Mountain Flyer Number 16

DEFINING THE ROCKY MOUnTAIN CYCLIST

Green River

Mining the flowing trails of wide-open Wyoming

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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 artist gloria sharp copy editor trina ortega writers

Jill Janov Brian Leddy Erin Madison Chris McGee

Landon Monholland Trina Ortega James E. Rickman

Kurt Smith Brian Vernor David Wilson Mark Woolcott

Gregory Luck P. David LePell Shawn Lortie Chris Oaxaca

James E. Rickman Brian Vernor Mark Woolcott

photographers Bob Allen Stephen Eginoire Anne Keller Brian Leddy

publisher secret agent publishing, llc

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:

A labyrinth of rock-capped plateaus and hidden canyons stretch into a seemingly infinite landscape as Joey Faust steadies his gaze and descends one of the technical ladder-bridges on Pick Your Poison Trail near Green River, Wyo. Photo 2009 © Mark Woolcott

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.

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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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[what’sinside] number sixteen

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Riders Journal

sixty-five

Paraphernalia

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Editor’s Note

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Profile: Brian Fuentes by Chris McGee

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Changing Wilderness Attitudes by Trina Ortega

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Riders Journal

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The Day I Rode ’Em All by Landon Monholland

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’Cross Nationals: A Photo Journal by Brian Vernor

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A Town, a Struggling Café and the Race that Saved Them by Erin Madison

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Valley of the Sun Offers No Place to Hide by James E. Rickman

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Prickly Pear Welcomes Racers to New Season by Brian Leddy

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El Paso Puzzler: Even the Rocks are Bigger in Texas by David Wilson

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As Ghost Bikes Disappear, Advocates Fight Back by Jill Janov

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Paraphernalia

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650B Market Starts to Roll by Kurt Smith

84 SRAM XX 2x10 Cross-Country Group by Brian Riepe eighty-six

Green River, Wyo.

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Green River, Wyo. by Mark Woolcott

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Tailwind: The King of Yesterdays by James E. Rickman Mountain Flyer Magazine (ISSN 1944-6101) April 2010 is published quarterly by Secret Agent Publishing, LLC, 309 South Main Street, Gunnison, Colo. Periodicals postage paid in Gunnison CO and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Mountain Flyer, PO Box 272, Gunnison, CO 81230.

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A Nod to No Limits A hollow crunching sound emanates from my tires and reverberates through the carbon fiber tubes of my bike as I pedal through scattered ice crystals and frozen chunks of mud in the road. Pushing up the grade, I dig a little deeper as I see the snowfield in the distance—the end of the road.

Reaching the snowline, I stop and look longingly up the road for a time. This is as high as I can ride for now. Next week the snowline will be another quarter mile up the road. Within a month, the snow will be gone, and our trails will be open again, but for now my environment is limited to low-lying areas and a few dry roads. I’m reminded how much I appreciate having such a great trail network so close to my home.

It’s been said that a person’s life is only limited by his or her own imagination. In turn, one’s environment—or more specifically their given capacity to immerse themselves in it— can either limit or expand their ability to imagine.

For many of us, the bicycle and its unique capacity to amplify our ability to cover more ground has become the catalyst in our power to explore, touch, experience—become a part of—our environment. However, for cyclists, access and allowances to build trail networks on public lands can determine whether that experience is expanded or limited, whether we become more in tune with our environment or more removed from it.

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While the bicycle can provide freedom beyond imagination, without a place to expand our wings, we become less connected with our world. Advocacy organizations, individuals and communities are playing an integral part in creating the places we explore on our bicycles throughout the Rocky Mountain West, often in unexpected places.

These expansive trail networks are vital to our health, our sport and our ability to imagine what outrageous journeys are attainable on a bicycle. More important, they are vital to our future. Like grizzly bears and mountain lions, we require a lot of space (we are predators after all), but if we lose our connection to and appreciation of our world, we are destined for extinction.

Gaining access and permission to create trail networks is very difficult, often very frustrating work. But the payoff is immeasurable. Easily accessible trail networks have longterm effects on communities, expanding environments and imaginations of generations of riders to come.

Before turning around, I take one more good long look up the road at the soon-to-be-open trails near Gunnison and I appreciate ever more the organizations like IMBA and the individuals who are working diligently to preserve and expand vital trail access. In doing so, they have given us the freedom to imagine, and a future in which to do it.

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Just as he has done with designing his buildings, which balance light, energy use and the beauty of materials, Brian Fuentes has managed to build his life around sustainable architecture, human-powered transportation and the simple joy of riding and racing his bicycle in the mountains.

A professional mountain bike racer, Fuentes has won three Colorado American Cycling Association (ACA) mountain bike championships, the Boulder Short Track Series and the Winter Park Series. But he is also a successful self-employed green architect who’s been car-free since 2003.

Learning From the Pros As a teenager, this third-generation Colorado native with Spanish roots was a premier-level soccer player and track athlete. In 1990, when his soccer team traveled to Steamboat, Colo., for a tournament, he rented a mountain bike to tour the mountain. His ride started a lifelong addiction.

“I had one thought,” Fuentes, now 33, says of that first ride. “This is simply awesome.” The ride led to his first bike, a Rockhopper, and he then upgraded to a Stumpjumper with the Manitou 1 fork. “That fork is still hanging on my porch. I won the Thunder Valley race series in ’93 on that fork and beat Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski,” he says with pride.

The next year Fuentes traveled to Arizona for the Cactus Cup, where he placed dead frickin’ last in the junior experts. “I was a mess. I crashed in every race, including the Fatboy Crit.

Everybody was yelling at me to stay away from them. I had blood everywhere and stuck to the sheets for weeks,” he says.

Fuentes improved rapidly, learning from his competition and the people in the sport.

“My first sponsor, Mo Ory from Mojo Wheels, helped me with equipment and advice,” Fuentes says. “Jeremy HorganKobelski has been one of my biggest influences since I was a kid. His attention to detail, focus, preparation and commitment are unbelievable.”

In 1997 and 1998, Fuentes rode for the Thomson Seatpost team and got to see mountain bike racing at the national level.

He was a force in the expert class, with podium places at the NORBA Nationals, wins at local races in Oregon and Colorado and even the top 19–24 expert spot in the World Cup at Vail.

“The Thomson years really helped me form as a racer. We raced all over the country, in all types of conditions, and I got to see up close how great racers, like Brian Hludzinski, Miranda Briggs and Cristina Begy prepared for their events,” he says.

Begy remembers Fuentes in those years as a messy kid with unbelievable talent.

“He and I were kindred spirits. We were complete junk shows, barely getting all our shit together before a race and then rushing to the start before the gun went off. His bike never worked right, and he lost his shoes on at least two occasions before races,” Begy says. “But he’d always pull it off, pass a ton of guys and end up doing amazing.”

In 2000, after finishing the University of Oregon’s

Shawn Lortie

Brian Fuentes unveils some 21st century technology that was temporarily housed in a barn built over 100 years ago. The pro mountain bike racer builds his life around sustainable architecture.

architecture program, Fuentes returned to Colorado to work in an architecture firm in Denver.

He continued to race and won the Colorado ACA championships for three years in a row. Corky Grimm of Green Mountain Sports in Lakewood has sponsored Fuentes for more than 10 years.

“Brian is one of those guys who never seems to train and still wins state championships,” Grimm says. “He is incredibly fast. Just don’t let him work on your bike.”

Building a Career and a Team In 2001, Fuentes started his own business and sponsored his own cycling team, both named fuentesdesign.

“Fuentesdesign is a natural architectural firm that strives to create unique buildings that are a net positive for the owner, the community and the environment,” Fuentes says. Fuentesdesign reuses lumber, stone, bricks and blocks where appropriate and buys new materials from recycled sources whenever possible.

His business has worked on more than 60 projects in the last eight years, including award-winning remodels and new construction around Boulder and Denver.

In addition to working on projects on the Front Range, Fuentes is building his own house to meet the ideals and technology of a net-zero energy home. The energy-efficient straw bale structure will be situated on the site for optimum cooling, heating and light, and produce enough solar energy to 13

sell electricity back to the utility company during times of peak load.

His cycling team has helped launch some big names in mountain bike riding, including Yuki Saito, Nick Ranno, Chris Jung and Eszter Horanyi, the current 24-Hour National Champion. An important part of the team’s success has been the long-term partnership with Walt Wehner of Waltworks Bicycles. Wehner and Fuentes met in 2003 and instantly formed a relationship that has helped them as riders, entrepreneurs and people.

“I met Brian at a late-night party,” Wehner says, “and since he needed to get to the next morning’s Winter Park race, I offered him a ride. We bonded over cheap cinnamon rolls, Handel’s Messiah and unexpected mutual friends. Then we took the podium spots at the race. Not a bad introduction.”

Toyota or Colnago?

These days Fuentes is riding his bike to construction sites, meetings with bankers and coffee with clients.

“I’ve had one car in my life, a ratty 1986 Toyota pickup for two years while I worked construction. When it died, I thought, ‘I could get a car or a Colnago with Campy 10.’ So I got the Colnago,” Fuentes says. So far, only one client has been turned off by an architect without a car.

Part of living car-free is choosing your hometown, which for Fuentes is Boulder because he can train, race and commute to work all from his home. “Not many other towns can provide all that my lifestyle requires,” he says.

Fuentes peers out the window of the old barn on his property as the steel beams for the new structure next to the barn are being welded together.

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The logistics of going car-free are not always simple, but Fuentes has worked it out. He doesn’t schedule meetings on snowy days, takes a backpack everywhere to carry food and other purchases, has memorized the bus schedule for business trips outside of Boulder and carpools to out-of-town cycling events, usually with the Dale’s Pale Ale/Spot Brand team or the YetiBeti women’s team.

Fuentes’ choices have earned him respect from the country’s fastest mountain bike racer, Horgan-Kobelski. “I am particularly impressed with his ability to run his business and life car-free,” Horgan-Kobelski says. “He’s done a great job of creating a lifestyle that allows him to have an enjoyable racing career, while simultaneously running a successful business.”

Fuentes also uses commuting to augment his training. “I ride 45 to 60 minutes every day while commuting. It’s all start and stop, burst of speed riding,” he says. “I like to think that I’m just like the old Boulder/Denver Couriers team that was so fast when I was a kid.”

When Fuentes speaks, two words that feature prominently are respect and balance. As he talks about the 2008 Mountain States Cup at Angel Fire, when he caught Ross Schnell on the last climb, only to watch Schnell sprint past him in a blur at the finish, you can hear how much respect he has for other riders.

For Fuentes, both cycling and architecture are art forms that involve finding the right balance, either literally or metaphorically, between strength, energy, light and equipment.

Fuentes works to find equilibrium every day in his own life, and for many who know him, he is the quintessential Rocky Mountain cyclist.

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Kyle Mears drops the 14.4-mile Porcupine Rim Trail, one of Moab’s iconic rides, which is sandwiched between Wilderness areas and was originally included in a proposed Wilderness bill. Mountain bikers negotiated a simple solution to shift the wilderness boundary and exclude the trail from the proposal, thus keeping it open to bikers.

Anne Keller

Are Cyclists’ Attitudes Changing?

by Trina Ortega Ashley Korenblat was president of the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) for nearly 10 years, and she admits she spent a lot of time keeping the “wilderness issue” off the board meeting agendas. It was a waste of time and had no resolution.

On every other type of land, mountain bikers had slowly but surely proved the value of their constituency, but wilderness was a different beast. A wilderness bill would come into play and all of sudden it was difficult to know what to do: Support land conservation values and give up mountain biking access?

Or fight tooth and nail to keep every acre from becoming a designated Wilderness Area?

“Some bikers say that because bikes are not allowed in wilderness, IMBA should always be against wilderness,” Korenblat explained.

If mountain bikers are going to save the trails from the growing threat of the extractive industries, she believes they have to evolve. And to do that, cyclists must shift their attitudes and collaborate with wilderness advocates to protect public lands. In her mind, getting behind wilderness proposals may be 16

the only way to save the trails.

“The country’s need for oil is bigger than your need for a bike ride,” she says. “We need to protect the trails from resource extraction.”

In response to these threats, Korenblat has come out in support of a major Utah wilderness proposal, stating that it’s the only way to save some of the world-renowned mountain biking trails in the southern part of the state. She calls it her personal “wilderness evolution.”

This shift in attitude comes at a time when sweeping wilderness proposals are coming into play in the Rocky Mountain States. Many mountain bikers have experienced the let-down of getting to a ride and seeing a “Trail Closed” sign.

Imagine this: You go out for that ride and the trail is gone entirely because it now serves as a tailing pond for a molybdenum mine (a true battle playing out in Crested Butte, Colo.) or has been turned into a wide road with oil and gas trucks rumbling down it (a possibility on some of Utah’s iconic Moab-area routes).

Imagine an overnight cycling trip where you stop to camp

and a natural gas well hums through the night (a reality along the epic Maah Daah Hey Trail in North Dakota).

In the current push to protect more public land, wilderness groups are crafting legislation, acreage is being added and lobbyists are at work wooing the politicians. The Wilderness Society alone has a host of congressional bills under consideration in the Rocky Mountain area, and the group is currently working on legislation in seven states (see sidebar).

Roll in additional wilderness proposals from other national organizations, state and local entities, senators and representatives, and the totals are huge and ambitious.

Do mountain bikers need to be up in arms and oppose every acre proposed for wilderness protection? IMBA and other cyclists are starting to say “no.” Do they need to pay attention, participate in discussions about the proposals, pay member dues to their IMBA-supported cycling clubs, even get out into these actual areas and study and map the proposed areas? Yes. Korenblat believes cyclists have to prove to wilderness advocates that they care about the land. With common goals and a shared respect for the earth, this new idea is emerging that both sides can work together to protect singletrack and the land.

Wilderness organizations spend millions on lobbying and marketing and have many individual supporters. But they also have plenty of folks who are against them.

“What they need is more people from the middle to support their bills, and that’s why they need us. Some of them realize they need a lot of friends to pass a wilderness bill. In most cases, they’re seeing it’s worth it,” Korenblat said.

For Korenblat, one of those “friends” is the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), which crafted America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act to permanently protect more than 9 million acres of wilderness-quality land in Utah.

Utah Congressman Wayne Owens originally introduced the bill 20 years ago, and it finally had its first congressional hearing in October 2009. Korenblat, with IMBA’s support, has been at the table with SUWA and the Utah Wilderness Coalition for more than 12 years, working to shape the bill with mountain bikers’ interests in mind. IMBA has conducted three statewide inventories of current and potential mountain bike trails in the proposed wilderness units.

