town, and he asked how I got there.

“I hitchhiked.”

“Sweetness,” Chainsaw said. He had a lot on his plate, and I wasn’t mad. It was a piece of cake thumbing a ride into town.

I have a theory about Chainsaw: 30 years ago, when the economy was in the shitter and the environmental movement

was heating up, a lumberjack family in central Oregon gave birth to a baby man. Bills were due, the bank account was empty and the company was closing the sawmill. They placed this bearded infant into the care of the world.

For the past year, Chainsaw, with Jon Bailey and their Passion Productions as the nucleus of the Durango singlespeed scene, has been busy visualizing and planning the perfect race weekend.

Russell Zimmermann, owner of Durango Cyclery, donated his fatherly wisdom and guidance, and Fort Lewis College Cycling Team Manager Dave Hagen brought world-class race experience and management skills. “We also pull from a large list of Passion people and crank stuff out,” Chainsaw said.

Durango is the home of one of the most intense and dedicated groups of people I’ve ever met. I’m not just talking about cycling. I’m talking about a pure obsession with craft, 45

[sswc] organization and community.

They establish eclectic race themes and then work to inspire, inflate and authenticate the experience. They have a diverse repertoire: The Rally of the Dead, Space Race 1979, Muscle Cross, The Derby, Clunker Classic, Clippership Rally, The Rad Pad Invitational. Bands drive in from California and the Midwest, filmmakers premiere their movies, turntables spin and the scene fully engages the town. The Passion crew can take a sport like cycling, with a reputation for being vanilla, and give it electricity and mass appeal.

On Friday night, the crew hosted a giant music festival in an abandoned cul-de-sac carved out of the National Forest.

Some fast-talking chap convinced the luckless developer to let them have a banger of a party there, complete with psycho dirt jumps and a twisted-metal concert stage built on a trailer.

We the People rode in through the local cemetery in the evening rain. Steve “Doom” Fassbinder led the procession. A hearse followed behind. Rumor has it that Doom, a prolific craftsman and endurance champion, wears a necklace of human teeth during races to ward off flats.

The ambassadors from Italy, New Zealand, Canada and Hungary took the stage to sing karaoke in front of a live band for next year’s race-hosting rights.

Will Inverso, from Carbondale’s legendary bike collective Stomparillaz, won the ugliest footdown competition ever witnessed. Will survived the pack of a hundred degenerates. Some used mixed martial arts techniques to knock others out of the saddle. Finesse was the proper tactic and Will took home the handmade vest.

Later that night, a group of 30 singlespeeders stood on Main Street outside Durango’s Derailed Saloon. The air was cold, the beer gold and a raspberry PrimeTime cigarillo smoldered in my left hand. On my right was Chainsaw. We talked about the crispy fall nights of our youth and the singular gratification of raging around town with an international bike posse. A kid named Max made figure eights in the street on a cruiser with a built-in boom box blasting Eazy-E. I was wearing a blue Air Force mechanic’s suit that once belonged to Capt. Bob Carpenter. I found his suit in a bag of discarded Halloween costumes. The patch on the back said, “Happiness is Getting Short.” I’m six-foot-one and that baby fit me like a glove.

We stepped inside the saloon. Some blonde Amazon woman on the dance floor grabbed my arm and pulled me underneath the vent of a turbocharged air conditioner. She was a hotshot firefighter trying to cool down after hosing down them blazes on the Western Slope, saying she couldn’t resist a man in fraudulent uniform.

We swaggered to the sounds of DJ Niko. Her hair floated in the icy Freon breeze. I was not smitten but tipsy.

She asked for a puff off my raspberry PrimeTime.

I obliged.

We ditched the bar and headed down Main toward Jon Bailey’s art flop. Jon, the Prince of Spin, the Passion Productions creative hit man, lives in a condemned building next to Durango Cyclery: no kitchen, no 46

Continued on page 48

The joyous ruckus at the finish line of the race is reflected in the mirrored lens of Chad “Chainsaw” Cheeney. For the past year, Chainsaw, along with Jon Bailey and their Passion Productions company as the nucleus of the Durango singlespeed scene, had been busy visualizing and planning the perfect race weekend.

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Brandon Donahue

A critical mass of onies temporarily shuts down Durango’s Main Street as an unsaid 1,000 racers head for the hills.

Continued from page 46

bathroom, no running water. Locals say that late at night he pees naked in the alley like some Nuclear Beatnik Mountain Man. Being around Jon is pure inspiration. Ideas fall from his mouth that become bigger than words. He is tuned in deep to that little mountain town. In 100 years, his ghost will haunt the streets of Durango, a transparent man on a creaky bike whistling an elegant melody.

Inside Jon’s derelict tenement, the members of French Miami, from San Francisco, were having a late-night jam session. The Amazon walked straight over to the keyboard and started playing. She was pretty good. No one knew her name.

Everything was hunky-dory, the race was in eight hours.

The music subsided and the party moved into the street.

Streetlights basked our faces in a warm glow. The world was not bombs and suffering on this night, not for me, or my companions, or Capt. Bob out there somewhere. Life was privileged in the cold, leafy Colorado air.

Passion Productions was decent enough to prepare an army cot for me in Jon’s tenement. An itinerant jazz musician curled up on it and fell fast asleep before my eyes. I looked at the blonde Amazon and shrugged. She handed me the keys to her daddy’s pickup truck, and we drove out into the country and stumbled into her house.

“Please wake me up at nine,” I said. “I have to document the race tomorrow.”

“No problem,” she said. She had to get up at eight to get her kitten spayed. Somewhere in Hollywood a sleeping Bob 48

Barker smiled. She would drop me off on the way to the vet.

It was past four in the morning when she flipped off the light switch.

I woke up in a dark bedroom. I thought it was dawn, but the Amazon had brought me to a windowless cave. I looked at the clock. I looked at Bob Carpenter’s Air Force suit crumpled in the corner. Somewhere deep inside of my soul I wept.

She drove me back to town and dropped me off at the Cyclery. One thousand racers were supposed to gather on this picturesque street corner. The mob was going to ride down a quaint Victorian Main Street. A steam locomotive was going to whistle in the background. And then the massive peloton of disorder was going to funnel into the woods like a chain of elephants headed to a graveyard. I was going to take photographs.

Instead, I grabbed my bike off the rack, cinched up my camera bag and coughed and wheezed all the way up to Goeglein Gulch.

Adrenalized riders in costume and drag saturated the finish line. They sprayed beer into the sky, hugged, laughed, took smiling portraits of one another, wiped the dirt from their mouths.

Jon Bailey ran up to me. “Herbivore! Did you get tons of sweet photos?”

“Um, yeah. Tons.”

“Where were you? I didn’t see you on either lap.”

“Oh. I was up there, in those trees….”

I pointed eastward and never said another word about it.

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[sswc] The “about 22-mile” course set by Passion Productions to decide the Single Speed World Champions for 2009 was tough and technical and sent more than one racer to the ground. Some racers chose to walk this section to avoid busting their ass, while others skidded through with varying levels of success.

Stephen Barnes

Stephen Barnes

Right: One hundred years ago, if Dave Ochs had walked into a Durango saloon wearing this haughty getup...well, let’s just say he wouldn’t have walked out in one piece. But at the Single Speed World Championships, anything goes. Of his getup, Ochs unapologetically said, “I’ve been saving these babies in the basement since I heard the race was coming to Durango. They breathe pretty well. I hope they don’t get caught in my chain.”

50

Scott DW Smith

Heather Irmiger honored history, tradition and her elders by racing the Single Speed World Championships in a camouflage skin suit once worn by Olympic Gold Medalist Paolo Pezzo. Irmiger held off past champion Kelli Emmett to win this year’s race and tattoo.

Scott DW Smith

A racer at the Single Speed World Championships chooses to walk an exposed section of the Raider Ridge Trail high above Durango. The ultratechnical trail defined, and in many cases decided, the race.

Scott DW Smith

51

[sswc] Team New Zealand had the reach to win this jump and take the game over Team Italy—winning the right to host the 2010 Single Speed World Championships.

Tradition has it that the current race crew lays down the rules to decide the following year’s host. Durango won the rights for 2009 by winning rounds of bowling and Ms. Pac-Man video games.

In Durango, it was karaoke and b-ball.

Note the custom jerseys and SSWC09 tube socks. That’s class.

Scott DW Smith

52

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[red bull burner] With fall colors in full blaze, aspen leaves at the 2009 Red Bull Burner in Angel Fire, N.M., look like gold coins dotting the trail as Mitch Elson of Albuquerque, N.M., makes another downhill run.

James E. Rickman

54

[red bull burner] Casey Norton of Colorado Springs, Colo., rounds a berm midway down the Supreme Course, one of three downhill trails racers could choose from during the 12-hour 2009 Red Bull Burner.

James E.Rickman

55

[red bull burner]

Racer Ty Brooks of Los Alamos, N.M., finds out firsthand that colors, textures, sights and sounds can blur together to create an exquisite tapestry while racing at the 2009 Red Bull Burner, held at Angel Fire Resort in northern New Mexico.

James E. Rickman

New Definition of ‘Hard Core’ Emerges at Angel Fire Burner ANGEL FIRE RESORT, N.M.—It takes a strong man to emerge from a 12-hour ass pounding with a big grin, but that’s exactly what Lance Fisher did at the second-annual Red Bull Burner this fall.

Fisher, a 41-year-old riding enthusiast out of Stillwater, Okla., rode the entire 12-hour gravity racing event on a hardtail. That’s right, a hardtail. While the rest of the 140-or-so competitors in the West’s original downhill endurance racing event were navigating Angel Fire’s drops and boulders on longtravel bikes with plenty of coosh, Fisher spent all day and some of the night sucking up the bumps with nothing more than his tush.

The event was Fisher’s swan song on the U.S. mainland.

Originally from Hawaii, the transplanted flatlander with a big passion for bike riding decided to enter the race at the last minute as a chance to get a final downhill ride in before returning to his island home in December.

“This is a great way to remember the mainland,” said a bleary-eyed Fisher at race’s end after completing 20 runs. In the flickering firelight thrown by a blazing 55-gallon drum adorned with a flaming Red Bull logo, the weary racer expressed his 56

gratitude to race organizers for allowing his unconventional mode of transportation on the Combi Course, the least technical but longest of Angel Fire’s three world-class race courses.

