In the months approaching my semester in France, I would often think of the sea of stylish bikes I thought myself bound to encounter. Yet, having spent the last three and a half months here, I find myself surprisingly disappointed and a bit perplexed at the lack of bike porn. For all the effort put forth by […]
Norcal High School Mountain Bike Championships
Last weekend was the Norcal High School Mountain Bike Championship race at Boggs Mountain in Cobb, California. This was my favorite race of the season for a few reasons. One being that this was one of my best race results this season. I finished 13th which puts me in 14th place overall in my division […]
Evil Vengeance Tour does Sea Otter
Since my last entry my days and weeks have been jam packed with mountain biking goodness and other wild stuff. On Monday April 15th I was set to fly out to Seattle to begin a whirlwind tour of the west coast. The flight landed ahead of schedule and I was picked up by Kevin Walsh, […]
Perception Versus Reality: What You See Is Not All You Get!
It seems like a common misconception in the non mountain biking community that all of mountain biking is what you see in Rampage, or in the North Shore videos. The honest truth is that, for most people, the ridiculous jumps and big 8 inch travel bikes won’t happen. Wikipedia claims (unsourced) that Cross Country riding […]
Kali Amara: Long Term Review
I have been riding with the Kali Amara for about 9 months now, through hot summer rides and wet, cold, muddy winter rides, and I thought it was time to share my thoughts with you. In the name of transparency the good folks at Kali sent me this helmet for free to test. To find […]
Trail Deprivation
It’s an odd feeling to be situationally deprived of one of your favorite sports. For years as a kid living in a small town, everything was pretty accessible. From a young age, my only real sense of sport deprivation was waiting for it to snow to go snowboarding. I’ve gone through countless injuries, yet a […]
2013 Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival – The End of an Era
This past weekend was the 4th annual Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival in infamous Aptos, California. It was presented by Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz and the title sponsor this year was Fox Racing Shox. At the center of the action is the expo. This year there were nearly 40 exhibitors and 15 companies demoing […]
The Empire Strikes Back – Part 2
The Foxy Five Every culture has their own social greeting and customs that are to be observed upon meeting. Britain has long embraced the mutual joys of bitching about the weather, it binds us. Sadly it’s just too nice out there! A spring filled sunset with a view of the Lambs making the most of […]
In Praise of Mountain Bike Clubs
One of the things that amazes me about mountain biking is that it takes what should be a solitary experience and makes it social. I’ve mentioned before that when I first met Rivers I was amazed at the mountain bike community he was surrounded by – not only his (then) roommate and riding buddies, but […]
Something Old, Something New
Sometimes the planets line up and benefit you. And in the last 2 weeks it finally did. Like it does in a Mishun H Sugworth cartoon. And this caused this box to appear on my door step. With something special inside…special not in the WADA nightmares secret enhancement kind. Maybe it’s my mail order Caribbean […]