IMBA has successfully negotiated for continued access to Porcupine Rim, Amasa Back, Slickrock and dozens of other Moab rides and continues to work with the wilderness groups to protect bike access for important trails, including Lower Porcupine, Bar M and Gold Bar Rim. “It’s important for people to be open and not have a kneejerk reaction to a wilderness proposal,” said Liz Thomas, a Moab-based field attorney for SUWA. “Ashley [Korenblat] and SUWA saw an opportunity to work together to get mountain bike support for the Red Rocks bill, and it’s important to have a broad spectrum of supporters for any legislation to get it through.”

In her work with the alliance, Korenblat has unrolled maps, hit the trail, talked with SUWA representatives about barren noman’s lands and redrawn some lines to find agreeable outcomes,

including the plan to keep access open on the famously technical and scenic Porcupine Rim, east of Moab.

The 14.4-mile route, one of Moab’s iconic rides sandwiched between wilderness areas, was originally included in SUWA’s bill.

SUWA worked with mountain bikers on a simple but carefully thought-out solution to shift the wilderness boundary and exclude the trail from the wilderness proposal, thus keeping it open to bikers. To complement boundary adjustments, IMBA recommended the creation of National Conservation Areas and a new idea to establish non-motorized corridors between wilderness units to add lasting protection without jeopardizing bicycle access.

The intent of both organizations is to preserve these portions of the Colorado Plateau—which is also popular with natural gas permit holders—from impending development.

Thomas says that working with the mountain biking community has resulted in successful compromise: Wilderness proponents flexed on boundaries and mountain bikers relinquished routes that lack quality riding (those that cliff out or travel up long sandy washes, for example).

This crazy notion of working together is getting a second look from players in other states, as well.

In Colorado, the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act, which would protect more than 61,000 acres of public lands in the southwestern part of the state, has been so popular because it was the result of a rigorous collaborative process involving all stakeholders.

IMBA’s communications manager, Mark Eller, names Colorado’s act for the San Juans and an Arizona wilderness proposal as examples in which mountain bikers have gotten to offer their two cents and propose some of the concepts from the “IMBA Toolbox,” including the protection of lands as National Conservation Areas and National Protection Areas.

“These are companion designations that can fit in next to a wilderness designation. That way mountain bikers still get beautiful, pristine places to ride that are protected from extraction,” Eller said.

This idea has been convincing enough for town leaders in Breckenridge, Colo., to say they will not consider wilderness proposals that do not also include companion designations.

“It’s really fair to say that IMBA and IMBA clubs have much better strategies in place now than we have ever had before.

We’re seeing good results,” Eller said. “We’re seeing much more receptive audiences to the idea that wilderness is not a one-sizefits-all approach. There is also no longer a need for mountain bikers to oppose every acre of wilderness proposed.”

Back in Utah, Korenblat is hopeful her story of evolution will serve as an example to wilderness advocates and mountain bikers throughout the country. The two groups must sit at the table, talk and ultimately support each other.

She laughs when asked if she’s an idealist, saying: “I think you have to do more than cast your vote. You have to write a check and go to a few meetings. I don’t mean to be idealistic; I just mean to be practical. The way things have worked out in Utah, I think that it can work out in other places.”

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Wilderness Proposals:

What’s At Stake A change in leadership on Capitol Hill often spurs an onslaught of new legislative proposals. Wilderness proponents are among those vying for new successes on the federal level.

In some regions, mountain bikers are starting to work with wilderness advocates toward the shared goal of protecting land while preserving bicycle access. Among the largest wilderness advocacy groups is The Wilderness Society, which has congressional bills under consideration in these six states.

Colorado—61,000 acres of wilderness in the San Juan Mountains outside of Telluride.

Idaho—300,000 acres of alpine forests and lakes in the Boulder-White Clouds region.

Montana—670,000 acres of wilderness in the Rockies.

New Mexico—259,000 acres of wilderness in the rugged Organ Mountains outside Las Cruces and another 100,000 acres protected as a National Conservation Area. In the northern part of the state, places like Ute Mountain and the Rio Grande Gorge are up for protection.

Nevada—A bill, expected to be introduced in 2010, would protect 200,000 acres in the Gold Butte area, two hours east of Las Vegas and home to a rich variety of Native American archaeological sites, the desert tortoise and the only pocket of Arizona cypress in Nevada.

Utah—Wilderness and wildlands bills (also headed to Washington, D.C., in 2010) in a number of counties in southern Utah’s world-famous canyon country.

Colorado—The Hidden Gems wilderness proposal (currently in the works) would protect 400,000 acres of forests and meadows in the White River National Forest in the central portion of the state.

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Montana cyclists navigate their own technical wilderness issues

by Trina Ortega

Montana cyclists are finding that navigating land protection issues is a lot like picking your way down a technical section of trail: you have to choose your line carefully, stay alert, not ride the brakes too hard, maintain balance and commit.

As if it weren’t difficult enough to get involved in the public process of land management decisions, access issues in Montana are getting bogged down by a new 600,000-acre wilderness proposal, impending Forest Service policies and unresolved lawsuits filed by wilderness organizations. And they’re all coming to a head at the same time.

Unlike other states in the Rocky Mountain region, where cyclists are starting to see some success in working with wilderness proponents and land managers, mountain bikers in Big Sky Country may not see success in saving their trails.

“We’re starting to realize there’s a fairly concerted effort, either directly or indirectly, aimed at bicycle access,” says Bob Allen of the Montana Mountain Bike Alliance (MMBA). “It’s crazy … that we get put in an adversarial position with other conservationists when we should be on the same page. It’s frustrating. We do want our lands protected, permanently protected.”

The state’s prime backcountry singletrack, along with access to other existing trails, is what mountain bikers say is at risk with the numerous changes coming down the pike.

“Those trails are places where people find their souls; places that lead to nowhere,” says Estela Villaseñor Allen, Allen’s wife.

The two helped found MMBA in 2006 and have been working hard to keep track of the “wilderness wave” washing over their soil. One of the major issues that even the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) fears will have national repercussions is the U.S. Forest Service’s new policy to ban bicycles from Recommended Wilderness Areas.

“It’s creating a different type of wilderness but it’s as permanent as something passed by Congress,” says Villaseñor Allen.

At stake in Montana is 1,200 miles of singletrack that cyclists have ridden for decades. IMBA has joined MMBA in meeting with forest managers at the grassroots level to consider other options, as well as talking with high-ranking U.S. Department of Agriculture officials in Washington, D.C. “If that were to become a Forest Service-wide policy, that bikes must be removed from recommended wilderness, it could affect all the states. From coast to coast, it’s a threat. We’re really not going to walk away from that one,” says Mark Eller, IMBA’s communications manager.

The Allens and other Montana cyclists have been attempting to participate in the dialogue about mountain bike access but in seeking compromise, they say land managers and wilderness advocates have not budged.

Jason Durgin rides on a trail in the Hyalite drainage south of Bozeman, Mont. The trail, located in the Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area, could be closed to bicycles in the future.

Bob Allen

In the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in the southwestern part of the state, for example, roughly 400 miles of trails will be closed under the Forest Service’s new policy and proposed wilderness legislation from Sen. Jon Tester. MMBA made the case to keep open 70 miles of existing singletrack and got behind the remaining closures, but the group’s efforts have been fruitless.

“In our eyes, we’re making compromises …” says Allen, with Villaseñor Allen completing his sentence, “… that are for the land; we’re willing to do that. At same time, the little we’re asking for is being denied.”

The MMBA has proposed boundary adjustments to include popular trails and alternate designations (to allow for mountain bikes but not motorized use) and has promoted those options as solutions that would enhance the proposed wilderness areas. But when wilderness organizations are charged with permanently protecting the land via congressionally designated wilderness, “anything less than wilderness is a failure,” Allen says. “It makes true compromise difficult to attain.”

MMBA name the High Divide Trails Agreement as a success that could be modeled elsewhere. That 18-month process saw Montana cyclists join forces with wilderness advocates, equestrians and other groups to craft a collaborative proposal for backcountry lands. The agreement included lands to be supported for wilderness designation and those to be

protected for quiet recreation, including mountain biking.

According to Chris Ryan, the Forest Service’s regional program leader for wilderness, rivers and outfitters, the new policy to ban bikes is not in place yet but will happen within the next two years. It will affect about 1.3 million acres out of 9 million, all of which are Roadless Areas, undeveloped public land identified by the Forest Service that meets the minimum criteria for wilderness consideration under the Wilderness Act. “All of the areas that are recommended will eventually be closed to motorized and mechanized travel. It will be done through the travel planning process over the next couple of years. The public has been involved every inch of the way,” Ryan says, adding that Forest Service management plans take years to develop.

“You probably wouldn’t find an agency that encourages more public comment. We work with all these different user groups to try to come to an agreement,” she says. “It’s been really good to hear from [mountain bikers] because … it’s never really dawned on me that what they want is quiet trails.”

On the plus side, the myriad land use issues have unified mountain bikers in the state.

“Because of all of that, it’s really brought to the forefront to mountain bikers how important it is to be a citizen mountain biker. It’s not enough to have an opinion; you have to put it into action,” says Villaseñor Allen, whose organization now includes 750 members.

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THE DAY I RODE ’em ALL

Gregory Luck

11:15 p.m., Denny’s Diner, Moab: After more than 18 hours on the bike and years of obsessing about and finally completing my personal goal and overcoming my back injury to ride the Moab Centurion, I can hardly wait these final few minutes for what will be the best cheeseburger of my life.

by Landon Monholland

It’s 4:30 a.m.

on an October morning, and it’s raining. I’m attempting a ride known as the Moab Centurion: more than 100 miles of Moab’s classic trails ridden in one day.

I’ve been obsessed with this goal for more than five years. The idea took root during the darkest days of my life, days in which I could only lie in bed, my broken back throbbing and a searing pain extending down my legs.

On this morning, I pedal out of Moab with that distinct, distant memory still sharp in my mind. It’s the catalyst that will drive me for the next 18 hours. I mutter my mantra for the day: Ride ’em all.

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Gregory Luck

It’s 6:30 a.m., two hours into the ride known as the Moab Centurion, more than 100 miles of Moab’s trails in one day, at mile 16: My friend Keith and I start the Porcupine Rim Trail. Five years spent recovering from a devastating back injury, and I’m feeling strong at the beginning of this goal that I’ve obsessed over for years. We begin the long climb toward High Anxiety Point with hours of riding yet to go.

I’m excited to finally be under way. As I ride out of town away from my wife, Mary, and support crew, and the road tilts upward, I focus on keeping my pace well below “easy.” I want to be a tortoise today, to keep it slow, steady and consistent.

When I first attempted this ride two years ago, I didn’t finish. I had ridden for 17 hours, yet still lacked 25 off-road miles over some of the toughest terrain imaginable. I have no delusions that today’s ride will be easier; it’s going to be the most brutal, painful thing I have ever voluntarily attempted.

But I’ve chosen to do this; I never chose to break my back.

I moved to Moab in 2004 to pursue my dreams of riding and working in “the Mecca.” I quickly progressed from Midwest cross-country guy to Moab downhill huckster. I went from being scared to death of a 1-foot drop to finishing at the top of our local races in a matter of two months. I competed at the first Moab Halloween Huckfest and was the first person to ever drop a motorcycle off of the famous Mushroom Drop.

To progress that quickly, I crashed a ton. My crash in the backyard of a friend’s house is still known to this day as “the noise.” My body made such a sound as I landed that people still talk about it. The discs in my back squished, or herniated, as

my vertebrae compressed. One X-ray shows a piece of vertebrae very close to my spinal column. That was the day the doctor said, “You take a few more falls, and you are going to finish severing that spinal chord.” His scare tactic saved my life.

I reach Slick Rock Trail, one of the most famous mountain bike trails. I’m glad to be off the road, onto something more brain engaging. It’s very dark yet, the rain has stopped, the air is misty and thick. I veer from the painted dots to avoid climbs and reconnect with them on the other side as the trail winds through the maze of petrified sand dunes. I’ve spent years leading visitors out here and use this familiarity to my advantage, wasting as little time and energy as possible.

With my first trail finished, I climb higher, back on the road. I’ve dreaded this portion so much I planned the whole ride around it. It’s 10 miles and about 3,000 feet of relatively easy climbing. A free rider at heart, I loathe steady pedaling.

I need the mental stimulation of rocks, drops and cliffs with speed to keep me entertained.

I arrive at the Porcupine Rim Trail. My buddy, Keith, is going to ride the next stretch with me. He knows how hard I’ve trained and knows the rules: if he has a mechanical, a flat tire or 23

moab centurion

simply can’t keep up, I will leave him. It’s not my style; it’s a fact of today’s endeavor.

It’s still dark, but daylight is not far from us. As we climb the ledges, a glow begins to creep behind the La Sal Mountains.

At the top, I quickly down an energy gel and watch the clouds boil in front of the peaks and the sun illuminate them from behind.

This legendary trail dips down, and I say goodbye to my friend. I’m on a mission and ripping this gnarly descent is where I can make time. As I fly over the terrain, I’m glad that I’m riding a bike with more than 6 inches of travel and 32 pounds of mass. Below me, the red sandstone walls of Arches National Park are reflected in the green Colorado River. I’m finishing my second of nine trails, and I feel great.

I’m a little shocked at how quickly my first pit stop goes by.

Mary and crew are all business, feeding me, lubing my chain and filling my water pack. Then I’m back on the road again.

The excitement I felt 15 minutes ago is gone. Before me lies 12 to 14 more hours of riding. The mythical Gold Bar Rim towers above me in the morning sun. Over the next four hours, I will need to cross that monster or fall to my death. I wouldn’t be the first.

On Gold Bar’s chunky doubletrack, I encounter a string of Jeeps. Luckily they’ve all stopped to “crawl” at one particular

Gregory Luck

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8:30 a.m., four hours into my quest for more than 100 miles of Moab trails, mile 23, bottom of Porcupine Rim Trail: I’m at my second rest stop.

I get a quick bite to eat and get back on the dreaded pavement, headed for my next trail.

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12:30 p.m., eight hours in, mile 50: This is the middle of the Portal Trail. I ran out of food and nearly bonked on the most technical, and historically the deadliest, section of the whole ride.