“I had a friggin’ blast,” he exclaimed. “I’m glad those guys let me ride a hardtail. There’s nothing wrong with a hardtail.”

Fisher’s courage and enthusiasm earned him the distinction of being voted Crowd Favorite at the post-race party, although the honor did not come with any prize money.

The event drew racers from as far away as Vermont.

Working solo, in pairs or as teams of three or four people, riders attempted to clock in the most runs during the 12-hour period—the last two and a half hours of which were in the dark.

When all was said and done, the 142 competitors crossed the finish line an impressive 2,162 times combined. Jacqueline Harmony (Vixen Racing/Loeka/All Mountain Cyclery/Hayes) of Tucson, Ariz., completed 30 solo runs to win the Pro Women’s category, snagging 500 bucks and a year’s worth of bragging rights. On the men’s side, Waylon Smith (Mongoose) of Newhall, Calif., slammed down 33 runs to take home the $500 prize and honors for the year. –J. Rickman

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57

[fall tilt in telluride]

FPO Devon Balet

As the last of the daylight fades behind the mountains of Telluride, Colo., Jacqueline Harmony continues pushing forward toward her overall win in the Women’s Solo category at the Fall Tilt in Telluride—a 12-hour gravity race. Harmony started the day with some minor mechanicals but prevailed with smooth, focused racing.

The idea of long races is no new thing to cycling.

Twelve-, 18- and 24-hour bike races have been around for more than a decade. The biggest and longest running endurance race, the 24 Hours of Moab, saw its 15th year of existence this past season.

All these long endurance races push solo and team riders to the limits, forcing them out of bed at 2 a.m. to get to the hand-off for their next lap on the trail. All these races, however, always have been cross-country races. So how about racing downhill for 12 hours?

Most downhill races come down to a three- to four-minute run. How fast can you go? How hard can you push the limits of your riding? A single minor mistake can make the difference between being on the podium and just another name in the list of results.

Now imagine having to keep your riding at top level for 12 hours straight. The Fall Tilt in Telluride and other endurance gravity events popping up on the calendar are bringing a whole new style of racing to cyclists.

58

[fall tilt in telluride]

Devon Balet

The light trails of Dante Harmony turned the soft moonlit mountainside into a highway of bright lights as he flies down in darkness.

Even though most of the racing went down under Colorado bluebird skies, racers continued into the night racing under a full moon. Lighting became the most important piece of equipment for racers as their speeds did not slow with the loss of sunlight.

The fastest lap of the race came nearly 10 hours into the race as Brian Buell of Geronimo Racing laid down a blazing fast hot lap of 12 minutes and 29 seconds.

59

[vapor trail 125] Sometime after the 3 a.m. start of the Vapor Trail 125 in Salida, Colo., a cold, wet rain and snow mix reflects in the lights of (left to right) Jeff Kerkove, Aaron Huckstep and Jason Stubbe as they head off on the 125-mile journey through the Collegiate mountain range of central Colorado.

60

[vapor trail 125]

Vapor 125: A Race For Champions

Eddie Clark

SALIDA, Colo.—High-altitude, marathon, endurance mountain bike racing is not for the faint of heart. Enter the Vapor 125 with its 125-mile length and 20,000 feet of climbing that takes racers back and forth across the Continental Divide.

In mid-September, 38 mountain bikers took the start line in Salida, Colo., for a nighttime start at 10 p.m. Also present was Mother Nature, who had packed one heck of a bad storm system. So bad that torrential downpours, knee-shaking lightning and the threat of snow above tree line forced race officials to delay the start by two hours and shorten the course by 16 miles.

In a light rain, racers left Salida with a police escort to dirt roads, which took them up toward the Angel of Shavano and onto the Colorado Trail for 15 miles of singletrack in the dark “Usually this section of the Colorado Trail is ball bearings and loose,” said eventual race winner Josh Tostado, “but the rain made it super fun and pumped me up for the rest of the race.”

The rain also made for interesting scenes.

“The trees were all wet and sparkly, and it made for some of the most magical riding of my life,” said first-place female racer Eszter Horanyi. “I was a little sad when it was over.”

After leaving the Colorado Trail, racers battled with freezing temperatures to get over the Alpine Tunnel, which proved to be a make or break section of the race.

Next up was Tomichi Pass at 11,985 feet.

For many, Tomichi Pass brought not only the warm welcome of sunrise but also the climb back up to Monarch Pass.

Atop Monarch Pass, a light dusting of snow greeted racers as they descended upon one of the most famous trails in the world, the Monarch Crest Trail. From here it was “mostly downhill” to another fun section of singletrack on the Rainbow Trail and then back to Salida for the finish.

After all was said and done, only 19 racers would finish this behemoth of a challenge. Interestingly, both Tostado and Horanyi went on to win the 24 Hour Solo National Championships in Moab just a month later. The Vapor 125 indeed proved to be a race for champions. –E. Clark 61

[crested butte classic]

FPO Fred Marmsater

Early morning light turns dry grass into gold as participants in the 2009 Crested Butte Classic climb toward the Teocalli Ridge Trail, the first loop in the 100-mile race.

62

Tie Goes to the ….

As cyclists, we’re gifted to be a part of a sport that is not always about cutthroat rivalry or undying competition.

Sometimes we are privy to an exemplary code of decency or just plain ol’ good sportsmanship and a time—seemingly forgotten—when a chivalrous code of respect and honor win the day, making it a classic day, in this case, a Crested Butte Classic day.

The week leading into the 2009 Crested Butte Classic was not ideal, with cold temperatures, snow and Rocky Mountain early winter conditions looming heavily. By Friday, the weather cleared up and prepared the trails for a dreamy Saturday with fall in all its glory in the Upper Gunnison Valley.

Race day started with cold morning temps on the new first loop of Teocalli Ridge. Each lap of the unsanctioned race would take riders out and back from the local Brick Oven Pizzeria for a total of three laps and nearly 100 miles.

Jeff Irwin (Brick Oven Pizzeria/Crested Butte Builders) and Kelly Magelky (Trek) hammered out the first lap with Irwin coming in hot in the lead. Here, the valiant ride began, as Irwin started faster but had the home course advantage since Magelky was unaware of some of the nuances of the unmarked, unmanned course. Irwin waited at the entrance of the Canal

[crested butte classic]

Xavier Fane

Trail to make sure Magelky and Josh Bezecny, close behind, found the proper way and completed loop 1 together.

The race continued in this fashion, with Magelky and Irwin on a similar plane of fitness, but Irwin respectfully kept an eye on Magelky to make sure he found the proper way. The traditional loop 2 of the 403 and 401 trails saw the two battling with barely any daylight between their wheels.

The mere mortals of the classic were duking it out just behind with third, fourth, fifth and sixth place within minutes of one another. Eventual fourth place rider, Dan Loftus, was taking position scalps in conjunction with tequila shots as the consolation prize, and Jason Stubbe—in fifth—was showing his ever-present, final-hour endurance after a second place in the Vapor Trail race just weeks earlier.

On the final loop, the Dyke/Wagon Trail, Magelky showed some incredible eighth-hour form.

“This year, with a little help from a friend, I didn’t get lost. I had great legs and even greater race companions,” he said.

And so it was destined, this two-man race would not be contested by a victory sprint but a win for top-notch sportsmanship.

Magelky later recalled, “Jeff and I started the third and final

Dan Loftus begins the descent from the highpoint of Trail 401, near the halfway point of the 2009 Crested Butte Classic.

63

[crested butte classic]

Xavier Fane

Fresh off a win at the 2009 Vapor Trail 125 (and destined for victory at the 2009 24 Hours of Moab), Eszter Horanyi glides through an aspen grove in a moment of solitude. Horanyi overcame route-finding challenges to win her first attempt at the unmarked, unsupported Crested Butte Classic.

64

loop, and I felt really great. At this point, Jeff was giving me instructions so I wouldn’t get lost and I took off up Kebler Pass.

Well, I ran into some questionable trail options and decided I would wait to get Jeff’s direction. After getting a little oxygen in my brain and thinking about the situation, I used my better judgment and decided the right thing to do would be to wait since he is the only reason I didn’t end up riding to Aspen. In the end, we had a gentlemen’s agreement for the finish. We crossed the line together and split the victory.”

Eszter Horanyi stole the day on the women’s side and experienced similar challenges.

“When I’d set my heart on doing the race with my boyfriend, I hadn’t realized that the course wasn’t marked,” she said. “We started with one map between us, so like riding a tandem, doing this race together was more than just a physical challenge, it was a relationship one.”

For Irwin, the final victory tie fit in perfectly with his racing worldview.

“Racing for me has always been less about the place than it has the experience,” he said. “On that day, I was fortunate enough to compete against a true class act. Well, I guess it just makes it that much more memorable. It was a fun day, for sure.” –David Ochs

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66

Clear October skies light up the night and the classic Moab cliffs for Nathan Keck at the 2009 24 Hours of Moab.

In its 15th year, the race is known for harsh fall weather. Racers in the past have faced the year of the wind, the year of the cold and the year of the torrential rain. This was the year of no excuses; the weather couldn’t have been nicer.

Xavier Fane

67

[24 hours of moab] Josh Tostado—winning the Solo class for the second year in a row—focuses on forward motion. Tostado rode 17 laps to gain the 2009 Men’s Solo title. Eszter Horanyi won the 2009 Women’s Solo title, knocking off 13 laps and methodically riding Pua Sawicki—last year’s winner— into submission by the 10th lap.

Devon Balet

68

[24 hours of moab]

Xavier Fane

A beautiful desert sunset leads Rebecca Tomaszewski into the night.

Tomaszewski and her Niner/Ergon/Bach Builders’ teammate Dax Massey rode 17 laps to capture third in the Duo Pro championship at the 24 Hours of Moab.

69

[25 hours of frog hollow]

Bryce Pratt

The closer you get to Halloween, the more acceptable it is for a dude to be riding a bike while wearing a Wonder Woman costume—although it is still considered subversive behavior in most parts of Utah. This rider even received a prize for best costume at the inaugural 25 Hours of Frog Hollow race near St. George, Utah.

No matter which side of the politically barbed fence you’re peering over, we’ve all got W to thank for moving the time change forward one month—extending our evening riding time farther into the fall.

GRO-Promotions took the theme one step farther to create the first ever 25-hour bike race by holding a “24-hour” event on the eve of daylightsaving time, adding one more hour to the clock and to riding time. As if 24 hours of riding wasn’t enough.