Gregory Luck

spot and I cruise by. Ahead are people in ATVs with roofs and room for guns and beer. They exclaim how tough I am and how they can’t imagine not having a motor.

At the top of Gold Bar, I look down on the road I had ridden hours before, eat some food and remount for the most technical portion of the ride, the crossing of the rim. Seven hours into this adventure and I am beginning to fatigue. I struggle to keep my caloric intake high enough to match the demands of my body. The rim is one long technical obstacle course: a 4-foot drop, climb a 2-foot ledge, pedal, pedal, a 3-foot drop, up another ledge … repeat.

At the Portal Trail descent, my brain is foggy, and I am close to bonking. Over the last 20 years, this trail has claimed three lives. It’s scarcely 3-feet wide in spots with a 500-foot sheer cliff to the left. I stop and clear my head, ingest my last energy gel and focus.

My fuzzy head feeling disappears, and I’m loving this trail.

It’s frightening; exposed trails like this completely envelope my senses, leaving me with a sense of oneness with my bike. I ride the trail without a dab, and below me I hear my crew’s whoops and hollers as I roll into a much-needed rest stop.

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Pizza! My sweet wife brought me a pizza. I am savagely hungry and totally bonked. I’m also 45 minutes behind my estimated schedule so I have little time to enjoy this reward. I devour a third piece of pizza and remount for the next 12 road miles.

I’m half done. Only half done?! I’ve ridden 53 miles in more than nine hours, at roughly 5 mph. A dedicated friend, Tim, joins me now to pace me back into town and then to the Amasa Back Trail. His choice to spend his Saturday riding pavement with me makes me proud to know him. We chug along at a steady 12 mph, at this point, all I can muster.

On Moab’s back streets, I start to think dangerous thoughts.

I could stop, get off this torturous saddle, take a shower and be proud to have ridden a massive ride. Luckily, another rider interrups me from my wayward thoughts. It takes me a second to recognize my friend, Ross Schnell, the 2009 Single Speed World Champ and 2008’s Downieville Classic downhill winner.

He’s found me at my worst and is telling me heart-warming lies, such as “you’re riding strong” and “you’ve only got a few trails left.” When Ross peels off, Tim and I push hard toward another ridge of red Utah rock.

moab centurion

Early afternoon: I’m starting to feel the fatigue as I near the bottom of the Portal Trail. The Colorado River winds lazily in the background.

Gregory Luck

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moab centurion 28

It’s mid-afternoon now, roughly 10 hours in the saddle.

Amasa Back is before us, and I see a rider cartwheeling down the “stairs” of the trail entrance. We bound down past the poor guy spitting dirt and start up the ledge-filled rocky climb. My confidence rises as my pizza-filled stomach finally settles. My joy at being back on a trail and off the road causes me to feel downright fresh, considering the 70 miles in my legs. Near the top, Tim tells me, “Go, I can’t keep up.” And with that, I drop the hammer. The descent off of Amasa Back down to the river is a technical rider’s dream. With plenty of opportunity to fall off of a cliff, I thrive. When I bust out of the tamarisk patch at the bottom, my crew is startled. My wife is still in town getting more food for this rest stop.

The guys don’t know what to do. I not only made up the 45 minutes I was down, but I pushed ahead of schedule by 30 minutes. Just as I’m about to leave the parking lot, my wife drives up with shock written all over her face. I tell her to meet me at the bottom of the Moab Rim. The massive Moab Rim four-by-four trail is one mile long, 1,000 feet up, with a nearly continuous 21 percent grade. By now, my wife is set up and ready to do business. She makes me sit down to eat a Subway sandwich. I tell her to skip installing lights on my bike because I feel good enough that I can cross the rim in the two hours before dark.

I’ve ridden up this monstrosity before, but on this evening I simply resign to push my bike. Mary and our cattle dog, Gus, walk beside me. Mary plays messages of encouragement from friends and family on our cell phone. She’s been blogging my progress between trails and, shockingly, lots of folks are

following my progress. Despite the encouragement and my confidence, my knees are rebelling against this torture. With every step, the tops of my kneecaps ache. My resolve drives me on. Ride ’em all.

As we reach the top, I kiss my girl and pat my old dog’s head. I have yet another rim to cross, and I must get to it. Moab Rim is sandy. Since the chairlift was torn down in 2005, it has seen a lot less bike traffic but plenty of Jeeps. The scarred road across its lumpy back is freakishly hard at this point. My bike computer ticks off the 80-mile mark. I can’t celebrate because every minute is consuming my remaining energy.

The sun is sinking low, and it begins to have its fun with the alien landscape. The sandstone fins glow red as the last of the sun’s rays creep up their bony backs. To the east, a bank of clouds behind the mountains turns black. Above me, Anasazi rock drawings are pecked and painted on cliff walls. The setting sun sinks below another cloud bank to the west above the canyon wilderness.

But has the sun set? As I trudge down the un-rideable boulders of the Hidden Valley Trail, known among locals as “Barney Rubble,” sunlight suddenly explodes beneath me, reflected off of the building cloud bank. The wind picks up and when I fumble to put on a jacket, the light show underneath me switches off abruptly.

Down the cliff edge, I can see my crew waiting, but it is damn difficult to get down this 1,000-foot goat trail. My poor bike takes the abuse; I’m walking and using it as a crutch against the boulders, trying not to twist an ankle. The storm is building with a stiff wind, but for once in my life it is blowing

moab centurion

Gregory Luck

5:30-ish p.m., 13 hours in, mile 77: I suffered to the top of Moab Rim, but I am finally able to remount and ride my bike. My knees are very happy about this; my arse, not so much....

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the right way—at my back for the last road section of this ride.

I’m commanded to eat more food, given some warmer clothing and have lights attached to my bike and helmet. It’s time to start toward the final trail of this journey, Flat Pass, a trail that’s anything but flat. Keith is going to ride with me again. With the tailwind, we make record time moving south out of Moab toward Ken’s Lake.

Darkness overtakes us as we climb a gravel road. A truck with flashing lights is fast approaching. Are we being pulled over? Yep, it’s a Utah Division of Wildlife Resources officer; he’s concerned that our bike lights are being used to spotlight deer. “Little late for a bike ride?” he asks. Keith answers for me since he knows I have very few words left. “He’s on a really long bike ride. This is the last trail. He’s been riding since four this morning.” The officer looks at us like we are crazy and drives away. Keith and I speculate that I am indeed crazy.

I’m 16 hours into this and before me is a seemingly endless gravel road climb. I am greeted by my wife’s friend, Des. She hands me a chocolate chip cookie, pure caloric heaven. I munch it down and ask for another, slip it in my pack and surprise everyone by saying, “Ride ’em all” and pedal away.

Keith and I cross Mill Creek and enter the infamous sand pits of Flat Pass Trail. The sand sticks to our wet bikes, grinding and crunching. The first slickrock climb looms before me, a vertical wall in my beam of light. The second major climb destroys me. My knees ache.

I struggle to maintain enough forward movement to keep my balance. Keith’s light is now far ahead, and I fall to the rock in exhaustion, my entire body shrieking in pain. I lie there,

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moab centurion

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10:36 p.m., 18 hours and 6 minutes, mile 103.87: This was one of the most blissful, painless moments of my life. I realize five years of energy, effort GEAX MOUNTAIN FLYER.pdf 3/3/2010 11:57:02 AM and recovery are complete. I’ve done it.

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wishing I could stop and sleep for a while. But then a memory returns of when I was also unable to get up. But that time I was on my bedroom floor, and my roommates were loading me onto a door, a makeshift backboard, and putting me in the bed of a truck. After the fall at my friend’s house in 2004, I had gotten steadily worse. The discs in my back were bulging and pushing on my ciatic nerve, but this time my back muscles seized uncontrollably and threw me to the floor.

It’s cold, just like that day years ago, the wind whipping around me. Suddenly everything is black and white. Either I lie here, give up and possibly freeze, or I push out of this. I realize that completing this ride represents overcoming my injury. It was my obsession with this ride that drove me to regain fitness and mobility, and I’ll be damned if I am going to stop now.

And so I get up, push into the pain, into the ache. The more it hurts, the harder I push. I regain Keith and then begin to lead him when the trail drops into boulder-strewn madness. The Jeeps have left such scars that the drops are shockingly large.

At one point, I look back to see Keith’s light in the distance behind me. I have no intention of riding alone, so I ease up.

When he catches me, he says, “Might be a little embarrassing to get dropped after you’ve ridden for 17 hours.” We both chuckle and ride on. We are honestly having the ride of our lives, jumping and whooping, railing berms, enjoying the night.

It is at this point I know I have won; the pain and the awful mental anguish of years recovering from a debilitating spinal injury are behind me now. In four more miles, I will celebrate with my wife and friends and forever tell the story of the day I rode ’em all.

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Like a classic European flatlander, Katie Compton rides in the drops and pushes a lot of power. It’s inspiring to see a woman ride the course better than the men. With a lead already established on lap one, Compton rips down this sketchy drop at full speed.

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Photo Journal: A ’Cross Assault on the Eyes and Ears Images and words by Brian Vernor BEND, Ore.—The U.S. Cyclocross National Championships are the most unpredictable cyclocross races of the year. It’s as if the pros save their best performance for this single day.

Among the men, despite race-day favorites, any one of the top-10 ranked men in the country had a chance to win.

This year, Tim Johnson (CannondaleCyclocrossworld.com) took the title.

With less parity in the women’s field, Katie Compton (Planet Bike) was the clear favorite and proved again that she is dominant and unmatched in the women’s professional ranks.

For spectators, these races are an overwhelming assault on eyes and ears.

Thousands of crazed and possibly drunk cyclocross fans scramble around the course, madly ringing cowbells, hooting for their favorite riders, heckling the efforts of the lesser riders and waving flags (usually American, but oddly some people bring Flandrien flags).

The crazed environment isn’t lost on the racers. Ryan Trebon, this year’s Elite Men’s runner-up, said after the 2009 championships in Bend, Ore., that no previous race on U.S. soil matched the noise level during his race here.

Though the athleticism on display during the races is simply beautiful, the subject of these photographs is the environment and energy in which the races occurred. Here are racers in the midst of hyped fans and media, spectators with their flags, bells and course tape and a few details inseparable from cyclocross: melodramatic announcers, toe spikes and blood.

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Mud-spattered legs can tell us a lot about a cyclocross course. These legs suggest fine gritty soil and a course less muddy than just plain wet. The wet course in Bend, Ore., in the desert climate east of the Cascade Mountains was not the result of rain but instead melting snow.

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Most of the technical sections on the challenging course, like this off-camber traverse, became de-facto singletrack as there was only a single safe or fast line. Jeremy Powers’ first lap pace put him five seconds ahead of second place, but on lap three he lost control and crashed himself out of contention for the win.

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Dave Towle (pictured) and Richard Fries are the gravely and croaky voices of U.S. cyclocross. Spectators don’t know how these two can belt out the drama of each race for four days straight, but they manage it while adding some poetry of their own. Their phrasebook gets personal with individual nicknames for riders like Eric “The Caveman” Tonkin.

Or when it comes to the action, they sensationalize with “It’s on like Donkey Kong.” I’m not sure what that means, but in the moment it makes sense.

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The soundtrack of cyclocross suffering is the cowbell. The clanging cacophony made by thousands of cowbells follows the lead riders as they circle the course. Throughout the race, spectators can determine where on the course the lead riders are by hearing where the most bells are rung. Even if you can’t see the leaders, you can hear where they are.

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American flags were everywhere.

With two laps to go, Barry Wicks didn’t notice anything but the pounding in his chest. I think we all dream of being in the top 10 at the U.S. Cyclocross National Championships, but in reality I think it must feel really, really bad.

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A Town, a Struggling Café and the Mountain Bike Race that Saved Them

by Erin Madison

Most of the year in the small eastern Montana town of Rapelje, you’re more likely to see cattle being herded down Main Street than someone on a bicycle.

But once a year, on the weekend closest to the summer solstice, Rapelje becomes the mountain bike Mecca of Montana when it hosts the state’s only 24-hour mountain bike race.

The townspeople welcome the racers, their families and support crews with open arms, as the town swells from about 100 residents to more than 500 on race weekend. For Rapelje (pronounced RAPPLE-jay), the event is a lot more than a race; it’s the town’s lifeblood.

In 1997, a privately owned bar and café in the small town closed its doors.

The owner just couldn’t make ends meet, said fourth-generation Rapelje resident and race organizer Mike Erfle. That café, along with the church and a school so small that it partners with a neighboring town to make up a six-man football team, made up the town’s entertainment.

With the bar closed and school out for the summer, things got pretty quiet.

“This virtually became a ghost town,” he said.

Erfle’s father and other community members knew the town wouldn’t survive without the eatery, so they decided to buy the café and run it as a nonprofit. They formed a board of directors and named the café Stockman, after the bank in nearby Billings—the only bank willing to give them a loan.

The Stockman Café opened in 1998 and ran seven days a week. Only three chefs and a head waitress are paid.

Everyone else works as volunteers.

Residents happily flocked to the restaurant, but that wasn’t enough business to keep it going.

Like most rural towns in Montana and across the country, Rapelje has felt the effects of mechanized farming and increasingly large farm operations.

Modern equipment means fewer people are needed to work the land, and a 46

single farmer can buy up more acres as neighbors leave town in favor of bigger cities.

“It became readily apparent real quick we don’t have the population base to keep this open,” Erfle said.

Community members decided they needed a way to attract outsiders to the town; otherwise, they were just exchanging money among themselves.

Erfle called a friend who works in rural community development and is an avid road bike racer. He came to Rapelje and looked at the wide-open beautiful country.

“He said, ‘You could hold a bicycle race out here,’” Erfle said.

The friend’s idea was to do a 100-kilometer road race on the surrounding country roads. But an employee at a Billings bike shop suggested they make it a 24-hour mountain bike race, which the Montana racing scene was without.

Residents thought the idea was crazy, but even a crazy idea was better than watching their town dry up and disappear. Rapelje took a chance on the race. The first year, 25 to 30 people showed up.

“The next year, we got a few more,” Erfle said.

Last year brought about 200 bikers.

Once you added in their families and support, the race attracted about 400 visitors for the weekend.

This year, the 2010 24 Hours of Rapelje is tentatively set for June 26–27.

The race has become so popular that this year organizers will cap registration at 225 racers.

Rapelje is off the beaten path. It’s located on a rarely traveled highway and isn’t really on the way to or from anywhere. The town gets its strangesounding name from J. M. Rapelje, general store manager and vice president of the Northern Pacific Railway, whose line once ended there. Its location at the end of a railroad once made Rapelje

a center of trade for outlying areas, but those days have long passed.

Pulling into Rapelje, you’re now greeted by a row of grain silos and little else. The church and the café complete the small skyline.

Most of the town’s residents live on the farms that surround the town. Only a handful of houses are visible from Main Street. There’s no hotel, so most racers pitch tents in the fields just off the main drag. But unlike larger 24-hour races, camping at Rapelje is free. So are shower facilities, water and a of couple meals.

The farm town is surrounded by wheat fields, with the Beartooth Mountains and the Crazy Mountains barely visible on the horizon. Still, a 15mile course leads competitors through farm fields and along dirt roads with landmarks such as an old windmill and an abandoned barn.

“You will ride through one herd of cattle,” Erfle said.

The course changes slightly from year to year, although Jason Frank, a mountain biker from Billings and the race’s director, thinks he might have it perfected now. The 2009 course was made up of about 5 miles of dirt road and 10 miles of singletrack, or what the locals call “cow trails.” Most of the course is on private land, so it’s only open for the race. Landowners are usually more than willing to let the bike course cut across their fields, Frank said.

The majority of the course is hilly but mellow. Frank incorporates as many rocks and trees into it as possible to give the ride some technical features.

The fastest riders complete the lap in just under an hour. Riders can race solo or on teams of three or five or in the carnival class, which is up to 10 racers.

The $55 registration fee each rider pays isn’t doled out in prize money. It all goes to the café. Winners get bragging rights and an engraved paperweight, and the café gets to keep its doors open another year.

Erin Madison

“Riders looking to find lots of money or fancy prizes and press releases won’t find any here,” the registration form reads.

“The whole idea behind this is a fundraiser to keep the café going,” Erfle said. “The bike race is what keeps zus going.”

Most racers who travel to Rapelje are there for a good time, but a few teams every year race to win.

What the race lacks in prizes and prestige, it makes up for in warmth and kindness.

“The only thing we really have to offer is service and hospitality,” Erfle said.

Frank originally came to the event as a racer, but when they needed a new race director, he stepped up.

“The people who live out here are so stinking nice,” he said.

The race doubles as a sort of homecoming for the small town.

Residents who have moved away come back to help out. A band plays Saturday night while bikers and locals dance along. A volunteer crew makes pancakes at midnight and serves them until all the racers have had their fill. A dinner after the race wraps up the event.

For the town residents, it’s been fun to see the same racers come back again and again.

“We’ve done it long enough and we’ve got enough people coming back that we remember them,” Erfle said.

Edward Henry of Great Falls raced

Rapelje doesn’t have a lot of singletrack to offer, but you can find of wide variety of rides in the surrounding area—everything from slickrock cliffs to epic backcountry adventures. Here is a small sample of the fun stuff.

Rimrocks/Zimmerman Trail Billings, 66 miles from Rapelje The Rimrocks offer Moab-esque riding just minutes from Billings. The trail is actually more of a web of trails that follows along sandstone cliffs. The ride can be anywhere from easy to hard depending on your route and how you ride it.

Crystal Lake Outside Judith Gap, 74 miles from Rapelje This 11-mile loop starts at Crystal Lake and offers a steep climb before following a mellower ridgeline. At the peak of the ride, you can hike a few miles off the main trail to an ice cave. Even in the middle of summer, you’ll find ice stalagmites and stalactites inside the cave. Enjoy a long

for the sixth time last year. He’s had Rapelje residents bend over backward for him. Once they even picked him up from the Billings airport so he could get to the race in time. Henry keeps coming back because, not only is the race a fun social event, but he wants to support the town.

“We want to keep them afloat, keep their café afloat,” he said.

Last year the local church got involved in race weekend and held a kids’ carnival.

“The bike race has just been a great thing for town,” said Brent Nymeyer, pastor of the Rapelje Evangelical Church. “The town all pulls together to make it happen.”

He’s not sure where Rapelje would be without its café.

“The café is one of the huge social hubs,” said Nymeyer, whose wife bakes all of the pies for the eatery.

Despite its success, the race doesn’t keep residents from leaving town.

Rapelje still loses a few people every year, Erfle said.

“We’re still seeing an exodus of people,” he said.

But as long as the small town can maintain its church, school and café, with the help of a couple hundred mountain bikers, it will remain on the map.

downhill, with a few switchbacks and scree fields, before ending back at the lake.

Bangtail Divide Outside Bozeman, 120 miles from Rapelje This trail is an epic 22-mile singletrack ride with spectacular views.

Beartooth Loop Outside Red Lodge, 70 miles from Rapelje This is about as real as it gets. A 15-mile ride into serious grizzly bear country. Perfect for the outdoor adventurer.

For more ride ideas, stop into one of the following Billings bike shops: Spoke Shop 1910 Broadwater Ave. 406.656.8342 spokeshop.com

The Bike Shop 1934 Grand Ave. 406.652.1202 bikeshopbillings.com

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[valley of the sun] Kevin Taddonio (Tribe Multisport/Quintana Roo) of Phoenix works up a sweat in the warm February sun during the 18th annual Valley of the Sun time trial in Buckeye, Ariz., about 30 miles west of Phoenix. Taddonio captured a fourth place in the Senior Men 4 time trial and 12th overall in his category after all three stages of the early season event.

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James E. Rickman

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[valley of the sun] The first half of the Senior Professional Men’s criterium might have seemed reminiscent of hometown traffic to Mike Mathis (Empire Cycling Team/CRCA), who traveled all the way from Rochester, N.Y., to participate in the Valley of the Sun stage race. The trip out west paid off for the 25-year-old cyclist with a sixth place overall finish among the pros.

Valley of the Sun Offers no Place to Hide PHOENIX, Ariz.—While Jonathan Chodroff, a new addition to this year’s Jelly Belly/Kenda team, came back to the annual Valley of the Sun stage race to snag top honors for the second year in a row, Chodroff’s former teammate, Floyd Landis, formerly of Team Ouch but wearing the team’s kit nevertheless, made a stealth appearance at two of the event’s three venues.

Meanwhile, without last year’s women’s winner Amanda Miller in attendance, Carmen Small (Colavita/Baci/Cooking Light) slid into the winner’s spot after an exciting three days of racing among the sun and saguaros that make the Valley of the Sun a popular early season event.

The Day 1 time trial convened on a side road in the scrub west of Phoenix and downwind of the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, which sent steam clouds resembling distant thunderheads roiling straight up into the warm, dry air. Expectant racers warmed up leisurely on trainers under the serene ceiling of cobalt blue sky that dominated the flat landscape. Around the edges of the parking area, whispers of Landis’ impending appearance rustled through the mesquite.

Many had heard that the former Tour de France racer was riding, but most had no idea when.

Just before 3 p.m., Landis, sporting scruffy ginger facial hair and a slick black aero helmet, rolled out of the starting chute 50

James E. Rickman

on his way to what must have been a disappointing 22nd place.

The effort put Landis 2 minutes and 53 seconds behind former team chum Chodroff, who completed the 14.2-mile out-andback course in 28:35, just 49 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Luis Amaran (Jamis/Sutter Home/Colavita). Amaran would prove to be a pesky competitor for Chodroff throughout the rest of the weekend.

On the other side of the gender gap, Small finished second in the time trial, 4 seconds behind the day’s winner, Molly Van Houweling (Metromint), who completed the solo test in 33:09.

During the next day’s road race, on a 16.4-mile triangle of roads located some 50 miles south of Phoenix, a thick white haze dominated the landscape. The smog significantly reduced sight distance along the course and left a palpable taste in the mouths of spectators and riders. Professional men choked out 89 miles on the circuit, while pro women contended with 57 miles. Nicky Wangsgard (Roosters/Edge Composite), Jane Robertson (Metromint) and Small finished in the top three, respectively. The finish put Small into first place overall, with a 2-second lead on Van Houweling, who finished seventh in the road race.

On the men’s side, Eric Marcotte (Team Pista Palace), Andrew Talansky (California Giant/Specialized) and Amaran

[valley of the sun] Warming up for the Valley of the Sun time trial becomes a family affair for Sean Fessenden (Canyon Bicycles). Fessenden traveled from outside Salt Lake City with his wife and two boys, Zach and Clark, who found a way to amuse themselves during what probably seemed like an eternal waiting period before dad’s ride.

James E. Rickman

finished one, two, and three, respectively. Chodroff finished ninth in the road race but managed to maintain a slim 43-second lead over Amaran going into the criterium on Day 3.

Landis finished 49th out of the 55 pro men in the road race and evaporated from the rest of the event without fanfare. Two days after the race, Landis would be issued an arrest warrant by a French judge for allegedly hacking into a computer system belonging to a French anti-doping lab. Landis continues to deny the charge. For many people, the ensuing speculation about the strange turn of events quickly bloomed into bigger news than the results of the race itself.

But during the final day’s criterium, memories of Landis’ clandestine participation seemed to disappear like the previous day’s smog. The criterium course was a speedy 1-mile, hourglass-shaped circuit around the Arizona State Capitol in downtown Phoenix. Among pro women, the criterium was a potential cliffhanger. Small held an uncomfortably slim 2-second margin over Van Houweling, putting the overall win clearly up for grabs.

With all categories of women starting at the same time, the pace was furious and the pack of riders dense. Thankfully, the pro women saw no crashes or pileups like the kind that occurred earlier in the day during the Senior Category 4 men’s

race. When all was said and done, Small finished fourth behind Wangsgard, Ryan Kendall (VRC NOW-MS Society) and Jessica Fernanda (UACH, Chihuahua); Van Houweling finished 30th, preserving victory for Small and garnering a second-place overall finish for herself.

About halfway into the pro men’s crit, Amaran provided some drama by breaking away from the pack at a furious pace.

Race leader Chodroff had been riding conservatively in the middle of the pack, but once Amaran increased his lead to 15 seconds, Chodroff sprung into action and rallied others for a chase. Several laps later, Amaran was reeled back in.

Chodroff rode at the tail end of the pack for much of the rest of the race.

At race’s end, Cole House (BMC) hammered to the front of the pack and crossed the line first. Chodroff finished 41st out of the 54-rider field, but took overall honors by 37 seconds, leaving Amaran in second place and Marcotte in third.

Afterward Chodroff, who participated in the event as a guest rider for Bicycle Häus, complimented Amaran’s efforts in the event. The 24-year-old winner said the event was a nice warm-up for spring training camp with his new teammates at Jelly Belly and for his busy schedule of upcoming races, including the Tour of Taiwan and Tour of Korea. –J. Rickman 51

[24 hours in the old pueblo] Riding among a forest of painful plants, Dan Hiris is framed by a cholla skeleton as he big-wheels it through a smooth section of doubletrack.

While 26-inch wheels dominate the field, the course at the Old Pueblo begs to be ridden on a 29er. Hiris and his team, Nutlab, completed 15 laps.

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[24 hours in the old pueblo]

Prickly Pear and Jumping Chollas Welcome Racers to New Season

Brian Leddy

ORACLE, Ariz.—Love was in the air during this year’s Valentine’s Day weekend.

The latest incarnation of the Kona Bikes 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo near Tucson, Ariz., left many racers with love in their hearts, but it wasn’t that warm fuzzy feeling you get from seeing your significant other.

It was love of dirt, desert, sweat, sun, sky and cactus; love of rubber buzzing across singletrack; love of staying up late and pushing your body to the limits; love of fast and fun trails; but most importantly, it was the love of being there.

“It’s a fun course and a great event.

It seems like it improves by little notches every year,” said Matt Poirier, a racer from Flagstaff, Ariz., who has been coming for the past seven years.

A grassroots race, the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo takes place among vast stands of prickly pear, jumping cholla and barrel cactus with razor sharp spines. If you’re not careful, one of these wicked species of cacti are likely to jump up and bite you, but that’s what makes the course so interesting.

“It’s exciting terrain, not super technical, but with the cactus it was a bit scary. I’m glad I didn’t biff it,” said Thorsten Schwander of Santa Fe, N.M. For many racers, the appeal of this event comes from the fact that both first-timers and seasoned pros can race alongside each other. Not many races can make that claim.

“You can camp right on the course,” Zach Smith said. “We’ve got the freeway going right through our campsite.”

Now in its 11th year, the race has come a long way since its first run in 2000.

“Eleven years ago we started with 176 racers and now this year we’re at 1,700. We’re one of the biggest mountain bike races in the country, if 53

[24 hours in the old pueblo] Ligia Ford negotiates the tricky rock drop that presents itself near the end of the course just as night sets in.

Brian Leddy

not the world,” race promoter Todd Sadow said. “This race has evolved as a mountain bike destination; 40 percent of the people who come to this race are from outside Arizona and the country.”

Among the Old Pueblo’s many unique characteristics, each year the race is dedicated to an individual who has made a significant contribution to mountain biking. Past races have honored Keith Bontrager, Richard Cunningham, Mark Flint and Dave Wiens.

“The whole intention is for people to have the opportunity to meet someone behind the name; they don’t usually get to do that,” Sadow said.

In an environment where flats on the trail are a constant concern, it comes as no surprise that this year’s race paid special tribute to the man who made flats a thing of the past. When Stan “No Tubes” Koziatek introduced his revolutionary tubeless wheel conversion kit, he changed mountain bike wheels forever.

“Stan didn’t just raise the bar, he created the bar. He’s an 54

innovator,” Sadow said.

This year’s top rider was Anthony White, who came all the way from Cambridge, England, to finish with 17 laps in the Solo Male category. White also raced last year, but ended up not finishing after technical errors held him back.

“I wanted to come back and cement errors I made the year before,” he said, which he did by besting his nearest competitor by a full lap.

Other notable finishes include Windy Marks rolling home with 13 laps in the Solo Female category, Michael Melley completing 17 laps in the Solo Singlespeed Male category and Karen Rishel in Solo Singlespeed Female category with 13 laps.

While at the end of the day, the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo is an intense race and the competition tight, the mood is always fun and friendly.

“This race is quite laid back. I think the vibe is great; it’s a mixture of fun and hard-core racing,” White said.

–Brian Leddy

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[24 hours in the old pueblo] Lane Sanders catches the last rays of light as he takes off for a sunset lap. Sanders and his team, Thiele’s Automotive, completed an impressive 20 laps for an 11th place finish.