Anne Spalding and Brian Bennett won the Solo categories, setting the inaugural course record at 10 and 17 laps, respectively.

70

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Trailer Tales: Exploring the Camping Escapades of Bike Racers

by Rebecca Kane

Ibis Cycles’ founder Scot Nicol has a few trailer tales of his own.

After scraping along a dusty and washboard two-wheeldrive road, we managed to secure the last campsite in the Avery Peak campground, seven miles northwest of Crested Butte, just past the mining town of Gothic, Colo.

With darkness descending and mosquitoes biting, the kids and I watched as Dad squeezed our Ketelesen pop-up trailer into a snug space, a couple of fir branches gouging the sides of the camper in the process. But it was worth it for a scenic spot directly across from the 401 trail, which we planned to explore in between our mountain bike races at the Mountain States Cup’s Wildflower Rush.

As a family of four competitive mountain bike racers, we spend our summers traveling to various venues, where we reside in a camper more like a jack-in-the box than a house.

Over the last six years, my daughter, now 17, and my son, now 18, have had to live for four months with their two slightly stressed parents, in an area about the size of a master bathroom.

There are no closets for clothing, and my daughter has to dismantle her bed every morning because it serves double duty as our kitchen table. Sure there are fights, usually over who gets the last chocolate GU energy gel, but most squabbles can be resolved with some bike swag trading.

Our lifestyle is chaotic and crazy, but then I wondered if there are other racers out there like us? So I spent some time searching and discovered that not only are there many like us, but some with even loonier lifestyles than us.

72

John Shafer

This summer, at the MSC Sol Vista National Championships, I approached a camper with a Persian carpet welcoming mat, awning askew, folding chairs lined with sippy cups covered with dried juice and adult and kid-sized helmets and bikes strewn about. Meet the Williams family of eight, from Big Bear, Calif., a family that spends two weeks out of every month, from March through October, on the road to races.

Casey, 15, Cameron, 13, Evan, 11, Elle, 9, mom Kim and dad Roger all race mountain bikes competitively. Four-yearold Nate and two-year-old Lanie are exempt—for now. In 2008, both Casey, racing in the Junior Men’s 13-14 category, and Cameron, racing in the Junior Men’s 11-12 category, took first place in cross-country events at the Mountain Biking Championships at Mt. Snow, Vt. Roger’s job as a firefighter allows them the freedom to travel in their 1994 Winnebago Itasca, providing the children with real life experiences on the road. Kim home-schools the kids, and many of their lessons have to do with exploring the outdoors, visiting new sites and connecting with nature. They don’t have an Xbox or a Wii for video game, no computerized toys and no cable TV. The only exception is an occasional movie rental.

The two older boys have cell phones for emergencies, and their computer is a learning tool. Cameron is creating a family website at www.TeamZionAdventures.com.

“Everything I am teaching them, I am learning, too. So it’s

all hands-on as a team, creating a strong unit,” Kim explained.

“They’re productive all day. From the time they get up, to the time they go to bed, they are doing something which they believe has value.”

One such project was having the kids build a bike/kayak trailer from scratch. These mini-engineers calculated and created the design, ordered the steel, purchased a used axle from a junkyard, then welded their masterpiece together.

“If you see any welding that looks bad, that is the part I did,” nine-year-old Elle pointed out.

Those of us who spend our summers driving over mountain passes expect some mishaps to occur. The Williams family experienced one close call in 2008 on their way to nationals at Mt. Snow.

They left California, hauling eight expensive mountain bikes and road bikes in their newly built trailer. When the family pulled into a friend’s driveway in Indianapolis, Ind., for the night, they noticed a wheel on the trailer was completely sideways. The old axle’s bearings were worn out.

“If we had driven two more blocks, we would have lost it all,” Kim said. Coincidentally, right around the corner, was the largest trailer parts store in Indiana. There they found the parts to replace the axle. “Our aunts, uncles and grandparents all think we are crazy and that bad things happen to us all the time. But the odds of things happening are greater because we put ourselves out there. Things always seem to work out.”

The Williams’ family embodies the energy and passion of dedicated racers. And they are not alone among riders who love living in their trailers during race season.

At the Sol Survivor race in Granby, Colo., I met Tom Judy, a 49-year-old, Category 2 downhill racer, living with his wife, Jill, in a Tiger CXT 19-foot trailer. The trailer fits into the cab of his ’95 four-wheel-drive Silverado and is equipped with a kitchen and a shower. Tom bragged that the entire setup only cost him $1,700, and it only takes him a minute and a half to break down. He staked his homestead claim with a huge pirate’s Jolly Roger flag.

Then I met Don Grahn, another downhill racer, and Bonnie Miller from Ketchum, Idaho, who sold their family business to buy a 35-foot Dynamax Grand Sport cargo van. The inside of the van is lined with real cherry wood and comes equipped with a washer and dryer, queen bed, couch, 22-inch satellite TV, Bose DVD/CD player and GPS navigation system.

Grahn bragged that his van’s two 80-gallons tanks get 8 to 9 miles to the gallon, “as good as any Yukon truck,” and he could drive for 1,000 miles before he has to gas up.

Most racers agreed that campers were more affordable than condos in addition to being convenient for storing their gear and providing a quiet place to sleep—unless they failed to find a campsite and had to succumb to camping in the venue parking lot with noisy generators and the 20-something Generation Nexters. RVers, or house haulers as I call them, had the even greater convenience of enjoying private bathrooms with showers, and even providing Fido with his own bed.

Dave Wilson, a high school science teacher from El Paso, Texas, and his wife of 10 years, Jen, a special education teacher, spend every summer on the road, traveling to mountain biking events. They drive a ’07 GMC truck with a ’94 Lance 880 Squire slide-in camper in the cab. This setup is convenient in that you

don’t have to pop the trailer up and down, but not as nice as an RV, since there is no access to the inside except from the back of the truck.

I met Dave and Jen at The Breck Epic where Dave went on to win the singlespeed category of this inaugural mountain bike stage race in Colorado. The Wilsons claim they have more friends on the road than they do at home. They network with fellow pro-racers, like Todd and Christa Park, who drive a camper, and Ron and Pua Sawicki, who pull a fifth wheel, texting each other about available campsites. And like traveling along the Oregon Trail, camp crusaders form what is called “The Chuck Wagon Circle” where friends gather at races and share grub and supplies.

“That kid next door is sucking juice off my generator,” Dave said as he pointed to a racer beside him who was recharging some batteries.

To live in a trailer and race for a long stretch of time, Dave and Jen’s summer is carefully budgeted. Their 1994 diesel truck gets 13 mpg, even hauling a 5-foot by 8-foot Pace trailer with four bikes, tires, spare wheels, compressor, 10-foot by 10-foot tent and spare parts. They purchased a generator because of its efficiency. Batteries die; they learned that in New Mexico sub-zero temps. Their luxurious setup has a bed, freezer, fridge, double sink and a wet bath where the shower and toilet and sink all share the same space.

“Most people start out with a tent, then have a van with a bed, and after a while, they buy an RV,” she said.

Dave and Jen’s first camping experience was to borrow a pop-up. Jen said she will never go back to that because she didn’t like things exploding everywhere when they popped up.

For the Wilsons, who are on the road so much, the beauty of the camper is the ability to pull into any parking lot or rest area in America and call it home.

“I could write a book about the 500 best places to camp around the country for free,” Jen claimed. “Most of the best ones are in Walmart parking lots.”

Perhaps living with a family of eight for more than 200 days of the year is not your idea of fun. For the Williams family— and for many others traveling and living in campers and racing their bikes—it works.

“Everyone’s need is always met,” Kim said, adding that her family bond is stronger because of the camping and racing adventures. “The more you make it happen, the easier it gets.

There are enough hours in the day to get it all in.”

While our neighbors at home are enjoying their summers at the pool, having backyard barbecues or eating hot dogs at ballparks, it comforts me to know there are other families and racers like us, sitting on folding chairs, balancing (yet again) a plate of spaghetti in their laps while watching the lights of night riders, pre-riding the Rabbit Valley course.

On the road at races, we have begun to appreciate the finer things in life, like snuggling inside our comfortable camper, playing Scrabble with racer friends, safe from yet another afternoon torrential downpour that is wreaking havoc on unsuspecting riders in Telluride.

Camping at bike races provides a peaceful, relaxing experience, in which the $500 Craigslist trailer bargain hunters can co-exist with luxury RVers because of a common passion for mountain bike racing.

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electrical muscle stimulation

by Graham Gifford

As a kid, I remember watching those wonderful television ads that marketed ab shockers. You know, the waist belt that would give you a six-pack by sitting in front of the TV and drinking beer? I would always scoff and think to myself, “There is no way that a shocking belt could give people great abs.”

Over the past year, my previous assumptions about that shocking belt have changed greatly. Why? I am subjecting myself to a similar technology as the guy who turned his keg into an ab six-pack by sitting on the couch.

I am talking about the Compex and Globus electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) units. Compex and Globus are the two main companies in the field, with models and programs that closely mirror each other. Fundamentally, Compex and Globus EMS units allow users to go beyond what they would normally do in any type of classic training.

EMS units work by bypassing the brain’s electrical signals for muscle contraction and replacing the electrical signals with external electrical impulses through gelled pads attached to the skin.

The technology has been used in the medical field for years to re-grow atrophied muscles and to treat joint injuries but was 74

only approved by the Food and Drug Administration for nonclinical use in the United States in 2002.

It is important to note that training your muscles with EMS alone won’t improve your ability to pedal stronger or run faster.

Dr. Phillip Gilley, a neuroscience professor and researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder, explains that the training works because of feedback sent from the stimulated muscles to the brain.

“In this case, the regions of the brain involved in repetitive training strengthen their circuits by ‘recruiting’ nearby brain cells to help with the increased processing load. Over time, this stronger brain circuit contributes to improved efficiency for the task,” Gilley said. Applying this to EMS training, the brain’s stronger brain circuit tells the muscles to recruit more fibers during each voluntary contraction.”

EMS training needs to be used as a supplement to training and not as the sole form of work because the muscles need to know how to fire in the right situation, as in the case of a pedal stroke. Otherwise, EMS training will be for nothing.

When used correctly, EMS training can significantly increase the amount of training stress a rider can achieve and

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Shawn Lortie

increase recovery time. This technology has great potential in the cycling world because of the variety of programs that can be tailored to individual riders.

Filip Meirhaeghe, the 2000 Olympic mountain bike silver medalist, and six-time Tour de France green jersey winner Erik Zabel used EMS training throughout their careers. Compex was even an official sponsor of professional men’s cycling team CSC in 2006.

Cycling and running coach Jonathan Siegel of JDS Sport Coaching out of Denver successfully implements EMS training into many riders’ yearly training plans.

“Most people can activate only 33 percent of available muscle fibers during training,” Siegel said, “while EMS users can activate up to 95 percent.”

Professional cyclists and other high-level athletes can benefit from the training because even they have a large percentage of muscle fibers waiting to be unlocked.

The Globus and Compex units have programs with specific purposes in regards to training and physiological adaptation.

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The endurance program is almost an hour long and

imposes a medium level of intensity on the muscles. It is designed to increase the oxygen uptake of the muscles and increase the average working power over longer durations.

The resistance program uses a much higher working level and targets the fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers.

The short program session also activates the anaerobic metabolism system, which stimulates the production of lactic acid. This program has great benefits for criterium racers and mountain bikers who consistently put out great power for short one- to five-minute intervals.

Active recovery may be the most beneficial of all programs.

It stimulates recovery in the muscles and can easily replace a sports massage on a daily basis. Compex reports that there is up to a 200 percent reduction in the level of lactic acid in the blood compared with lactic acid reduction from mere rest.

The strength and explosive strength programs are designed to increase shear force. The strength program is synonymous with heavy weightlifting in the gym. The explosive strength program is ideal for improving sprinting power.

The potentiation program is used prior to an event. The short three-minute session activates and warms up the targeted muscle and prepares it for competition.

The endurance program can be used during the off-season all the way through the racing season because of the minimal risk of long-term fatigue and soreness. It’s more or less like adding a few hours of easy aerobic riding to a training plan for each session. It helps greatly if a rider only has a few hours a week to ride and during the winter months when the sickness rate is high.

The resistance, strength and explosive strength programs can provide good benefits in the off-season when a rider is building strength. Strength training is normally done in the weight room, but the EMS units allow riders to perform this training at home with minimal risk of injury.

Although most EMS programs shouldn’t be performed every day, the active recovery program is the exception. For those of us not fortunate enough to have a masseuse on retainer, the active recovery program is certainly a competent stand-in. Siegel thinks that the active recovery program has the greatest benefit for athletes because the program allows users to start their recovery process immediately, instead of waiting several hours after an event or hard training.

Siegel also uses EMS units to equalize muscle imbalances in riders he coaches. Because the EMS allows the user to select the intensity or milliamps, it is possible to provoke a greater training response in one leg over the other.

For the uninitiated, EMS units may seem like as much of a crock as the guy sitting on his couch getting a six-pack, but in truth the technology and science is very sound, as well as the list of professionals who have used EMS. I only wish that the next time I’m doing the endurance program, I could fulfill the old commercial of my youth by watching TV with a nice Dale’s Pale Ale. 75

76

paraphernalia

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The Gary Fisher Superfly 100 descends with confidence-inspiring stability and agility.

Brian Riepe

gary fisher

superfly 100

www.FisherBikes.com

Price: $5,600 Weight: 24.5 lbs.

This bike is almost cheating The first time I got a glimpse of the Gary Fisher Superfly 100—a new, all-carbon 29er with 110 mm rear travel—was at the 2009 Original Growler race in Gunnison, Colo. The race is a 64-mile journey with endless miles of rolling technical singletrack and a deceiving 8,000 feet of climbing. Travis Brown holds the course record at 5 hours and 40 minutes.

Brown had shown up to defend his 2008 title, have a little fun and presumably do his job: research and design for the Gary Fisher and Trek brands. He was racing a stealthy, all-black prototype bike, and when he passed by my photo perch, the bike caught my eye. It looked tight, compact, fast. Brown won by nearly 15 minutes.

The next time I caught up with Brown was in September at the Gary Fisher media launch in Park City, Utah. I had just logged a few hours on the Superfly 100. I asked Brown about 78

racing on it at the Original Growler, and he admitted, “On those trails, that bike is almost cheating.”

Gary Fisher’s design team (which includes Gary Fisher himself) may be nearing perfection with its 2010 lineup of 29ers. The challenge, said Fisher, was creating the whole package—a 29er frame with ideal geometry, materials and components specifically designed around it.

The foundation of the Superfly 100 and Superfly hardtail is Fisher’s G2 geometry. It starts with an exclusive 51 mm offset Fox fork instead of the standard 44 mm, reducing the trail so it mimics a 26 inch wheeled bike. (Trail is the horizontal distance measured from the point at which an imaginary line through the steering axis and hub intersects the ground to the point where the front wheel touches the ground.) The idea is to provide neutral, quick and instinctive handling without

The Superfly 29er borrows its all-carbon construction and Active Braking Pivot technology from Trek’s successful innovations in 2009.

Brian Riepe

sacrificing stability. The sluggish handling of traditional 29er geometry is attributed to greater trail from the bigger-wheeled bikes. The custom Fox F29 fork with 51 mm offset is only available on Gary Fisher 29ers.

The G2 geometry also helps the bike fit smaller riders— illustrated by a string of podium finishes by not-so-tall Gary Fisher riders Willow Koerber and Heather Irmiger late in 2009 (riding on Superfly bikes), including Koerber’s bronze at the UCI World Championships and Irmiger’s dual 2009 national champion titles (cross-country and marathon) and a winner’s tattoo at the 2009 Single Speed World Championships.

According to Fisher, the small (15.5 inch) frame can fit riders down to about 5 feet tall as the increased fork offset creates less toe overlap, and the cockpit can be shortened to allow the rider to weight the front wheel more effectively, important for 29ers. For the opposite end of the human genome, Gary Fisher is also offering an XXL (23 inch) frame for 2010—Clydesdales rejoice.

The Superfly design is born from Trek Bicycle technology.

The highlights of the frame technology are its Optimum Compaction, Low Void (OCLV) full-carbon construction, Active Braking Pivot (ABP) linkage, wide BB95 bottom bracket and E2 (1.125 inch to 1.5 inch tapered) head tube.

OCLV is Trek’s proprietary carbon construction process, which the company holds patents on. A key component is its capacity to use high-modulus carbon fiber to make the pivot joints, linkage, bottom bracket and headset cups. High modulus refers to the smaller, denser fibers that are stiffer but more brittle. Where most carbon full-suspension designs use aluminum inserts at stress points, the Superfly frame is 100 percent carbon fiber. Read up more on this stuff at www.

TrekBike.com.

ABP puts the suspension pivot directly at the rear wheel axle. It’s pure genius. When Trek introduced this in 2008, bicycle suspension designers worldwide must have been secretly banging their heads against their work benches thinking, “Why, oh why, didn’t I think of that?”

ABP has two clear benefits: Adding the rear axle into the equation greatly improves lateral stiffness and allows the suspension to remain active while braking, improving traction and control. Combining the pivots with the dropouts adds strength and may save some weight, too. The patent is pending.

(Dave Weagle, who designed the popular DW-Link found on Ibis, Pivot and others, also has a patent pending on a similar design. But what matters to us here is that it works.)

Currently the Superfly 100 is offered with one component package: full SRAM X-9 with TruVativ Noir carbon cranks, Avid Ultimate disc brakes, Fox F29 fork and Float RP23 boost valve shock (which is awesome), Bontrager tubeless-ready wheels (white spokes are a nice touch), stem, handlebars, seat post and saddle. It’s race worthy out of the box. But I’d love to see it offered with SRAM XX. Why not?

In the time I spent on the Superfly 100, I had one chance to race it. It was a low-key local series race on Halloween using the same trail network as the Original Growler. I hadn’t been doing anything I’d call training but I felt decent from the start.

I grabbed the wheel of Travis Scheefer, a local up-and-coming young gun who has been beating me all season, and matched him up the initial five-minute climb.

Scheefer led as we hit a short straightaway and a quick descent that took us to a set of doubletrack rollers before the course dove back into some very technical singletrack. With what felt like no extra effort at all, I flew by young Scheefer in the rollers like he was standing still and beat him into the 79

singletrack. In 10 minutes of tight technical riding, I easily gained a 30-second advantage. Again, I didn’t feel like I was making a big effort. I cleaned everything.

Seeing the gap, I punched it hard through the next 10-minute climb. I felt good climbing, in the zone on the descents and unstoppable on the fast singletrack. I won by almost four minutes. I’m not too proud; Scheefer was, after all, wearing a superman costume and no doubt the cape slowed him down, but a win is always good.

There is no ultimate bike for everything. Twenty-niner bikes may not be the best on long steep climbs, where weight plays an even larger factor—although I can’t say I noticed that on this bike—but I’m beginning to think less of that theory and starting to believe that the rolling efficiency gained by 29 inch wheels is a greater gain averaged over the entire distance of a ride.

With the G2 geometry, weight is the only advantage a 26 inch bike may have over the Superfly 100. At 24.5 lbs, this bike is already reasonably light, but if you completely tricked it out and converted it to tubeless tires, you could get the weight very close to the lightest 26 inch full suspension bikes available. Rumor has it Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski’s Superfly 100 race bike—which he won the 2009 marathon national championships on—was close to 20 lbs.

When I began writing this, I realized I was full of compliments for the bike with nothing negative to say.

So I thought I’d better pass it around for other opinions. I had two local riders: Jeff Irwin, a staunch 26-inch-wheel rider and great bike handler who placed second to Travis Brown at

the 2009 Original Growler, and Dan Loftus, a current 29 inch believer and accomplished marathoner himself. Here’s what they had to say:

“My initial impression is that it’s surprisingly nimble in tight spots, and it descended very well. I think, in general, it’s a great bike and very fun to ride, but I wouldn’t race on it due to the extra energy required to get the wheels moving, especially uphill. A thru axle on the front shock would be a nice addition, too, to stiffen up the front end a bit more.”

–Jeff Irwin

“I was instantly at home. It’s a very predictable bike. My biggest surprise was how much more ‘allday comfortable’ the feel was as opposed to racy. I was immediately thinking about the Growler or a 24-hour solo but then realized I was hauling ass at a sprint pace. The fork/head tube geometry gave a more slack feel than I’m used to, but I cleaned a lot of spots that I don’t always clean.”