Brian Leddy

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[el paso puzzler]

Chris Oaxaca

El Paso Puzzler Even the Rocks are Bigger in Texas EL PASO, Texas—Rocks, rocks and more rocks piled higher ’n a plate of Tex Mex nachos on a 50-mile long platter; these rocks were the big concern for many who traveled from smoother parts of the country to piece together their early season fitness and vie for a decent finish at the 2010 El Paso Puzzler in mid-January.

One of the most popular questions at packet pickup was where to find the nearest bike shop, as many people found their cross-country tires to be quite scary on the terrain. Did we say it was rocky?

In spite of the gnarly terrain, 140 riders showed up for the third annual El Paso Puzzler 50-mile marathon cross-country race and were treated to perfect weather and better-than-usual trail conditions. Riders were welcomed by surprisingly tacky trails with a few frozen spots on the highest pass due to a record number of recent snowstorms in El Paso, Texas.

Before setting off, people took notice of the warning display showing air cartridges and Slime tubes tied to the registration tent, and it paid off. Race director Brent Sanders said fewer than 20 percent of this year’s competitors DNF’d compared to almost 40 percent in previous editions.

Durango, Colo.-based rider Travis Brown showed up on a 120 mm travel Trek Fuel with some super-awesome-looking 2.4-inch tires. His 58

Travis Brown gets a taste of Texas-sized rocks on the Hitt Canyon Trail during the 2010 El Paso Puzzler.

Brown often finds his way to the pages of Mountain Flyer; we don’t necessarily look for him, he just turns up because he’s always out there stealthily racing— often all in black—and testing product for Trek Bicycles.

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friend Kenny When, another Durango rider who road-tripped from the snowy north, stopped by a local bike shop for new tires after a pre-ride.

Winner Evan Plews rode on worn-out tires with extra sealant.

Plews, coming off double pneumonia just before the holidays, went on to take the win in 4:38 with Brown about 4 minutes back. Cameron Brenneman moved into third position after pushing a 32x19 on his 29er singlespeed. Beto Villegas and Sam Gallegos rounded out the top five.

In the women’s race, local Susanne Rasmussen took the win in 6:24 with singlespeeder Paula Bohte of Sierra Vista, Ariz., coming through in second. Alex Castro (El Paso) was the top finisher in the shorter 35-mile men’s event, and Diana Almeida (El Paso) took the women’s 35-miler.

The Puzzler celebrated the hard work of the Borderland Mountain Bike Association (BMBA). The bike group helped complete a new 3-mile section of singletrack in difficult desert terrain, allowing the race to stay completely inside Franklin Mountains State Park. Some racers had enough energy to notice the McLeods and mattocks still stashed on the side of the new switchbacks at the north end of the course.

This new trail, currently called the Hitt Canyon Trail, connects a truly epic loop around the northern portion of the Franklins. In its shortest route, the loop covers 24 miles of some of the rockiest terrain in the state. The BMBA put together 50 miles with only about six of them repeated in the same direction.

Puzzler profits are contributing to a major project of signing and officially naming the trails in the park, the largest urban state park in the United States. Test your skills and fitness next year on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend for the fourth edition of what is being billed as the toughest (and rockiest) race in Texas. –David Wilson 60

Mike Rossen rides the Hitt Canyon Trail. This new trail connects a truly epic loop around the northern portion of the Franklin Mountains. In its shortest route, the loop covers 24 miles of some of the rockiest terrain in the state.

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By Jill Janov Old Route 66 through Tijeras Canyon east of Albuquerque has been an important thoroughfare for thousands of travelers over dozens of generations. But for a few, the winding narrow corridor has been a final destination.

Along this hilly passage between the Sandia and Manzano mountains, small wooden or metal crosses are lodged into the ground and decorated with colorful silk flowers to mark the spot where these travelers have died.

Some say these roadside memorials, called descansos, originally were placed where funeral processions stopped to rest between the church and the cemetery. Associating the road with one’s death as a final destination eventually led to the practice of memorializing traffic fatalities with descansos.

There are thousands of such memorials throughout the Southwest, and they have deep roots in New Mexico where they are protected by a state law. Anyone convicted of defacing or destructing descansos can face up to a year in jail and fines as high as $1,000.

When a truck driver killed Heather Reu, a 42-yearold cyclist and mother of four, as she was cycling west of Albuquerque, bicycle advocates chose to memorialize Reu with a different type of descanso: a bicycle painted completely white.

Reu’s descanso, also known as a ghost bike, is perched along the lonely windswept road where she cycled atop a mesa overlooking the dormant volcanoes in Petroglyph National Monument. The image of the stark white bicycle against the dark facade of the Sandia Mountains serves as a silent reminder of a cyclist’s right to travel safely.

“When a ghost bike descanso is chosen, it has the extra message that all roadway users are people who need to get home to their family safely,” said bicycle advocate Jennifer Buntz, who with three friends placed Reu’s memorial on the mesa. “Ghost bike descansos serve as a reminder to all who pass that we have an obligation to drive safely, no matter what vehicle type we choose.”

Ghost bikes were first created in St. Louis in 2003, according to the website ghostbikes.org. Newspaper reports state that Patrick Van Der Tuin placed a white bicycle with a 62

sign reading “Cyclist Struck Here” after he watched a motorist strike a bicyclist. He and his friends later installed 15 more ghost bikes, sometimes using damaged bikes for effect. Similar projects began in Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York City, Seattle and London. Ghost bikes have appeared in more than 100 cities throughout the world.

Most locales do not have laws protecting these memorials, which often end up being stolen by thieves, damaged by vandals or removed by government officials.

Even under New Mexico’s law, a provision allows officials to move or remove any descanso that obstructs or damages a public road or one that is placed on private property.

Last year, Albuquerque city officials removed a ghost bike that friends placed at the intersection of a busy city road and a bicycle path where 43-year-old cyclist Roy Sekreta was struck and killed by a motorist in 2008. When Buntz heard that the ghost bike was removed, she replaced the memorial with another ghost bike, which also disappeared.

These bikes were removed during a prior mayoral administration, and Buntz is hoping the new mayor, Richard J. Berry, is more supportive of roadside memorials. Berry’s communications director, Chris Ramirez, said the new administration clearly respects New Mexico’s descanso tradition.

“I don’t think it’s the government’s role to tell people how to memorialize loved ones,” Ramirez said. “We are not going to tell people how they can or cannot memorialize loved ones, whether it’s a bicycle, a statue, a tree or a park bench.”

Ramirez added that the city “is talking with interested parties and working out some compromises in the interest of the city and other organizations, and we are sure we’ll come up with a resolution with everyone involved.”

Ramirez said he hopes Buntz and city officials can reach a compromise on guidelines for the safe installation of ghost bikes, something Buntz has been attempting for months. This year, she plans to install ghost bikes in at least 10 Albuquerque locations where cyclists were killed, including one where her good friend Paula L. Higgins, a local bicycle racer and a mentor to many new cyclists, was killed by a motorist in 2006.

P. David LePell

The issue is complicated by the fact that bicycles are much more obtrusive than small roadside crosses. Officials at the New Mexico Department of Transportation recognize that the placement of ghost bikes can become complex.

“NMDOT is cognizant of the public’s desire to note the location of a particularly tragic accident and is mindful of the emotions and sentiments that surround these incidents,” said Mark Slimp, the department’s chief public information officer.

“Each location or placement is evaluated individually,” he said, adding that the department’s primary goal is the safety of the public while traveling on New Mexico roads.

Even among committed bicycle advocates, the ghost bike issue is controversial.

“I know some of our members think they are rather macabre and not exactly an enticement to get out and ride,” said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “You don’t want them on every street corner, nor would you do a ride of silence every week … but they have their place.”

Craig Degenhardt, president of BikeABQ of Albuquerque, said his organization has members with strong feelings on both sides of the issue, especially those with friends or relatives who have been killed by motorists.

“For many reasons—political, social, unity within BikeABQ, et cetera—it was decided some time ago that

BikeABQ remain officially neutral and our members are free to follow their own pro or con ghost bike agenda as long as they respect each other’s views and it does not include BikeABQ,” Degenhardt said.

As of February, Reu’s ghost bike was the only one in the state, and it is located on an isolated road traveled by few drivers.

“Sadly, Heather’s bike is a million miles away, out on the mesa. More people are hurt or injured in urban areas. There are no ghost bikes where people can see them,” said Jane Cudney, an Albuquerque triathlete who became passionate about the ghost bike issue after meeting Reu’s friends and family members. “I think there should be a ghost bike for every one of the souls who has lost their life on their bike.”

For now, the debate continues as both sides strive to have their messages heard. In late February, Buntz said she had plans to install a ghost bike on a busy Albuquerque street where Higgins was killed. Buntz said she realizes the city likely will remove it.

Unless Albuquerque officials find a way to allow Buntz and other advocates to erect ghost bikes without obstructing traffic, Reu’s memorial on the city’s edge is likely to remain the only such descanso in New Mexico.

“Of course,” said Clarke from the League of American Bicyclists. “One doesn’t want to see any ghost bikes.”

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650B Market Starts to Roll When Kirk Pacenti first made a move to introduce the 650B, or 27.5-inch, mountain bike tire in late 2007, the immediate reaction was a symphonic, eye-rolling “uuuhhhg, not another tire size, paleeease” that resonated from the offices of tire, wheel and suspension fork manufacturers worldwide. Many manufacturers had not yet recouped the time and the expense involved in responding to demands for 29-inch tires.

A quick look at the history of innovation in mountain biking reveals that polished business plans, feasibility studies and profit projections don’t play a significant role in the decisions that are made. If you have a good idea that works, market demand will drive the rest. It’s capitalism at its best, and those forces are beginning to take effect for 650B mountain bike tires.

650B has been a common tire size on randonnée bike touring for the ages but was not an option for standard off-road bikes.

650B roughly equates to a 27.5-inch tire, and its position halfway between common 26-inch and 29-inch tires made sense to Pacenti as an option for riders who wanted larger tires but found 29-inch tires to be too much. The in-between size also solved a few design problems for big-wheeled suspension bikes, Pacenti argued.

Pacenti seeded the initial market by introducing the first tire, the brusquely treaded Neo-Moto, and Velocity was quick to provide a hoop to run it on. Without any 650B-specific suspension forks available, most of the first 650B bikes— predictably built by smaller custom builders—were either rigid or used a Fox F100 fork (which worked for the most part but was not encouraged because, when pushed to the limit, the tire could make contact with the fork crown).

Pacenti quickly sold through his first run of Neo-Motos and shortly after introduced the Quasi-Moto, a lighter, race-oriented tire. White Brothers was the first to provide a 650B-specific fork, and other options presented themselves by adapting Maverick or Cannondale Lefty forks, which have no fork brace to get in the way.

It’s been more than two years now since the Quasi-Moto hit the streets, and the 650B market is beginning to roll. More tire and wheel manufacturers have stepped up to provide a variety of 650B options. White Brothers is having trouble keeping forks in stock, X-Fusion is planning to launch a 650B fork by July 2010, and several bike manufacturers have launched production rigid and full-suspension bikes.

When 650B was first introduced, some viewed it as a threat to the 29er. But now, as 26-inch bikes are becoming more rare on the race circuit, it may be that 650B eventually takes over that position in the market.

To test current offerings in the 650B world, Mountain Flyer’s Kurt Smith rounded up a variety of 650B product now available and put it to the test. The variety of bikes—from rigid to all-mountain—and product demonstrates the versatility and viability of the 650B platform. The rides were inspiring in every case. –B. Riepe 66

Brendan Shafer cuts Ventana’s El Bastardo 650B trail bike loose on some quintessential Durango, Colo., terrain.

Ventana El Bastardo Price (frame only): $2,120 Weight (frame only): 6.3 lbs www.VentanaUSA.com

Stephen Eginoire

el bastardo

Every piece of Ventana’s El Bastardo 5.5-inch travel, fullsuspension 650B trail bike frame—from the smallest cable hanger to the CNC-machined linkage bars—is meticulously fabricated in-house in the company’s Monterey, Calif., location, giving it a true “Handcrafted in the USA” label.

Ventana has been building bikes since 1988 under the watchful leadership of Sherwood Gibson. The frames, which include all manner of mountain bike frames, are offered in standard sizes or as a custom frame-build program.

In creating El Bastardo, Ventana was able jump into the 650B game early by leveraging a design from its existing El 67

Increasing shock pressure alleviated this to a degree but added some harshness to the ride. I was ultimately able to get decent but not optimal performance. A call into Ventana identified this as a shock that had not gone through the custom valving process for this model. This is an understandable part of testing new models, and I am confident that Ventana’s final setup for this shock will be trouble-free.

Overall, I would put this into the category of an aggressive trail bike. It is easy to pedal up and quite strong on rolling terrain but when the pitch turns downhill the real fun starts. All the benefits of the 650B wheel size are evident in this bike. It was fast getting the wheels up to speed, and once up to speed, they had that big-wheel feel of being stable and ready to roll over all obstacles while requiring less energy. The ol’ bastard showcases all of Ventana’s strengths and is one sexy machine.

–K. Smith 650B wheels give Ventana’s El Bastardo 5-plus-inch travel bike amazing agility, complemented by all-mountain stability.

Kurt Smith

Ciclón (The Cyclone) model, a 26-inch wheel trail bike. Since adapting to 650B wheels requires minimal adjustments to chainstay length, bottom bracket height and other dimensions, Ventana was able to deliver El Bastardo quickly.

Knowing that its customers are buying into a custom bike experience, Ventana sells framesets only and does not offer build kits. The frame weighs a reasonable 6.3 lbs. With a SRAM X-9 gruppo, and a trail-worthy build kit, our test bike weighed just less than 29 lbs.

El Bastardo is built with butted tubing for the top tube, seat tube and down tube to reduce weight. It has oversized precision sealed bearings at each pivot point to ensure strength and durability. Ventana’s legendary “Electric Sex” welds are clean, and the CNC-machined bottom bracket design is both burly and attractive. The Ferrari red powdercoat wraps this bike in a deep and lustrous siren red color that draws your eyes back again and again.

On rugged trails, the El Bastardo rides “all-mountain comfortable” with its 5-plus inches of travel but is surprisingly agile having a geometry that is set up more for aggressive cross-country riding: the head and seat tube angles are 70 and 73.5 degrees, respectively. Climbing did require more weight shifts fore and aft to keep the bike planted on the trail.