–Dan Loftus For me, riding the Superfly 100 on our local technical trails was both eye opening and addicting. It’s just a fun bike, and I don’t think I’ve ridden a faster bike on that type of technical terrain. It’s simply a beautifully designed bike. I’ve never felt so immediately comfortable, efficient or fast on another bike.

It’s quick and agile but descends with a confidence-inspiring stability as if it’s carrying you down the trail.

The Superfly 100 would be my first choice for marathon racing, general distance trail riding and possibly any crosscountry racing. The more I rode it, the more I liked it. The longer the ride or race the better. –B. Riepe

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Cinelli’s The Machine puts the possibility of owning an Italiandesigned race bike within reach of cycling enthusiasts.

Caroline Spaeth

cinelli

the machine

www.cinelli-usa.com

Price (as tested): $4,299 Price (frame, fork, headset): $2,295 Weight (XL size - with pedals): 17 lbs.

Make yourself look good As an eyeglasses wearer for nearly 40 years, I’ve been exposed to decades of advertisements for Euro-style frames that promise to transform even the most pathetic of trolls into a handsome-faced, chiseled-body man-about-town sporting a cool set of space-age-resin rectangles in front of piercing blue eyes on the lookout for the next fabulous hookup.

Some ads for bikes these days are kind of like that: ride this baby and you’ll be sporting six-pack abs and straight white teeth as you hammer to the front of the peloton on your way to easy victory. Having been burned too many times, I’m skeptical that imported spectacles can turn me into an International Man of Mystery or that an Italian bike frame can transform my ponderous elephant-on-a-unicycle riding style into something more recognizably competitive.

Enter Cinelli’s The Machine, a carbon fiber, monocoque racing bike that rode as smoothly as a set of fashion frames and helped dampen my skepticism about the transformative power of European merchandise. The Italian-designed and Asianmanufactured bike is feather light and quick handling and provides a mix of pedaling efficiency and riding comfort.

The Cinelli brand has been around for more than 60 years.

After it was purchased in 1978 by Columbus tubing, Cinelli has continued to design and manufacture bikes out of its Milano, Italy, headquarters. The bikes are distributed in the United States exclusively through Bicycle Technologies International (www.bti-usa.com). As such, quality Italian bicycles are now readily available to cycling enthusiasts.

The Machine felt comfortable right off the bat. The bike’s angular top tube is reinforced with ribs to reduce lateral motion (which can interfere with pedaling efficiency and create a less stable platform while standing on the pedals) and boost stiffness. Nevertheless, the bike’s overall rigidity was not burdensome on longer rides, thanks to a change in design in the rear triangle in the 2009 model. Sculpted grooves on the seatstays and chainstays allow for subtle compliance in the rear end that dampen bumps and vibrations over the long haul. The bike’s carbon Carve Mega fork also does a good dampening job.

Similarly in the comfort department, the test bike came outfitted with Cinelli’s Vai Palm Bar. The handlebar is flattened along the top to provide a pleasant perch for the palms. The 81

The Machine’s extra-large monocoque carbon frame is extremely light, with the right stiffness for efficient acceleration or when standing on the pedals during intense climbing.

Stiffening ribs along the top tube and an aerodynamic tube shape make The Machine race-worthy, while reversed carbon-weave graphics make the bike worthy of a second look.

James E. Rickman

underside of the aluminum bars is grooved to provide room for cables. The bars were comfortable and I was able to easily move my hands around, keeping numbness at bay throughout my rides.

The Machine I tested came equipped with the SRAM Rival Group. The group performed flawlessly throughout the test period, providing quick, sure shifting and confident braking. While everyone has an opinion and preference about components, the Rival group provides a good deal for its weight-to-cost ratio. One more item of note: The Machine’s bottom bracket uses a standard 68 mm English thread, not an Italian thread design that can cause anxiety in people who like to obsess about compatibility or reverse threading.

But what good is a race bike if you don’t actually race it?

This question was the source of some cognitive dissonance for me. I tend to shy away from competitive behavior in general, and “serious” road racers tend to be a little too hard core for my tastes—in racing environments anyway. I have nothing against these people; it’s just that I have a little bit of an inferiority complex because many of their ilk actually look good in Eurostyle eyeglasses. This is something I’m currently undergoing counseling for, but I digress.

To help exorcise my personal demons, I opted to race The Machine as part of a triathlon. Yes, there were snickers when I lined up at the start, but no one was laughing when I started passing some of the big shots in their fancy kits and aero helmets two-thirds of the way into the race. Other competitors 82

wilted at the sight of the really coollooking white bike with fast-looking graphics rendered in carbon-fiber weave.

And I swear I heard at least one guy start audibly weeping as he helplessly watched this doughy Clydesdale motor past him up a steep hill.

I had done no special training for the event, or training of any kind for that matter, other than simply going out and James E. Rickman riding. The speedy bike must have helped me get the most out of my legs.

With a relatively affordable price point, Cinelli’s The Machine is a lightweight Italian race bike within reach of most serious cyclists. Am I saying that riding it will help move a person up a category or give them the competitive edge?

Perhaps—but probably only if you can find a suitable pair of fashion frames to go with it. –J. Rickman

Paketa’s magnesium Wac Corporal singlespeed frame looks like an aluminum bike, but it has an entirely different ride.

Brian Riepe

paketa

wac corporal magnesium

www.PaketaBike.com

A rare find in a frame Earlier this year in Issue 12 of Mountain Flyer, we reviewed the Paketa Rocket road bike and were genuinely impressed by the silky smooth ride the magnesium frame offered.

Since we are a bunch of cross-country singlespeeders at heart, our interest in Paketa and magnesium naturally turned to a singlespeed mountain bike frame. We pitched the idea to Paketa’s J.P. Burow, who hand-builds each Paketa frame from the ground up in his Broomfield, Colo., shop. A few months later, he delivered us a prototype 26er Wac Corporal singlespeed frame.

Considering the material science of magnesium (see sidebar), you would think pure magnesium was the Holy Grail of frame materials—and in many ways it is—but for bicycle framebuilders it’s been more of a fantasy than a reality because magnesium poses manufacturing and fabrication challenges.

Magnesium is a rare material in the bicycle industry, so finding a tube supply was the first obstacle, but Paketa found a supply right in its back yard at a Denver company that produces magnesium rods for industrial uses. Paketa’s tubes are extruded from billet magnesium using custom dies, allowing Paketa to create a tube set that optimizes the material’s properties.

Paketa spent years researching the material and how to

Price (Frame w/headset): $2,650 Weight (Medium - frame only) : 4.7lbs.

weld it. The tricky part is that magnesium is extremely sensitive to welding temperature. If the torch is too hot, magnesium disintegrates into a fine powder, too cold and the bond is poor.

Dialing in the tube set for the perfect ride also took some experimenting. Paketa’s tubes are extruded with more material on the bottom of the tube. The additional metal translates into more vibration damping and more strength.

On the surface, the magnesium Wac Corporal singlespeed frame looks much like an aluminum frame with wide diameter tubes, an ovalized downtube, hefty dropouts, stout wishbone yokes and fat welds laid on in neat but substantial beads. It’s a nice-looking frame topped off with sharp candy apple red paint.

Paketa’s lightest road frame weighs 2.5 lbs. This one-off Wac Corporal singlespeed frame weighed in a bit heavy at 4.7 lbs but Burow built it strong—maybe overbuilt it—and could probably trim it down in future renditions or for specific rider needs.

Wanting to keep it as light as possible, I built it up with a 3.2 lb 100 mm Magura SL fork, Syntace carbon bar and post and a disgracefully light NoTubes wheelset. The final product weighed 20.6 lbs. Not bad.

The bike was reliably quick, shot out of turns and climbed like the rocket the company is named after. (Paketa is Russian for rocket.) The properties of magnesium are undeniably a pleasure on the trail. The bike has an uncanny softness to it.

83

Why Magnesium?

David Walker of Sixties Cycles in Lafayette, Colo., walked us through the material science behind the benefits of magnesium in a bike frame.

The sliding rear dropouts on Paketa’s Wac Corporal singlespeed frame were solidly built but didn’t quite allow for enough adjustment in the chain tension.

Brian Riepe

Not soft like butter. Just quiet. Pick your own synonym for super smooth and fast as hell. There may not be a word for it in English.

I got one good race in on the Wac Corporal: a hill climb on Mount Crested Butte. I found out that the bike’s quiet ride does not take away from its responsiveness. The power transfer was amazing. I gassed it from the start just to see what it could do, and I immediately gapped everyone on the first pitch. I was having a good day (nearly won but got nipped at the finish), but the bike accelerated faster than my fitness warranted.

Being a prototype frame, there were a few things I’d change.

Geometry can be adjusted to preference but a half a degree drop in the head tube angle may have made the handling more stable on steep descents.

Also, Paketa custom-designed the slider dropouts. They were well made and plenty strong—a bit heavy with three bolts and a lot of metal—but they didn’t allow for adequate chain tension adjustment. This caused a minor problem with setting up the bike. Tire clearance was a bit low to begin with because of the fat chainstay yoke, so to switch between a 17and an 18-tooth cog, I had to add or remove a link in the chain to get proper tension and tire clearance. Another 10 mm of adjustment would have made the difference.

Since producing our frame, Paketa has built a 29er carbon drive belt drive singlespeed using an eccentric bottom bracket for chain tension instead of the slider dropouts.

For road bikes or hardtail mountain bikes, the properties of magnesium make it the dream material, and Paketa has proven it can be a reality. Paketa custom builds each bike to the rider’s specs so the options are wide open. That 29er magnesium belt drive is calling me. –B. Riepe 84

Magnesium is one-third lighter by volume than aluminum and half the weight of titanium. It’s the lightest structural metal available and offers superior resistance to fatigue, denting and buckling (“beer can syndrome”). Its low density and vibration damping properties are what make it a great material for a bicycle frame.

Vibration damping is a measure of how well induced vibration (mainly road roughness, in this application) dissipates and is an intrinsic property of the material.

Because magnesium has the highest known damping capacity of any structural metal—as much as 20 times greater than steel, titanium or aluminum—the ride is truly amazing. Vibration from the riding surface literally disappears, leading to reduced fatigue and increased efficiency.

When designing and building any bike frame to be stiff and light, you’ve got to strike a compromise between tubing diameter, tube wall thickness and durability.

In general, with two tubes of the same material and equal mass/length but 100 percent difference in diameter, the larger tube will have four times the stiffness of the smaller tube, but it will also have a wall thickness only one-fourth that of the smaller tube.