The combination of 5-plus inches of suspension travel and the 650B wheel size looks to be a sweet spot in the trail bike market with superb stability on the downhills and increased traction on the uphills. I had this bike rocketing over gnarly terrain and found myself pushing my downhill speeds ever faster as this bike soaked up whatever was thrown in front of it.

All was not perfect with The Bastard. The mid-stroke valving on the Fox RP23 is light and tended to blow quickly through its travel when set at the proper sag.

68

The geometry of the El Bastardo 650B trail bike is set up for rocky, technical terrain like Durango’s Raider Ridge Trail.

Stephen Eginoire

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YiPsan 650B Price (frame only): $1,600 Weight (frame only): 4.8 lbs www.YiPsanBicycles.com

Stephen Eginoire

custom Located in Fort Collins, Colo., YiPsan Bicycles is home to Renold Yip and his handcrafted beauties. The name of his company, YiPsan, rhymes with Mr. Yip in Cantonese, his native language. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he earned his engineering degree in Britain before setting up shop in Colorado.

Prior to building bicycles, Yip spent time working in bike shops and honing his custom bike fitting skills. This background is leveraged when building custom bikes for his customers. Yip focuses on the rider’s body geometry, fit specifics and intended application. Having three wheel sizes to choose from allows him to build the best-fitting bike for the rider and his riding style.

The 650B singlespeed hardtail with rigid fork and Onone Mary bars would prove to be a new experience for me.

The bike was painted a matte black with subtle speckle paint accents on the top tube and down tube. The 29er suspension adjusted rigid fork provides for many options when considering a front suspension upgrade. Yip feels strongly about offering his customers more choices on front suspension than is currently available in the 650B market. By using this geometry his customers can elect to put on their favorite 29er fork.

This decision heavily influences the ride of the bike. I felt taller on this bike than I expected, and the Mary bars put me in a ride position that I had not experienced before. I did find that I adjusted quickly to the radically swept-back bars. Being a fully rigid setup, response from the pedals was instantaneous, while 70

the steel tubing flexed enough to take the edge off. Still it was important to select smooth lines when possible.

We have a local riding area called Phil’s World in Cortez, Colo. The trails are smooth and twisty with a super fun whoopde-doo section, known as the Rib Cage. This is where this bike came into its own and all the elements of the rigid frame and upright position worked best. The 650B wheel size helped to smooth out the ride and rolled well over obstacles.

Custom-built bikes are such a pleasure to own. You get to specify all that you are looking for in a bike and then paint it in a color that makes you heart soar. This can lead to long sessions of just staring at your bike and admiring its lines and clean welds.

This is definitely the case with YiPsan Bicycles, and Yip’s star is on the rise. He is the recent winner of two awards at the 2010 North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Yip was bestowed with honors for the “Best City Bicycle” and the “People’s Choice Award.”

Yip’s frames feature a distinctive logo with a circle and square. The circle contains a stylized version of his name, Yip, since it is common for the Chinese to put their names on works of art they are proud of. The square simulates an approval stamp used by the ancient kings and the meaning of the four Chinese words is “handmade in steel.” Yip should be proud to have his name grace these bikes. We riders are now the kings, and like kings of the past, I am happy to provide my stamp of approval for Yip’s bikes. –K. Smith

YiPsan’s rigid 650B bike is unique and classically attractive.

Brian Riepe

Fillet brazed joints give the YiPsan 650B singlespeed beautiful, smooth welds and a refined look.

Brian Riepe

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Victoria Cycles 650B Weight (frame/as tested): 4.8 lbs/26.5 lbs Price (frame/as tested): $1,600/$3,200 www.VictoriaCycles.com

Brian Riepe

custom Over the past 20 years, the likes of Don McClung and Matt Chester have built a surprising number of relatively anonymous but beautifully fabricated custom bikes in the backyard shops of Salida, Colo., putting the charming river town on the handmade map.

Now, recent transplant Dave Hill of Victoria Cycles has become a part of Salida’s rich framebuilding story, producing unique heirloom quality bikes in the Salida tradition. Hill’s bikes are rideable masterpieces of steel.

After many years as a bike mechanic, Hill decided he’d like to build custom bikes so he went to framebuilding school at United Bicycle Institute, purchased a Henry James frame fixture, welder and later a tube-bending device and set up shop behind his home in downtown Salida. Victoria Cycles was born in 2007.

Using subtly curvaceous hand-bent tubes, Hill created this classically inspired 650B singlespeed bike for a customer using a mix of tube sets and joining techniques to optimize the ride with a balance of grace and utility. A hand-bent 4130 straight gauge Columbus Zona top tube adds the element of grace and strength while Dedaccia seatstays give the rear end a supple ride and delicate look.

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Hand-bent tubes, lugged construction and a deep blood red paint job highlight this 650B singlespeed built by Salida’s Dave Hill of Victoria Cycles. Don’t let the artwork fool you though; this bike rips singletrack with a velvety efficiency that will keep you smiling for miles.

Hill loves using lugged joints where he can, and it’s not just for looks; when fabricating a bike, lugged joints require less heating of the tube set—thus maintaining the integrity of the metal—providing extraordinary and classic beauty. However, when building a mountain bike frame, certain angles are hard to achieve with lugged joints, explaining why Hill chose lugs for the head tube and fillet-brazed joints at the bottom bracket and seatstays.

To retain versatility in the frame, Hill chose to include a derailleur hanger and cable stops in case the owner wished to add gears at any time. In line with that theme, Hill specs the bike with a beautiful White Industries Double Double drive train: a unique singlespeed crankset with two chainrings (31 and 34 teeth) sandwiched tightly on the crank and two cogs (16 and 19 teeth) sandwiched tightly on the freewheel. This gives the rider the ability to adjust between four gear options by simply loosening chain tension on the rear wheel and moving the chain around.

With Pacenti Neo-Moto tires and NoTubes rims, this 650B singlespeed showcases the high-sailing, smooth speed and quick handling of a 650B bike. The steel frame rides like a dream, and the beauty of the frame will make you feel a little guilty for getting it dirty. But you’ll get over it. –B. Riepe

A rich, blood-red powder coat, hand-bent tubes and a combination of fillet brazing (top) and lugged construction (bottom) highlight this 650B singlespeed built by Dave Hill of Salida-based Victoria Cycles.

Brian Riepe

Brian Riepe

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Jamis Sixfifty B2 Price: $4,575 Weight: 29 lbs www.JamisBikes.com

The Jamis Sixfifty B series bikes are billed as trail bikes. They use sealed cartridge bearings at every pivot, CNC’d pivot hardware and stout 10 mm rear shock hardware.

Courtesy of Jamis

sixfifty b2 The Jamis Sixfifty B2 is a bold entry into the 650B market with a proven 5-inch frame design borrowed from the company’s trail-oriented XCT model. The folks at Jamis are true believers in the 650B wheel size and have fully embraced its benefits.

“Those ’tweener 650B wheels really do offer the best of both worlds: fast and smooth rolling like a 29-inch wheel, yet nimble like a 26-inch,” says Dave Rosen, marketing manager at Jamis.

“Being able to easily roll over roots, logs and rocks is big here in the Northeast, and big wheels are great at that. But being able to quickly maneuver tight sections of trail is best managed on 26-inch wheels. Our 650Bs give us both.”

Much of the geometry of the B series is lifted directly from the company’s XCT model, with notable differences being a half-inch increase in bottom bracket height and chainstay length.

The Sixfifty B series bikes are billed as trail bikes. They use sealed cartridge bearings at every pivot, CNC’d pivot hardware and stout 10 mm rear shock hardware. Going with the B2 model gets you a higher spec, black anodized frame equipped with a White Brothers Fluid 130 mm fork with 20 mm thruaxle, a Rock Shox Monarch 3.1 shock for rear suspension duties, Avid Elixir CR disc brakes with 180 mm front and 160 mm rear rotors and the XO shifters and rear derailleur.

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Rounding out the build are the American classic 650 BXC wheels with Kenda Nevegal tires and a Truvativ Noir XC 3.3 crankset. At 29 lbs, the Sixfifty B2 sits squarely in the light but heavy-duty trail bike segment.

Because the Sixfifty B2 is a trail bike, I expected a softriding and slower-handling bike. This is not the experience I had. With a 23.7-inch effective top tube and a 100 mm length stem, my position was stretched more forward and aggressive than I had expected. A 69-degree head tube angle provided a great balance between stability and fast handling with little wandering on the uphills. The 73-degree seat tube angle had me further forward over the pedals, and a quick scoot to the front of the saddle was all that was necessary on steeper climbs.

The Jamis MP3 rear suspension design is shared with other models in the Jamis line. The mid-stroke felt firm on the rear shock, and this is the main reason this bike felt slightly crosscounty focused. The firm ride coupled with the 650B wheel size felt great on smoother terrain. It was easy to get up to speed, and once the larger wheels were up to speed, the momentum was easy to maintain.

The size of the 650B wheel also helped with spanning rocks and other terrain irregularities. All of these obstacles would have been doable on a traditional 26-inch wheel, but the feedback would have been greater. This bike provides a really great balance of tight cross-country feel with long-travel stability.

I would summarize the Jamis Sixfifty B2 as a cross-country bike on steroids. –K. Smith

Jamis’ Sixfifty B2 rides like a cross-country bike on steroids.

Kurt Smith

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The Haro Sonix surprised us as being a favorite among the 650B full suspension bikes we tested.

The proprietary 120 mm Virtual Link suspension was a perfect match with the 650B wheels, giving it unpredicted efficiency on the climbs and inspiring stability on the downhills.

Courtesy of Haro

sonix Bob Haro, the “Father of Freestyle” and founder of Haro Bikes, was an innovative leader in BMX way back in the ’80s.

Though Bob Haro left the company in 1993, this innovative culture continues within Haro and is evident with the company’s introduction of the Sonix 650B. This bike, the second 650B model for Haro, represents a major commitment to the wheel size, and we should expect to see more companies follow suit.

The dark blue, 5-inch full-suspension bike uses Haro’s proprietary Virtual Link suspension, in this case the VL120 for its 120 mm travel frame. The rear pivot is located in front of the bottom bracket and connects with short (read stiff) links to the rear swingarm. The swingarm is a one-piece affair with a solid connection from the bottom bracket to the dropouts. Haro refers to this as a dual-mode suspension system, providing a high-efficiency climbing/pedaling mode and a long travel mode for suppleness on big hits and downhills.

The Sonix delivers on its intentions of being an effective climber. A 73-degree seat tube angle positions the rider over the pedals. This contributes to a seated climbing position that does not require a weight shift to the nose of the saddle when the incline gets steeper.

The hardtail-style connection between the cranks and the rear wheel gives an instantaneous transfer of power to forward movement with little to no rear suspension bob.

On smooth and extended climbs, the lockout mode on the 76

Haro Sonix Price: $3,120 Weight: 30.5 lbs www.HaroBikes.com Rock Shox Monarch 3.3 did prove useful in negating all rear movement. I experienced very little wandering while climbing and found that paying attention to a specific line was not as important as just keeping the pedals turning.

Regardless of the type of climb—long and smooth or short and technical—the larger contact patch of 650B wheels provided significantly more traction than a 26-inch wheel.

When the trail seesawed back to the gravity side, the Sonix rolled over terrain with composure. The 650B wheel size has quite a bit to do with the increased ease and confidence on rocky and nasty downhill terrain, but at the same time, the long travel mode of the Virtual Link system worked really well. The rear suspension felt properly tuned at its mid-stroke, and the ride was soft through the travel, ramping up smoothly at the end of its stroke.

The bike felt stable and balanced front to rear, and this allowed me to aggressively challenge the terrain. I found myself searching out rocky lines looking for any weaknesses in the rear suspension. With increased confidence, I looked for every opportunity to get airborne, and in the end I was impressed by its inspiring ride. The VL120 suspension delivers on its promise of a dual-mode suspension.

The Sonix 650B is sold as a complete bike and comes with a solid parts pick for the price. This is an exciting bike that allows a rider to experience the 650B wheel size and the superbly performing VL120 suspension. –K. Smith

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650B Rims & Tires Spin Up the 650B Market Rims, rims, rims and lots of tires.

That is the state of the 650B market today. And so far, it’s rolling along faster than the 29er movement.

Many of us watched the 29er movement evolve in the early ’90s, gaining momentum by 2004, then taking off and going mainstream in 2007.

The 29er evolution was a nearly 20year process, led by the efforts of Gary Fisher and other industry players, and ultimately provided another great wheel option.

Kirk Pacenti’s tireless efforts to promote the 650B wheel, coupled with his introduction of the Neo-Moto tire in 2007, have considerably shortened the time frame for this nascent wheel size to gain acceptance.

Just three short years after the initial 650B mountain bike tire offering from Pacenti, and two years after the NeoMoto tire won the coveted “Tire of the Year” award from the mountain biking website mtbr.com, this wheel size is coming into its own, taking its place as a third wheel choice for mountain bikers.

The number of manufacturers building 650B mountain bike rims stands at around 10 today with more products showing up frequently. Well-known companies such as Velocity, American Classic, SUNringlé, WTB and NoTubes are on board with the wheel size and are making it easy for all types of riders to Velocity: P35 rim Price: $299 for set | Weight: 570g www.VelocityUsa.com IRD: XC Pro 650B 2.1 tire Price: $49.95 | Weight: 620g www.InterlocRacing.com

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NoTubes: ZTR 355 rim Price: $88 | Weight: 385g www.NoTubes.com Kenda: Nevegal 650B 2.1 tire Price: $54.99 | Weight: 640g www.KendaUsa.com

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purchase and enjoy 650B wheels. Other lesser-known players, such as Alex, Weinmann, Viscous Cycles, Snowcat and Grand Bois, are also behind 650B and deserve your attention.

I received the following 650B wheels for this test: the NoTubes ZTR 355, Velocity Blunt and P35, the American Classic 650BXC and the WTB LaserDisc Trail. These were all quality products with many of them sharing a design with existing 26-inch and 29er offerings. The final verdict is that there are sufficient wheel choices to support different styles of riding. From the flyweight ZTR 355 to the 35 mm wide Velocity P35, the options are in place.

Tire offerings have come on strong as well. Pacenti released a second tire: the cross-country, race-focused Quasi-Moto 2.0. Kenda jumped in with its highly respected Nevegals in 2.1 and 2.35 sizes.