There’s a limit to how large you can make the tubes though. For a frame’s main tubes, this limit is the minimum wall thickness required to avoid buckling. You can’t safely make a tube with greater than about a 50-to1 ratio of the diameter-to-wall thickness without risking problems with denting or buckling.

Of common frame materials, steel is the most dense, followed by titanium, then aluminum, and then magnesium as the least dense. Magnesium has one-third lower density than aluminum so—starting with two pieces of metal with equal weight—the magnesium piece will have greater volume. You simply have more material to work with.

You can make a magnesium tube with a larger diameter, keeping the weight the same as a comparable aluminum tube, and the magnesium tube will be 20 percent stiffer. A magnesium frame offers better strength, stiffness and vibration damping with no weight penalty over aluminum, titanium or steel.

For more information on the metal, check out www.PaketaBike.com and click “Why Magnesium.”

David Walker is a consultant with 26 years of aerospace and telecommunications engineering experience, five patents, 43 published technical journal papers, 18 years fitting riders of all backgrounds and designing bicycles for road, mountain, time-trial, tandem and traveling. He has worked with Paketa, Bilenky, Nobilette, Moots, Co-Motion and other builders.

Thursday’s The New Model is right at home ripping through berms and launching dirt jumps.

Fenlonphoto.com

thursday bicycles

the new model

www.ThursdayBicycles.com

A roost-it and boost-it good time Jon “Thursday” Norstog, the man behind Thursday bikes, agreed to let me test The New Model, a beefy, BMX-style mountain bike that is now ruined after what I can only describe as the opposite of an act of God. Jon doesn’t know exactly how his bike was crunched up during the review process, and this is (hopefully) the first time he’s going to hear the details. So, Jon, I’m really sorry. There’s not even a good story behind it. I don’t want to tell it, but I will.

In a minute.

First, let me tell you about this guy, Jon Norstog, whom everybody calls Thursday. He has the enthusiasm of an Amish teenager on Skittles. I get the sense that he would just bounce off the walls without a measured act of personal restraint. He can also be very intense, like Floyd Landis during the Tour de France—but in a good way.

Making bikes and racing them are key components to Jon’s

Price (Frame only): $1,399 Weight (Medium - frame only) : 3 lbs. lifestyle, giving him a healthy exuberance on par with bornagain vegans, extreme yoga practitioners, Zen masters and specific people who have just watched “The Secret” (you know who you are). Once we were talking about his race at the Mile High Nationals in Colorado, and he said, faster than you can read this sentence, “The gate goes down and there’s only one winner and everybody wants to be the one! It’s great! I feel so alive!”

Okay, so I added the exclamation points, but sometimes the things Jon says are just a little overwhelming. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from our interviews: “I tore my chin off my jaw a few years ago, so I got a full-face helmet!” Also, “You can smell their reeking breath, like being next to an alligator!”

Did I mention that Jon is 64 years old? Yeah, he is. Still racing hard, still charging it. He recently won his third Idaho State American Bicycle Association (ABA) BMX championship.

Jon brims with so much vim and vigor that it can occasionally be a bit exhausting, but it’s really easy to like the guy…

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Brian Riepe

Brian Riepe

Brian Riepe

Top: Mountain Flyer’s test crew ran The New Model through the ringer—on and off the dirt—and managed to dent the top tube.

Sorry, Thursday.

Center: Horizontal rear dropouts on The New Model allow the rider to adjust the chainstay length for different riding conditions and preferences.

Bottom: The New Model is built for abuse and the heavy-but-burly Profile BMX cranks fit the bill.

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…and I’m the jerk responsible for breaking his bike, complete with a brand new set of shiny Profile cranks, a longtravel, single-crown White Brothers fork and all my favorite WTB stuff.

In all honesty, I only told Jon that the tubes were dented “during the review process.” I didn’t specifically say that the bike fell off a ceiling-mounted rack in my garage along with a few other bikes, but that’s what happened.

Prior to the incident, I did get a chance to appreciate The New Model on the world-class trails at Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado. The ski and bike resort recently gained some new cross-country trails as well as wall rides, twisted rock drops, several new downhill trails and a mountain cross course that’s better suited for The New Model than the mountain town’s classic long-distance cross-country epics.

On the trail, The New Model quickly revealed itself as an adroit machine made to dart into a speedy line change or launch doubles, then cut confidently into a tight, fast turn. Did I mention that this was Jon’s personal bike, the one he built for himself to race on? Yep, it was. I’m that guy.

Also before the incident, I had passed The New Model along to local Crested Butte racer/mountain bike guru/drinking buddy Matty Robb, who agreed that it’s a whippy, fast-steering, easy-jumping bike. It’s the type of bike you want to lean back on and roost down something steep. Flat ground and long climbs weren’t awkward, per se, but that’s not where The New Model felt most at home.

An interesting feature of The New Model is that the horizontal dropouts and old-school, bolted Saint derailleur make the wheelbase adjustable. The chainstays can be as short as 16 inches or nearly as long as 17.5 inches, which also has a slight effect on geometry. The New Model has a 71 degree head tube as well as a 71 degree seat tube when equipped with a 5 inch fork, so tweaking the geometry a little bit would be easy with an adjustable-travel fork.

Jon builds custom steel bikes, so if you wanted any little change in geometry or tube length, paint color, braze-ons or cable routing, he’d make it happen. Jon has been around the block before, so if clients don’t know exactly what they want, he helps them figure it out and bring it to life.

To that end, The New Model and all of the bikes Jon makes are more like suggestions for designs than cookie cutter, assembly-line production bikes. Like they used to say at Burger King, have it your way—but it better be steel. Jon welds steel, rides steel and likes steel. You pick the tube set and he’ll weld it, gusset it, grind it smooth, paint it and whatever else you want; he runs the whole operation from start to finish.

Jon also does fillet brazing, which is a bit of a rare skill that offers some structural advantages. The New Model frame that I crumpled up was fillet-brazed, weighed in at 5 lbs, 3 oz, with two coats of paint. The whole bike weighed less than 30 lbs all built up. Of course, tube length and material choice will dictate frame weight and component choice is a big variable, so those weight measurements could change.

Overall, The New Model is a fine bicycle for the downhilloriented hardtail rider. Jon’s personal bike sure was. It was a roost-it and boost-it good time, well, until the accident. Again, Jon, I am so sorry. If you can fix it, just send the bill…to my editor. –J. Fitzgerald

feedback sports:pro-elite stand morningstar:truing tools $239.99 | with tote $259.99 | www.FeedbackSports.com

R2.O.C-Tech $98 | Drumstix $27 | www.MorningstarTools.com

Wrenching on my bikes puts me in my metaphorical happy place. My bikes are my portal to experiencing complete bliss and total agony within minutes of each other, reconnecting with friends, clearing my head and commuting to work.

Maintaining them is a must, but if you’re not properly set up to work on your bikes, it can be an exercise in total frustration.

The Feedback Sports Pro-Elite repair stand has made working on my bikes a pleasure.

Most noticeably, the Pro-Elite is the most bomber portable stand out there. The large diameter aluminum tubes make it resistant to corrosion and rust (great because I like to wash my bike in the stand), and the sturdy tripod base makes working in awkward or uneven areas no problem. According to Feedback Sports, the stand is capable of holding up to 85 pounds, which means even your neighbor with his tandem recumbent can come over and adjust his windshield in this stand.

One of my favorite features of the Pro-Elite stand is the clamp. The Secure Lock system features a ratchet closing mechanism and a very cool push button release that makes loading or unloading the bike from the stand effortless.

Feedback Sports also sells the clamp to fit existing commercial repair stands. Very nice.

While working, I noticed myself adjusting the height frequently—because I could. The clamp height is adjustable up to 71 inches, which means I can clean and inspect various areas at eye level. Add in the strength of the clamp and the stability of the design and you can spin, flip and work on your rig in just about any position.

Portability, for me, is critical. I don’t have a dedicated shop space at my house because there isn’t any room. I have to break down and set up each time. The Pro-Elite stand breaks down simply and fits effortlessly into its tote, leaving itself on deck and ready to roll at any given time. Better than that, it breaks down to 5 x 8 x 45 inches, a size that fits just about anywhere my wife feels like hiding it.

I have been told that our reviews tend to be overly positive and don’t usually have any criticisms of the products. The problem is we keep getting products like this Pro-Elite Stand. I have used a few different brands and models in the past and they work fine, but I haven’t used anything like the Pro-Elite. If you want a stand burley enough to be your permanent shop stand with the capacity to break down and become mobile when you need to bolt, buy this stand. –C. Hanna

Perfectionist bike mechanics can now rejoice and forget the eyeballing. The R2.O.C-Tech surveying tool and Drumstix tuning forks are here, and you can now true your rims and rotors or get them on-center within nano-microns.

The R2.O.C-Tech is a simple measuring device designed to accurately illustrate any deviations in a rim or rotor using a dial indicator, which is sensitive within .001 inches, and a sensor knob that rides directly and continuously on the surface. The device easily mounts to the wheel axle using the quick-release skewer (a 20 mm thru-axle adapter is available). And the device is infinitely adjustable within its range to adapt to different size rims and rotors. A truing stand mounted version is also available for shop use.

The initial setup was easy—although the instructions could be improved with illustrations—and it was immediately apparent how helpful and accurate the device would be.

Because the sensor is always in contact with the rim during adjustments, it allows you to see, in real time, the precise effect each turn of the spoke wrench has on the rim. You actually watch the movement on the dial as you turn the spoke nipple.

The only trouble we had was that certain rims, especially disc-specific rims, have a minimal surface area for the sensor to ride on, so finding the sweet spot was tricky. This issue was compounded with stickers placed on the rim, which caused the dial indicator to jump as it rode over the stickers.

Brake rotors that get bent and out of true can have a huge effect on brake performance. The R2.O.C-Tech used along with Morningstar’s Drumstix—a set of three rotorstraightening tools—makes truing a rotor quick and easy.

Having three tools is key because it allows you to focus the force on a more specific section of the rotor without tweaking on the whole rotor. Most mechanics are used to eyeballing this measurement by watching the rotors move in relationship to the brake pads but if accuracy is what you want, the R2.O.CTech will get you there. –B. Riepe

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gopro:hd helmet hero

uvex:boss race

How many times have you ripped a section of track behind your best riding bud and thought to yourself, “Man that’d be so freakin’ killer if I could have nabbed that on video so I could have Tweeted, Facebooked and You-Tubed that action all over the web for my buds from high school to see?”