Schwable’s excellent Racing Ralph 2.2 is now another option for the lightweight/ race crowd. IRD has released its allarounder, the Fire XC Pro 2.1, and WTB is just getting its Wolverine 2.2 out the door. All of the tires shipping today are based on existing 26-inch tread designs and provide proven ride characteristics that riders are familiar with.

What all these fantastic products suggest to me is that the industry sees the potential of 650B, and it is now up to riders to give this well-performing wheel size a try. I think many riders will enjoy the rolling characteristics of a big wheel mixed with the nimble handling of a 26inch wheel. –K. Smith

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American Classic: BXC 650 Wheelset Price: $679 set | Weight: front 798g/rear 904g www.AmClassic.com

NoTubes: ZTR 355 rim Price: $88 | Weight: 385g www.NoTubes.com

Pacenti: Neo-Moto 2.1 tire Price: $59 | Weight: 655g www.BikeLugs.com

Schwalbe: Racing Ralph tire Price: $75.85 | Weight: 555g www.SchwalbeTires.com

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Sometimes it’s great to be the only game in town, and that is definitely the case for White Brothers Cycling.

As it stands today, White Brothers is the only company shipping qualified forks for the ’tweener 650 wheel size (between 26- and 29-inch wheels).

Jamis and Haro bikes have spec’d the Fluid on their production 650B models, providing a tremendous boost to White Brothers’ sales and brand recognition.

For its forks, White Brothers uses a three-piece “pressed-together” lower system where the CNC-machined brace, lightweight alloy lower legs and CNC-machined dropouts are pressed together under high pressure to create an ultra-stiff chassis. Adapting this chassis for 650B wheels only required using a new lower-leg length, modified control rods and slightly modified internals. White Brothers was able to create the first prototype in a matter of a few weeks for its first customer, framebuilder Kirk Pacenti, and shortly thereafter the company had a production model in place.

The Fluid series fork has an air cartridge in the left leg with compression dampening, or as the company refers to it, air-assist, in the right leg. Rebound response is set on the lower left leg. The lower legs have 32 mm stanchions and are painted black along with the fork crown.

Performance of this fork is dependent on getting the cartridges set up properly, and the Fluid did require more setup time than other

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forks I’ve used. Specifically, the air-assist cartridge is very sensitive to pressure. There is a fine line between having a high enough pressure to control brake dive while still achieving small bump compliance. Small adjustments of the rebound dial controlled unwanted kickback from the fork.

I found the sweet spot for the Fluid to be at higher speeds and on rougher terrain. I tested this fork primarily on trails at South Mountain in Phoenix. The National Trail at South Mountain is known for its technical and rocky nature with opportunities to catch air scattered along the whole trail. It’s not uncommon to see long-travel freeride bikes making serious time here on the downhill sections. This is where the Fluid comes into its own and where the air-assist cartridge can be run at higher pressures. Small bump compliance is not as noticeable in this type of terrain, and the higher pressure for the air-assist provided better climbing performance and less brake dive.

With careful tuning, the Fluid fork delivers a great ride and is a capable option for anyone seeking a 650B ride. Look for more options down the road. It is widely anticipated that X-Fusion Shox will deliver a 650B compatible fork in the coming months, and the Cannondale Lefty is also proving popular with riders testing the 650B waters. –K. Smith

White Brothers Fluid 650B fork Price: $879 | Weight: 4.4 lbs www.WhiteBrothersCycling.com

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sram xx:20-speed cross-country group Complete Group: $2,430 | www.SRAM.com

Part I Our assessment of SRAM’s XX group will come in two parts: Part I will discuss the technical innovations and intricacies of the group’s overall design. Part II (coming in Mountain Flyer Issue 17) will dig deeper after we’ve had a chance to race on it extensively.

SRAM introduced the XX mountain bike group—designed around a 2x10 drive train—late in 2009, and it gained immediate cachet from racers, highlighted by a gaggle of XXequipped World Cup wins and Lance Armstrong’s win at the 2009 Leadville Trail 100.

For several years now, some racers have already been dropping the small chainring and creating 2x9 systems. But SRAM’s XX 2x10 is entirely different. XX is a complete and harmonized component group. Every well-thought-out detail has been designed to work as a package. For SRAM to drift from the standard 3x9 mountain bike drive train and opt instead for a 2x10 drive train is a bold leap forward in the quest to drop ever more weight and gain better shifting efficiency.

When pondering a 2x10 drive train, the immediate question is how the gear ratios stack up compared to a 3x9. To answer this, we compared the gear inches (using a cool iPhone app called Bike Gears) of the easiest and hardest gears. Although it’s Arabic to most of us, gear inches do provide an accurate quantitative comparison because the calculation takes into consideration rear wheel diameter and the number of teeth on the chainrings and rear cog. We based our numbers on a 26-inch rear wheel, but it works out nearly the same for a 29er, only in that case you’ll be pushing roughly nine percent harder gears.

SRAM XX cranks are available with 45/30, 42/28, or 39/26 chainring combinations paired with an 11-32 or 11-36 cog set, while a standard triple crank offers 44/32/22 chainrings paired with an 11-34 cog set.

Keep in mind SRAM’s XX chainring sets are not interchangeable—you cannot make a 45/26—so, when picking the best option you will need to compromise on one side or the other. With the 45/30 chainring set and the 11-tooth cog you will gain a gear (45/11) comparable to the tallest gear available on a 3x9 set-up (44/11), but you will give up a few granny gears, having only a 30/36 granny vs. the 22/34 you have on a 3x9 (21.9 gear inches vs. 17 gear inches equals a 22.5% harder granny gear on the XX).

Unless you’re Ryan Trebon, you probably won’t want to give up the granny gears, so most riders will likely choose the 39/26 chainring option. This will give you a 26/36 granny gear, which is closer to the 22/34 of a 3x9 drive (19 gear inches vs. 17 gear inches equals a 10% harder granny gear on the XX), but you will be giving up some speed on your tallest gear, having only a 39/11 compared to a 44/11 on a 3x9 (93.1 gear inches vs. 105 gear inches equals a 12% easier gear for the XX).

The ratios are very close, and in my opinion it’s a tolerable compromise and worth the lightning-fast shifting gained and the weight saved. At 2,300 grams (5.1 lbs), SRAM’s XX group is 300 grams (0.66 lbs) lighter than a Shimano XTR group. Whether or not 2x10 is for you depends on how often you find yourself spun out in the 44/11 or begging for more gears when grinding 84

Brian Riepe

in the 22/34 granny on your current 3x9.

SRAM’s XX group is unmistakably intended to be a high-end set, and the company pulled out all the technology stops.

The middle eight cogs of the 10-speed cassette are laboriously milled—as one piece—from a solid chunk of alloy steel. The 34 or 36-tooth outer cog is aluminum and can be replaced separately as can the 11-tooth inner cog. Since the set is machined, each cog is intricately profiled with ramps to assist shifting. The result is a 10-speed cassette that is two-thirds lighter than SRAM’s lightest nine-speed cassette. At $328, it’s also the most expensive (almost $50 more than XTR).

The XX rear derailleur body is made from magnesium and aluminum with a carbon fiber cage. Ceramic bearings keep the pulley wheels spinning smoothly, and a parallelogram cable pull mechanism uses the Exact Actuation system borrowed from SRAM’s RED road group. The XX rear derailleur responds rapidly and is built to last.

While rear shifting on the 10-speed cassette is fast and crisp, the first thing you notice on a bike spec’d with XX is the insanely fast action of the front shifting. SRAM discovered that chainrings with matched 1:1.5 ratios provide the greatest number of contact points where the chain is concurrently engaged with the two chainrings during shifting, allowing a rider to pedal hard while shifting the front derailleur. The front shifting is not only shockingly fast—aided by a stoutly built front derailleur with ample spring tension—but it will honestly shift as well as a rear derailleur under load.

To further assist the shifting, the chainrings are machined with four sets of upshift ramps and pins and four sets of downshift ramps. The big chainring bolts thread directly into the chainring itself (ditch those annoying, spinning, two sided chainring bolts). That’s a nice touch.

Front and rear shifting is complimented by the XX trigger shifters, which have a slightly more compact mechanism but the familiar solid and reliable feel of SRAM’s X.0 shifters. The most appreciated feature of these shifters is their superior adjustability: 30 degrees of adjustment for the thumb trigger position. The triggers are available with an independent clamp or can be nicely integrated with the brake lever using the Matchmaker multi-mount clamp, providing even more hand position adjustments and a stealth profile on your bars.

The details and function of the XX group are immediately impressive, and we’re looking forward to logging some race hours on it. Please look to Mountain Flyer Issue 17 for a longterm race test and more details on the XX front suspension with Xloc—a hydraulic lockout mechanism—and the XX magnesium brakes. –B. Riepe

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Left: The SRAM XX uses the optional Matchmaker clamp, which combines one widely adjustable clamp mechanism for the shifter pods, brake lever and hydraulic fork lockout lever, making cockpit controls uncluttered.

Below top: SRAM’s 23 oz. XX foam-core-molded carbon crankset—with two meticulously machined chainrings—and XX front derailleur give the XX group astonishingly smooth and fast front shifting. It’s the first thing you’ll notice when riding an XX spec’d bike.

Bottom: The middle eight cogs of the 10-speed XX cassette are laboriously milled—as one piece—from a solid chunk of alloy steel. Since the set is machined, each cog is intricately profiled with ramps to assist shifting. The result is a 10-speed cassette that is two-thirds lighter than SRAM’s lightest nine-speed cassette.

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Words and Images

by Mark Woolcott

Phil McIntosh effortlessly glides across one of the many bridges on the Lunatic Fringe Trail in Green River. The Wyoming city is known as the starting point of John Wesley Powell’s exploration of the Green and Colorado rivers in the late 1800s, but now mountain bikers are beginning to explore its trails.

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On May 24, 1869, John Wesley Powell and crew set their four boats adrift from the town of Green River in southwestern Wyoming. From the banks of the splendid Green, and on his way to explore the unknown Green and Colorado rivers, Powell cast his eyes upon herds of wild horses and grand plateaus that rose from the river’s edge. The landscape, with its red dirt and ringed hills, was a magnificent frame for the wide-open sky that loomed large above.

Fast-forward 140 years and not much has changed. The Green River still holds the beauty it once did when Powell, the One-Armed Boatman, launched his expedition, and the sky is as grand and blue as it ever has been.

For the last century and a half, rugged western people have called the town of Green River home. Like Powell, many people flocked to Green River with the coming railroad and by the time John Wesley arrived with his boats, the town was already waiting.

Since Green River’s “official” incorporation in 1891, miners, railroad workers and sportsmen of all kinds flocked to this airy desert gem. But it is only in the last couple of 88

years that this town has begun to attract another group … mountain bikers.

Today Green River boasts the largest trona deposits in the world. The town’s miners supply the nation with this white chalky substance, known as soda ash or more specifically sodium carbonate, a key ingredient in products such as glass, baking soda, paper, medicine and also an additive used to increase the milk production of dairy cows. The mining community, with its hardworking people, is the backbone of this small western town of 12,000. Green River doesn’t possess the newest hottest nightclub or cutting-edge cuisine, but it does offer a few good coffee shops and a couple of locally owned restaurants that are hard to beat.

Summers are prime time in the high desert. The cool waters of Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the brand-new kayak and tube parks draw people from hundreds of miles, each looking to find refreshment in the historic currents of the Green River.

The beauty of the area is that it remains virtually unknown.

World-class fishing, hunting and great access to the wild river continue to be uncrowded. And although Green River is a

The members of the Sweetwater Mountain Bike Association stand proudly above the recently completed Green River Bike Park. From left to right: Rick Yoak, Jim Dunks, Tom McIntosh, Andrea Faust, Joe Faust, Mark Harmon and Brent Skorz. The 3.5-acre park sits along the Green River, near the city’s Green Belt bike path, and offers cyclists a pump track, jump area and skill-building zones.

gateway to these unspoiled assets, it is not far from bragging rights on another natural resource. It is now home to great singletrack and one of the best pump parks in the western United States.

Earlier this year, I met up with a group of 12 hard-core riders to discover the maze of trails that had sprung up since I left 20 years earlier. A group called the Sweetwater Mountain Bike Association (SWMBA) has worked endless hours and countless days to make trails that are some of the most exciting, high plains riding around.

Tom McIntosh and Brent Skorcz, two of the founding members of SWMBA, worked tirelessly for the last two decades to bring mountain biking to Green River.

Their efforts include hours of negotiation with landowners, city officials and even

the Union Pacific Railroad.

This dream of world-class mountain biking began in the mid-1980s when Tom went to Salt Lake City to buy his first mountain bike. It was a Cannondale Stiffy.

“At that time most of my riding was on two-tracks around Green River as they were everywhere. It was on this bike that I grew an appreciation for the high desert area and the intimate beauty it afforded right out my back door,” he said. By the early ’90s he was so excited about biking that he decided to explore opening a bike shop in Green River, called High Desert Cyclery. “It was a great adventure,” he said of his store, which has since closed.

Little by little, more locals grew excited over the possible mountain bike terrain. In no time, a group of 89

Joe Faust navigates one of the technical sections of Pick Your Poison Trail.

dedicated riders met weekly for a trail ride. Soon others began to scratch out their own trails. These lines formed the bones of the paths that now dapple the surrounding hills. High Desert Cyclery became a hub for the new cyclists.

“The best things about the shop was meeting other like-minded bike people and developing great friendships through riding,” Tom said.

As our group made its way to the start of a Green River classic, the Better Off Dead Trail, my buddy, Phil McIntosh, pointed out a small herd of wild horses.

They were probably the ancestors of the same horses that looked on while John Wesley and his group launched their boats. The hills rise majestically from the parking lot and we couldn’t wait to begin. Heading east from the cemetery parking lot, we turned slightly north and started climbing up the bluff. Already the 90

legs felt the burn of a climb that starts too early into the ride.

The chilly haze that blanketed the valley was just beginning to burn off as we crested the top of the first climb.

After this climb, we stared down the barrel of a mile of great singletrack that slithered along the middle of the bluff. This was turning out to be one of the best rides in recent memory. What we saw next solidified it in the top 10 of all time. The same horses from the parking lot decided to graze along the trail. Directly in front of us stood 10 to 12 magnificent wild horses. As we rode, they galloped and pranced, kicking up dust. Steam rose from their coats.

Time froze. For an eternal instant, they followed the trail frolicking beside our group. Then without warning, they cut off to the south and disappeared.