Don’t be shy. “Vanity is my favorite sin,” says Al Pacino.

And Pacino is The Man, so you are not alone, my starry-eyed friend. To meet this sinful craving, GoPro has designed its entire product line around showcasing your adventures, and the Helmet Hero camera has become standard equipment for the genre. Now with the new HD model, your antics can be recorded in full-on crystal clear 1080-pixel high definition and viewed on the new 48-inch plasma TV you’re planning to score after the holidays.

The camera looks quite simple, but under that waterproof polycarbonate housing is a sophisticated little camera that has won accolades from tech geeks far more discriminating than I. There is no LCD screen and only two control buttons. This keeps it light at only 5.9 oz, affordable at $299, compact in size (1.6 inch by 2.4 inch by 1.2 inch) and simple to use on the fly.

The HD Helmet Hero can record in 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels), 960p (1280 x 960 pixels) or 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) resolutions for up to 2.5 hours on a single battery charge. The camera can store up to 4.5 hours at the highest resolution or nine hours footage at the lower resolution footage on a 32-gigabyte SD memory card. You can also shoot 5 megapixel photos automatically at two-, five-, 10-, 30- or 60-second intervals for up to 2.5 hours.

Mounting brackets are available for vented or smooth helmets, seatpost, handlebar, bike frame or chest. Getting the camera affixed to your body or gear is easy, although I did find the camera would slip forward slightly on its hinge during rough sections of trail. This could be fixed with small teeth on the hinge.

GoPro cameras are compatible with Mac or PC and downloading the files was easy. Combine this little wonder with iMovie or similar editing software and you’ll have your own action movie studio at your fingertips. –B. Riepe

If you ask retailers what sells a helmet, the order of features probably goes something like this: price, aesthetics, fit and weight, with safety coming in a distant last. The most notable feature of the Uvex Boss Race is that it manages to meet all of those criteria, safety included, in near equilibrium. You can’t say that about very many helmets.

Interestingly, at $110 the Boss Race is priced in the middle of Uvex’s helmet line, but at 250 grams (8.8 oz), it’s the company’s lightest adult helmet. That’s 40 grams lower than Uvex’s top-end helmet, the FP 3.1—the helmet Mark Cavendish wore as he obliterated every other sprinter in the 2009 Tour de France.

Aesthetics are subject to the individual, but I’d call the Boss Race nicely neutral, agreeably cool—pictured is the carbon white—without being overly flashy. In a couple of refreshing features, the helmet’s shape strays away from the spacecrafty, super-aero look and its flat back side provides superior protection for the back of your skull. If you land on the back of your head, pointy aero features don’t help and can, in fact, lead to neck injury when your head is forced forward.

Fit is where Uvex hasn’t missed any tricks with its helmets.

The retention system is designed to reduce pressure points while still remaining snug. A vertical fit adjustment in the main retainer rings helps it settle into the perfect spot on your cranium. The chin strap is easily adjusted with quick release buckles to fine-tune the temple and rear straps. A ratcheted chin buckle allows fine-tuning on the fly to adjust straps that tend to stretch when they get wet. (Or is that just my head shrinking halfway through the race?)

Uvex, the largest helmet manufacturer in Europe, makes the Boss Race in Germany.

They call the Boss Race a road helmet—that’s probably because it has bug netting and no visor—but it’s a great all-around helmet at a great price. –B. Riepe

$299 | www.GoProCamera.com

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$110 | www.UvexSports.com

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Sedona Swirling into the Vortex

by Justin Schmid

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Mark Hawthorne

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Tom Alexander

If you visit Sedona, Ariz., at the right time, you just might see an extraterrestrial spacecraft lift off from its underground chamber below Bell Rock and fly back into space. Or so goes one of the better tales that Chawakee “Chewy”Aitken has heard during his nearly eight years living and riding mountain bikes in Sedona.

“There are lots of New Age characters with conspiracy theories,” says Aitken, who visited from Ireland less than 10 years ago. During his visit, Sedona’s scenery and solitude convinced him he’d found his next hometown.

It’s not difficult to see why just about any visitor would get enraptured with Sedona. Although plenty of places throughout Arizona can evoke an Old West feeling, no place spews a mystical vibe like Sedona. Just look at the scenery. The dramatic red hoodoos, cliffs and spires exist to inspire wild tales about not only UFOs, but also secret subterranean military bases and giant crystals lodged in the red rocks.

Despite the scenery and veins of singletrack running through the area, Sedona is overshadowed by Moab, Vail, Fruita, Durango and British Columbia’s North Shore. A little more exposure could swing the pendulum toward the rockrimmed town in Arizona’s high desert.

Just about every business in Sedona knows how to play to the town’s strengths. There’s a cache of Southwest kitsch, with Native American Kokopelli figures, kachina dolls and all things turquoise for sale. If you like swinging a golf club, you’ll find plenty of places to drop a green fee. The town can also meet your every need for crystals, gurus and aura photographers.

There’s even an entire shop devoted to extraterrestrials. If you overlook the sign for Ye Olde UFO Store, you surely won’t miss the flying saucer parade float and an Alien Recovery Team van parked outside. There’s no better place to pick up a “What’s Probed in Sedona Stays in Sedona” T-shirt.

Many visitors come to Sedona to visit a vortex, one of several areas purported to be focal points for mystical energy.

Some even label the energy types with tags like “positivefeminine” and “negative-masculine.” Of course, if you’re driving into town from Phoenix on Highway 179, you’ll be convinced that “vortex” refers to the rage-inducing traffic roundabout, endless construction and distracted drivers. That combination makes the last few miles into Sedona the hardest part of the drive. The mountain biking fun is tantalizingly close, but you have to slog through traffic first.

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Even after all the driving just to get into Sedona, many people choose more driving as the way to see the city’s brilliant formations of red sandstone and pale Kaibab limestone in the shapes of Snoopy, coffee pots and cathedrals. Tourists pile into Jeeps driven by Sam Elliot lookalikes, where they crawl around on the slickrock, sharing sections of trail with hikers, dogs, horses and mountain bikers.

Two Wheels Can Take You Far But if you’re coming to Sedona to ride your mountain bike instead of a garishly painted Jeep, you’re in for a treat.

The first chance to ride is in the Village of Oak Creek. Two of Sedona’s four bike shops, Sedona Bike & Bean and Absolute Bikes, are both just a few hundred feet from the Bell Rock trailhead.

Even if a flying saucer never lifts off from its depths, Bell Rock is the launching point for riders of all levels. Aitken, a mechanic and barista at the combo bike shop-coffeehouse Sedona Bike & Bean, can send beginners for a nice cruise on the easy Bell Rock loops. Those up for more challenges can check out Templeton Loop and some of its offshoots. The most skilled and ambitious can get directions to tougher trails like Chicken Point and Casner Canyon, which are the stuff of Mountain Dew commercials—steep, loose, technical and rocky—barely even rideable to mortals.

Aitken, a Bionicon-sponsored racer, is never short of riding options to train for any discipline. He proselytizes about the trails, urging out-of-town friends to drop in for some riding in a town he considers overlooked and underrated. He considers the Sedona area better than the biking Mecca of Moab, Utah.

Riders can hit the trails year-round, even if they need to get up earlier on the hot summer days. (There’s cooler highmountain riding about 30 miles north in Flagstaff if you don’t like the heat or riding before breakfast.) Slickrock, groomed singletrack and sketchy downhills are all within easy riding distance.

“It’s a little off the map,” Aitken says. “We don’t have any mountain bike festivals.”

That’s set to change this spring, when Sedona Bike & Bean will host the Red Rock Bike Fest. Organized rides, an expo area and entertainment are on tap for the event, which will be held at the Red Agave Resort.

The Red Agave is creating a buzz around Sedona for catering to mountain bikers. The owners of Sedona Bike & Bean became partners in the venture, which was until recently known as Quail Ridge Resort. The owners also aim to make it a gathering spot for people who aren’t staying there, scheduling

Stephanie Hawthorn rides the Big Park Loop Trail with Courthouse Butte towering in the background.

Mark Hawthorne

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Mark Hawthorne

Mark Hawthorne

Sedona has its share of bike shops and eateries. Two of them, Bike & Bean (left) and a newer transplant from its sister store just up the road in Flagstaff, Ariz., Absolute Bikes, can help riders with anything they need from service to rentals, tours or even biker-friendly lodging.

live acoustic music in its open courtyard whenever they’re expecting the rooms to be fully booked. The property also has easy access to trails snaking north toward the Templeton Trail, which leads toward Cathedral Rock. The Red Agave’s managers try to be welcoming to all visitors and the community, so they haven’t barred parking access to the trails near their property.

A Favorite for Arizona Riders Though Sedona is low on the national mountain bike radar, most Arizona riders see past the plaid golf pants and CruiseAmerica rental RVs clogging the roads. Edy Light, a Tucson, Ariz., resident, dropped into Sedona in late September with a large group of her best riding buddies. They came in search of some ever-so-slightly cooler temperatures and primo trails.

“Sedona is one of my favorite rides,” she says. “The conditions are just perfect up there. It’s a fun place to challenge myself.”

And there’s nothing this former triathlete enjoys as much as a good challenge. She rides in 24-hour races and favors epic days in the saddle. Her group spent two days riding in Sedona, getting started at 8 a.m. and staying out past 2 p.m. Light enjoyed a mix of sketchy, washed out ridges, slickrock and grippy singletrack—all of it a welcome change from the ultrarocky trails in Tucson.

Light’s group spent the first day on the west side of Sedona.

Their route wound them through trails like Teacup, Thunder Mountain and the rather plainly named Jim Thompson. This tucked the group into a fairly wooded area, with spectacular views of landmarks like Steamboat Rock, Capitol Butte and the sandstone cliffs lining the north side of the town. Day Two took them to the east side of town. There, Schnebly Hill Formation slickrock awaits. And so do challenging, colorfully named trails like Chicken Point, Llama and Broken Arrow.

The scenery and trails make the long drive worth it, Light says, even if the nightlife is a bit sleepy and the cuisine a bit limited. Though she’s been riding mountain bikes for less than a decade, Light has sampled some excellent riding. Her travels have taken her from Durango, Colo., to the Italian Alps. Other 94

places may earn more renown and seem more exotic, but Sedona is close, friendly and guaranteed fun.