For the rest of the morning, we

performance redefined

reveled in the great riding that Better Off Dead offered. We blazed through the banked corners. Our tires floated weightlessly through ravines and over grand rollers. Our skin tingled coming off the mesa, and in the chilly air, tears welled up in our eyes. As the wind picked up and the midday storm clouds rolled in, we could barely hear ourselves hoot with excitement. Reaching the bottom of the gulley we turned back west. Grinding headlong into the wind, we crawled back up the hill, keeping an eye out for those splendid horses.

Once we were back at the car, each member recounted the horse story in his or her own way. “They were right there.…

I could have touched them.… Can you believe how close they were?”

Joey Faust, one of the core local riders, summed up this day best: “Where can you ride and get this opportunity?

Nowhere, and that is what makes Green River riding amazing and special.”

These days, it seems the hard work has paid off. SWMBA now has 10 dedicated members and hosts Thursday night rides all summer.

But life for SWMBA members hasn’t always been grand sunsets and warm summer days. Trail access did not come easily. For the last 100 years, local landowners have been operating on land grants from the 1880s and1890s, and trails were prohibited on the land.

“In fact, we were shut down at every turn, Tom said. “The crack in the trail prohibition block came when we discovered that the International Mountain Bicycling Association’s international conference was to be in Park City, Utah, two summers ago.”

Grants from the Sweetwater County and Green River tourism groups allowed

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Brent and Tom to attend the conference with several of the town’s Parks and Recreation Department employees.

The conference and increased support from the city proved to be a nice respite from the tedious political work needed to create such a great trail system. Finally, the city and the landowners saw the possibilities of this sustainable and profitable industry, and work on the trails moved forward.

Back on the trails the next day, our riding group was greeted with crystal blue skies. We had plans to ride two of the best and most exciting trails around. Lunatic Fringe was our launching pad for a full day of riding, and within the first quarter mile, it promised to be grand.

On the way to the trailhead, I asked Rick Yoak, a longtime local, about the history and his crazy vision for this piece of singletrack.

“Lunatic Fringe got the name from the wrestling movie ‘Vision Quest,’” Rick said, referring to the song by Red Ryder in the movie. “When I first saw the area, I was riding the Gunsite Trail and looked over the edge. There were these gnarly canyons, and I said to myself, ‘That is where I need to be 92

riding.’ It was my own personal vision quest when I started the trail.”

From the south end of town, we took the road to Scott’s Bottom, crossed the river and headed north. The area around Scott’s Bottom is now owned by the city of Green River but for the last hundred years has seen some dramatic changes. The area received its name from the Scott family, which originally settled the low river land between 1890 and 1900. At the time, the Rock Springs Grazing Company began acquiring large swaths of land around the area and purchased the fertile river bottomland from the Scott family. During the 1920s, the area was outside of Green River city limits and is rumored to be the site of many whiskey stills. Even today, the carcasses of those long-forgotten copper distilleries can be seen. The city finally acquired the land in 1986 for use as a recreation area.

To make the Lunatic Fringe Trail, Rick pushed, pulled and dragged numerous bridges and ramps that make it a mainstay.

We were treated to one of his artistic bridges just after passing the trail signpost.

Right out of the gate, the trail ascended through rocky shale

Jim Dunks screams through a banked corner on the lower section of Better Off Dead.

alongside deep chasms that threatened to swallow the entire crew with one wrong move. Climbing east and north, our group encountered three hair-raising bridge crossings within the first mile, all of which were Rick’s handiwork. I must mention that every single trail around Green River has a bailout route. If the 10-foot fall makes you nervous, just look around and there is sure to be an easier way.

Cresting the climb, we greeted the spacious views with broad smiles. Only the high plains around the Red Desert can grant endless skies and infinite views such as these. Our eyes gazed out across miles of open space, with the grandest of the western buttes jutting up to the north. Once again, the blue skies opened up and rested gently on top of the

expansive landscape as the river slithered 1,000 feet below.

Our descent proved to be exciting.

The technical off-camber turns and the choice drops summoned all of the skills I’ve acquired over the years. We screamed to the river’s edge only to realize that turning around also meant climbing up the downhill we just savored. The contrast between the crystalline sky and white shale was enough to keep my mind off of the pain.

Next we set our sights on Pick Your Poison. Andrea Faust calls this trail the “Who needs Moab?” of Green River. As a transplant from Utah, Andrea has seen some of the best biking in the western states, but this trail has everything you could ever want: technical riding, endurance, hill climbs, rock drops, 93

The Lowdown Places to Eat JLT Steakhouse: Green River’s premier steak house known for its smoked prime rib Krazy Moose Restaurant at Red Feather: All-around good food and Green River’s only smoke-free bar Don Pedro’s Mexican Restaurant: Local favorite for good Mexican food Mi Casita Mexican Restaurant: Authentic Mexican food Book & Bean: Great coffee with an amazing tea selection Java Connection: Best coffee hut for that quick pick-me-up Get Real Coffee: Outstanding specialty breakfast and baked goods; baked oatmeal to die for

Places to Stay Hampton Inn: Nicest and newest hotel in town

Things to Do Whitewater Park: Located on a stretch of the Green River in town; great cool-down during the summer months; splash park for the kids Wild Horse Scenic Loop Tour: See the Old West as it was with herds of wild horses and endless vistas; 50-mile driving tour (23 miles on gravel road) Trout Fishing on the Green: Quiet get-away with many local fishing holes Gateway to the Flaming Gorge: Reservoir is heaven for 40-pound trout and great boating and water skiing Flaming Gorge Days in June: Classic Western festival with basketball tournaments, concerts and a grand parade, June 24–26, www.FlamingGorgeDays.com Riverfest: Southwestern Wyoming’s only river celebration, including kayak rodeo, Run with the Horses Marathon, live bands, Cajun shrimp boil; Aug. 20–21 Bike Park Grand Opening: National Trails Day and Grand Opening of the bike park, June 5, www.GreenRiverBikePark.com

Places of Interest Expedition Island: John Wesley Powell Expedition starting point Sweetwater County Museum: Full of local history and facts Haunted Sweetwater County Library: Built on the old city graveyard; voices and mysterious happenings are quite frequent

Bike Shop Grey Hair Bike Repair: Owned by Wade Liedtke; awesome service 94

Grand vistas and endless blue skies grace every trail around the southwestern Wyoming town of Green River. Green River doesn’t possess the newest, hottest nightclub or cutting-edge cuisine, but it does offer stunning views and a few coffee shops and locally owned restaurants that are hard to beat.

bridges, and hard and easier lines.

On top of the mesa, the rolling terrain weaved in and out of gullies, around sagebrush, over short drops and up a great rock formation. Slightly banked turns, quick descents and shortburst climbs allowed us to find our groove and settle in for the next hour and a half.

After half a mile of moderate riding, the first formidable bridge stared at us from the horizon line. Like looking out over the plank of a pirate ship, a wooden ramp extended into empty space. Rick, Tom, Phil and Joey had all ridden this trail a million times and didn’t miss a beat. They rode up the entrance ramp, across a rocky point and then dove down a 10-foot bridge. It was the 20 feet of exposure that really made me nervous.

But, if you happened to have enough skill to glance up while riding, it did provide one of the greatest views of the Green River valley.

With the bridge out of the way, the fun really started as we cherished that which is most coveted in mountain biking…the downhill. Once again, the banked corners and drops exploded with western “yahoos” that echoed between the hills.

Heading back into town on the 7-mile Green Belt path around the city, our group decided to stop off at the newly constructed pump park. What a great way to polish off the afternoon.

Coming from the Colorado Front Range, I expected a measly dirt mound with a couple of berms and a few dirt jumps.

I was surprised to see the construction project SWMBA had accomplished.

Creating a pump park, Brent and Tom learned at the IMBA conference, gives mountain biking a bigger voice with which to approach landowners. A park provides people the opportunity to learn bike skills at their own pace in a controlled environment, they said, so hopefully riders venture out and start riding the local trails.

The Green River Mountain Bike Park occupies 3.5 acres of prime riverfront land along the Green Belt pathway with a view of the river and bluffs. The location is “to die for,” Tom said. The extensive mountain bike park links together trails with technical riding, smooth tabletops and lightning fast corners. There’s also the pump track, jump area and skillbuilding zones. Towering cable spool bridges serve as the junction for some routes and provide a great place to regain balance and catch a quick breath.

The track’s meticulous planning came together with the help of Nat and Rachel Lopes of Hilride Progression Development Group. Hilride’s attention to detail has produced award-winning bike parks across North America.

Moving the tons of dirt, old cable spools and logs was no easy task. The planning alone took hours of volunteer time. Every member of SWMBA had a special role with his or her own title: dirt engineer, tree-branch-carving specialist and even old-cable-spool guy.

Green River Parks and Recreation Director Walt Bratton provided the labor and heavy machinery to make this park a success but takes none of the credit. In fact, no single person takes credit for this project. A common thread throughout

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Rick Yoak looks back, surveying the twisting turns and epic drops that slice through the surrounding plateaus of the Green River Valley. The area boasts the largest soda ash deposits in the world and lays claim to world-class fishing, hunting and uncrowded access to the wild river. Now it has bragging rights for another natural resource: great singletrack.

Hilride:

A Trail-Building

Dream Job

Just three years ago, Nat and Rachel Lopes were listed in a national publication as having one of 37 dream jobs in the world. And this recognition came just three months into the advent of their fledgling company.

After working for the International Mountain Bicycling Association on the Subaru Trail Crew, Nat and Rachel struck off on their own to realize their vision for mountain bike growth and environmental awareness. Their brainchild was the Hilride Progression Development Group.

It all starts with a mission statement that is hard to beat: The Hilride Progression Development Group is dedicated to realizing the potential of the global mountain biking movement as a force for economic development, environmental conservation and the promotion of healthy, active communities.

The passion that the Lopes bring to trail planning is contagious and their zeal to promote healthy and responsible land use is admirable.

“The most important thing is to protect landscapes and ecosystems,” Nat said. “We get the joy of having hundreds of thousands of people ride on the trails that we helped build.”

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the entire building process is the pride and humility that each individual holds for the finished track.

“The Green River Mountain Bike Park would have not come to fruition without the support of our mayor and city council, the Sweetwater Mountain Biking Association, youth in our community and many volunteers that assisted in community builds on the project,” Walt said.

As Nat Lopes said, the thrill comes from “creating something that thousands of people can enjoy.”

When my riding weekend came to a close, I could only think of one line to sum it all up. Andy Hall, who accompanied John Wesley Powell down the entire length of the Green River, said eloquently, “We had the greatest ride that was ever got.”

Not much has changed since Powell launched from this quiet little town 140 years ago. The water is still green and the sky a deep blue. Today, however, Dodge diesel trucks mix with country music, and the local bar is chock full of welders and miners just off shift. And now there are trails that take mountain bike riders into the heart of the Wild West, slicing along the hills and running beside those herds of wild horses.

Three years later, the two have traveled the world and ridden in more than 46 states and nine Canadian provinces.

Their tires have blessed more than 900 individual riding spots.

And all of this has grown from the goal of creating a healthier and more environmentally aware world.

One of the best aspects of traveling, Nat said, is sharing those “bonding moments of digging in the dirt. Volunteers are pouring their hearts out in this country and others.”

Based in California, Hilride operates on three key tenets: park design and planning, tourism development, and marketing and media production. Working with these facets, Nat and Rachel have produced master trail plans and improved tourism from Croatia to California.

Hilride has worked alongside such groups as the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Army Corps of Engineers to design, plan and construct sustainable multi-use and mountain bikespecific trails systems.

To stay current with trends and cutting-edge research, Rachel and Nat frequently present at six different conferences a year, including the IMBA Summit, Sea Otter Classic and the Wild and Scenic Film Festival. –M. Woolcott

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by James E. Rickman

M

ost days you’ll find Ron Adler holding court over a two-and-a-half-acre kingdom of rotting rubber, rusting chrome, rustling weeds and oddball tangles of miscellaneous detritus from the transportation industry. This is All Bikes—a treasure trove of mostly forgotten bicycle history located just south of Payson, Ariz., on the skirt of the Beeline Highway (SR 87) on the way to Phoenix.

Within All Bikes’ chain link confines sit slowly eroding piles of childhood dreams. Suspended from the rafters of an open-air shed, an original Schwinn Apple Krate dangles just out of reach, replete with a sparkle-red banana seat, stick shifter, sissy bar and ape hanger handlebars. Standing nearby is a vintage Huffman with a decorative tank over the top tube and a primitive tunable front suspension. And everywhere else, tangles of frames, spokes and chain guards lie densely packed in haphazard rows among well-worn walking paths that beat back the tall weeds growing through Adler’s expansive inventory.

They are all here: the J.C. Higgins, the Firestones, the Shelbys, Rollfasts and Western Flyers—metal frames slowly being transmuted by moisture and time into the orange-brown hue of terminal disregard. They are all for sale and in desperate need of homes and lubrication.

Adler reportedly arrived at his current location in Rye, 98

Ariz., in 1988 with eight semi-truck trailers full of bikes in tow.

The dry desert climate was quite a contrast to Adler’s former home outside of Yakima, Wash. But the dry air here is kinder to metal and the remote location more conducive to solitude.

The shockingly inhospitable desert landscape is dotted with signature saguaro cacti, spiny creatures and endless expanses of hard brown rocks coated with the dark varnish of time. Rye itself is little more than a rag-tag settlement of abandoned and occupied trailers and seemingly vacant businesses.

Visitors to All Bikes are admonished not to touch anything or pick up anything lying around the property. Nevertheless, Adler and his helper, Teresa, are extremely hospitable; they are happy to allow visitors to roam the cluttered maze of bikes, motorcycles, peculiar automobiles and other items piled high on the premises. While some may dismiss Adler as a common hoarder, his love of bikes is legendary—dating back to his childhood when Adler reportedly purchased his first twowheeler from Sears and Roebuck with funds he had obtained by cashing in a mountain of old soda cans.

The verdict is still out on whether anything at All Bikes is really for sale at credible prices. Still, Adler’s curiosity shop of wheeled relics is one of those bizarre places that demands a visit if you happen to be in the area. All Bikes has no website or obvious storefront, but it does have a telephone: 928.474.2526.

It’s closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

BEST DESTINATION, BEST CLIMB, BEST TIGHT N’ TWISTY TRAIL

by Bike Magazine. You might have to stay longer.

GunnisonCrestedButte.com · 877. 369. 7635 Visit the new ColoradoMountainBiking.info for reports, events and trail info.

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