Almost a Bike Utopia Still, many people continue to equate Sedona with retirees and golfing more than mountain biking. Shortly after golfing in the pecking order come New Age enthusiasts, shoppers and Jeep tour-loving tourists. Somewhere after that, you’ll find hikers and mountain bikers. Not all local riders, though, mind skulking outside the spotlight.

Scott Keller, the Men’s Pro champion in the Mountain Bike Association of Arizona cross-country series, has lived and trained in Sedona for the past two years. He believes Sedona needs to balance its thirst for tourism with quality of life for its residents. Too many trail users could tip that balance in an unfavorable direction. For now, Keller finds it easy to work up a sweat in solitude, even with hikers and Jeep tours pouring into the trails.

“It’s the best place I’ve ridden in the world,” Keller says.

Considering he’s raced all across the nation and in Europe when he lived in Italy, his words have some weight.

Even Keller himself is in a conundrum about Sedona.

For his taste, there’s already too much traffic, too many tourist traps and too many chain businesses. But he also yearns for the area to fully develop its huge potential as a mountain bike destination. Part of that, he says, would be getting other user groups and the U.S. Forest Service to buy into the idea.

Keller believes the Forest Service could advance Sedona’s stature by embracing what he calls “social trails.” These underground trails exist side by side with the official trails.

While Keller loves the official trails, he insists the social trails are built better, with an eye toward minimizing erosion while also maximizing fun. Making them official and putting them on the map would increase the offerings for visiting riders, rather than forcing locals to keep to themselves. Keller says volunteers from outdoor organizations have destroyed a number of social trails and even cut down trees to deprive other users of a trail.

Regardless, Keller finds it hard to stress much about development and competition among user groups, though.

The setting desert sunlight and Oak Creek combine to reflect the magic of Sedona, Ariz. Crossing Oak Creek or sitting by its banks is a refreshing and often welcome portion of several classic rides in Sedona.

Tom Alexander

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He loves living in a cycling scene that lets him ride to any trail from his front door. And he can hang out with his riding buddies at the original Oak Creek Brewery in west Sedona off Highway 89A. Watch for Night Riders and Artichoke Extract If you’re in town for the first time, you can stop by the bike shops and expect to get invited to join group rides.

Just be sure that you’re not getting in too far over your head. Though everyone has a casual vibe, it’s best to assume any local rider is skilled and fast until proven otherwise. And possibly crazy, too. There are more than a few stories out there about riders enjoying a nighttime ride without lights, preferring a full moon to show the way.

If you prefer nightlife to night riding, Sedona, as Edy Light said, isn’t exactly Las Vegas. The town is fairly spread out.

It’s a long walk from downtown Sedona to the west side, which is arguably a bit less touristy. But the west side is also the most likely place to find a good pizza at a place like Picazzo’s. Even though Picazzo’s has multiple locations throughout Arizona, it doesn’t have the bland food and generic attitude of a chain. The pies are tasty, and some are pretty inventive; the chipotle and barbacoa beef pizza can scorch palates not accustomed to large doses of jalapeños.

As befits a New Age destination, Sedona is also an easy place for vegetarians to find a fix. Chocolatree Organic Eatery has a menu packed full of falafel, hummus and quinoa. But even carnivores can be tempted by the spread of raw chocolates, which are locally made with low heat to enhance the taste and preserve the antioxidants. People who seek out the edgiest foods possible can also try some chocolate sweetened with artichoke extract.

For all of its maddening traffic and airs of enlightened spirituality, you’ll want to visit Sedona for the singletrack, the colorful sandstone twisted into every conceivable shape and the welcoming bands of resident mountain bikers.

Next time you visit, Sedona may just be moving up the ranks of fat-tire destinations. Get there soon, so you can remember what it was like before it became the new Moab.

FORM CYCLES Get the Form Right and Function Follows

Early in 2009, Sedona got its own homegrown framebuilder. Form Cycles set up shop and rolled its first creation out in January. Riding a Form 29er, Sedona resident Scott Keller took second in the Men’s Pro cross-country category in a Mountain Bike Association of Arizona race in April and then went on to win the series championship, bringing more acclaim to the fledgling Form.

Daryl Roberts and a small group of former Titus Cycles employees founded Form Cycles to build top-quality steel and titanium hardtails. Sedona is a great place to test their bikes and exposes their products to the more than 755,000 visitors who pass through the small central Arizona city each year.

The Form team is banking on its enthusiasm for cycling, fabrication skills and design know-how. They don’t expect to swing the pendulum back to the hardtail for everyone; they just want to get their message to riders who appreciate longevity, light weight and a custom fit.

“All of us with Form are riders,” Roberts explains. “We enjoy biking and what it has to offer. And what can we do to enhance this and make it better?”

They decided they can scrap the common three-sizes-fits-most approach.

Instead they make every bike fit the rider rather than the rider fitting the bike. They also add modern touches like oversized head tubes and bottom brackets to ensure quick power transfer, while still taking advantage of the smooth ride qualities of steel and titanium frames.

So far, Form has created about 30 frames, all built with components specified by each customer. Sometimes, that means lots of research and waiting for parts to make the bike exactly how each customer wants it. Form frames run between $1,625 (powdercoated steel) and $2,395 (stock geometry titanium), a price that’s sure to include the extra work to get it exactly right.

“It’s your bike,” Roberts says.

–J. Schmid

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by James E. Rickman

Illustration by Gloria Sharp

Somewhere past the point of no return on Park City, Utah’s signature Mid-Mountain Trail, I found myself enveloped in a dark cloak of helplessness. A bonk of epic proportions had coiled around my body like a murderous python. I was in a strange state of euphoria as the awful reptile squeezed a toxic cocktail of rancid metabolites up from my bowels and into my brain until my head was saturated. A subliminal buzzing took hold of my body and I was afflicted with involuntary giggles— pathetic chatters of a doomed man….

Strange and terrible things can happen to those who get into something way over their heads. Scuba divers descending below 100 feet can suddenly succumb to Raptures of the Deep, a nitrogen-induced drunkenness that can lead to disorientation and even death for the unseasoned participant.

Glycogen depletion, or “bonking,” can have similar debilitating effects. Experts list its dire symptoms as general weakness, fatigue and hypoglycemic machinations, including stupor or hallucinations. It is a dangerous condition that cannot be relieved by simple rest.

My last and final bit of nutrition that day had come an hour earlier in the form of one of those energy patties. As I chewed the husk-like concoction high above civilization, a more careful review of our trail map hammered home the ugly realization that we were in for a long day of riding and that we were grossly unprepared. We began to seriously question the wisdom of our ride choice. Earlier that day, in a moment of fancy, we had decided upon the trail without thoughtful consideration of our abilities and provisions. We incorrectly reckoned that our “mellow recovery ride” of 14 miles or so would be a relatively flat jaunt along the 8,000-foot contour line of an inviting series of peaks speckled with colorful wildflowers and lush greenery.

But a never-ending series of small climbs and descents and the relentless, mind-numbing exposure of the trail soon had us exhausted. As we measured the distance on the map at trailside overlooking the tiny towns far below and far away, we realized our ride would turn out to be twice our original estimate.

The python bore down, and I was briefly paralyzed with dread as I rode mechanically along the treacherous path toward parts unknown.

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Signs in the woods warned us that vicious sheep hounds would rip us to shreds if we ventured off the trail and into private livestock areas, while the one or two paved roads that crossed the trail posted menacing notices promising arrest and prosecution of interlopers; passage was restricted to owners of luxury private residences in the area. With no bailouts available, and well past the point of no return, there was no escaping the full ride.

I glanced back at my riding companion. Her wild eyes and lolling tongue had given her the appearance of a frightened, caged animal. I realized that if we were to survive our ordeal, I had to stay strong. Even though I wanted to hop off my bike, throw it over the edge of the cliff and stamp my feet like an angry baby, the good Lord at that moment blessed me with a hallucination so sweet that I was filled with euphoria—the Raptures of the Bonk.

In my newfound fugue state, I saw friendly German women zigzagging through the trees in billowy white skirts and sunbonnets accented with blue thread. I giggled out loud with delight. It was no mirage. Their golden braids reflected dapples of pleasant afternoon sunlight, and their skin was as smooth and refreshing as milk. Most stupendous of all, they held huge steaming platters of tasty pancakes high above their heads as they weaved through the forest.

“Panakuken! Panakuken! Panakuken!” these maidens cried aloud on their serpentine quest to deliver their delicious rations of expertly prepared quick breads. It was a scene conjured up from my childhood, a memory of a peculiar Minnesota dining establishment set out in front of me like a luxurious banquet table. The joyful spirit of these fair-haired faeries was every bit as sustaining as the carbohydrate-laden cargo they carried; I was transformed into a Valkyrie ushering my companion out of the dark woods.

Our epic ended back at town five and a half hours later with nearly 30 miles on the odometer and a quarter inch of dust on my legs and cranks. I shed my snakeskin as we dove into an ocean of sushi—polka music fading into calm Japanese refrains, hapless intoxication giving way to the serenity of glycogen replenishment.

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970.879.8484 / kenteriksen.com

custom eriksen in Black - Built with campagnolo super record carbon 11-speed

all Kent eriksen frames are custom-designed, fabricated and finished 100 percent in-house. We use u.s.-made 3/2.5 titanium and stock a huge inventory of tubes, hand-selecting each one exclusively for each customer’s specifications. Frames, complete bikes and our stylish and simple seatpost are all available direct from our shop or from your local dealer. Visit us in steamboat springs, colorado or shop online at kenteriksen.com.

Dave Wiens Team Topeak/Ergon USA MTB Hall of Fame member 6-time Leadville 100 winner

German Innovation

Race Proven Ergon was the first company to address the achilles’ heel of round grips and the first to scientifically change the way riders interface with their bikes.

Lighter, sleeker and faster, the GX series grips reduce pressure on the palm

GX1

and allow a wider range of hand positions for more comfort. It’s the perfect grip for a racer like Dave Wiens when he’s winning a brutal race like the Leadville 100 – not just once, but a record six times. Visit www.ergon-bike.com and see for yourself how our innovative grips will change the way you ride.

148˚

Our exclusive wing design increases the surface area of the grip to effectively reduce the concentration of pressure on the ulnar nerve – eliminating hot spots on your palm and supporting your wrist at the optimal angle.

GX2 Carbon www.ergon-bike.com