bike magazine julio
TRANSCRIPT
Test ride the Remedy today at your dealer or check it out at trekbikes.com
Long travel just got lighter.Not just all-mountain. Every mountain.
Both ways, up and down.
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America’s Secret StashesMoab, Fruita, Whistler, Pisgah. It’s a familiar litany of popular destinations. But what about the un-
likely suspects? What about the trails on the other side of Downieville? What about the brown ice of Brevard, North Carolina, and the limestone laby-rinths of Terlingua, Texas? We offer the inside dirt on six of America’s hidden gems.
Black Rock: The Great ExperimentFive hundred acres of jumps, drops, doubles and berms litter the old-growth forests of Black Rock, Oregon. The place’s very existence is a minor miracle—the result of unprecedented cooperation between trail builders and land managers. But this isn’t any ordinary freeride park—the trails are open to the public, and they’re attracting riders from around the country. Cam McCaul and Kirt Voreis stopped by to see what all the fuss was about.
Rad Ross Ross Schnell may be the best rider you’ve never heard of. The winner of last year’s Downieville races could even be the best all-around rider the sport has seen in years. What’s more, he’s a throwback to the sport’s gritty beginning—when riders raced for fun, not fame, on hard, adventurous courses. Afraid mountain biking has lost its soul? Relax, Rad Ross has it all under control.
features
Cover: Kirt Voreis killing it at Black Rock, Oregon, during a shoot for NWD. Photo: Scott Markewitz/NWD
THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM, MOUNT ST. HELENS, WASHINGTON. PHOTO: RICH WHEATER
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Start Here: Lou Mazzante escapes the expected
Buzz: All-American edition
Letters: Our readers get pissed, go wild, pound it out, get a fl at, sur-render to the mountains and then call it quits
Splatter: Montana’s coolest restaurant; the B.C. Bike Race returns with more singletrack than ever; the best racecourses of all time; Bellingham’s bitchin’ trails; remembering Brent Thomson; and seven reasons why there’s hope for riding in America
Ask Chopper: To raise or not to raise; looking out for the little guys; risking life and limb for Bike; Jenny Craig; Chopper’s unit; and physics for dummies
Grimy Handshake: Mike Ferrentino dances with meat
SBC: Cam McCaul fl ips out on the Sh*tbike
Bike Test: Cannondale Rize Carbon 1; EWR OWB29er; Moots Cinco; Titus FTM
Beat Down: Shimano SLX: the underrated group that delivers XT performance at half the price
Fresh Produce: Three pages of the latest, greatest, gotta-have-it gear
Showcase: An exclusive look at six 2010 trail forks and four do-anything multi-tools
Kit: High-performance gear for the long haul
Blueprint: DT Swiss is ready to roll with its carbon all-mountain wheels
BIKE MAGAZINE IS PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER SUPPORTED BY
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contents
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editorial
EDITOR Lou MazzantePHOTO EDITOR David Reddick ART DIRECTOR Shaun N. BernadouMANAGING EDITOR Brice MinnighSENIOR EDITOR Chris LesserASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Morgan Meredith ASSISTANT EDITOR Ryan LaBar EDITORS-AT-LARGE Vernon Felton, Mike Ferrentino, Mitchell Scott, Rob StoryCAPTAIN GRAVITY Mike Vihon
CONTRIBUTING WRITERSJohnathon Allen, Chris Dannen, Ron Ige, Cam McCaul, Colin Meagher, Dan Oko, Greg “Chopper” Randolph, Brad Walton
SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHERSBob Allen, Dan Barham, John Gibson, Sterling Lorence, Scott Markewitz, Stephen Wilde
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERSStef Cande, Steve Casimiro, Adam Clark, Lee Cohen, Ryan Creary,Jeff Cricco, Matt Domanski, Chris Figenshau, Derek Frankowski, Mattias Fredriksson, Bill Freeman, Rene Gouin, Brendan Halper, Chuck Haney, Dave Heath, Ilja Herb, Ian Hylands, Blake Jorgenson, Anne Keller, Jamie Kripke, Doug LePage, Steve Lloyd, Victor Lucas, Jordan Manley, Christophe Margot, Sven Martin, Colin Meagher, Chris Milliman, Dan Milner, Tom Moran, Peter Moynes, Chris Murray, Haruki Noguchi, Mike Padian, Matthew Scholl, Dave Silver,Janne Tjarnstrom, Marco Toniolo, Ken Viale, John Wellburn,Woods Wheatcroft, Rich Wheater
CONTRIBUTIONS: Bike magazine is not responsible for unsolicited contributions unless otherwise pre-agreed in writing. Bike magazine retains ALL RIGHTS on material published in Bike for a period of 12 months after publication and reprint rights after that period expires. Send contributions to: Bike magazine, P.O. Box 1028, Dana Point, CA 92629, Attn: Editor.
BIKE’S COVERAGE AND DISTRIBUTION: The magazine is published 8 times per year, worldwide.
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COPYRIGHT © 2009 by Source Interlink Magazines, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the USA.
Due to the volume of inquiries, we cannot respond to all e-mail. Sorry.Occasionally, our subscriber list is made available to reputable fi rms offering goods and services that we believe would be of interest to our readers. If you prefer to be excluded, please send your current address label and note re -questing to be excluded from these promotions to Source Interlink Media, LLC., 261 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, Attn.: Privacy Coordinator.
Thanks: To Cam McCaul showing the world that anything is possible on a crappy bike. To Race Face for the sweet digs, and the even better dinner. Julian, you are the man, and we really are sorry about all those dirty dishes. And to Brent Thomson, who left us too soon, but will always be remembered for your masterpiece at Bootleg Canyon.
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advertising
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PHOTO: ANNE KELLER
E RIDE FOR MANY REASONS—FOR fun, for fi tness, or as an excuse to en-joy the company of a few good friends. But mostly, we ride to escape—to es-
cape the stasis of a life constructed around a 9-to-5 job; to escape the streets of suburbia; and, most importantly, to escape the expected.
On the trail, whether it traverses remote moun-tains or slices through local parks, anything is pos-sible. Those slivers of dirt, the best of them not more than 18 inches wide, contain infi nite possibili-ties. Each corner brings forth new risks, and new rewards, leading us further from home and deeper into the unknown. So we pray at the altar of dirt, and what we ask for most is an adventure.
Our sense of adventure leads us to local trails and distant destinations. But over the years, even those far-fl ung places—Fruita, Moab, Pisgah and Whistler—become mundane. Sometimes another road trip to Utah has all the excitement of running
to the grocery store. Even those of us who have never ridden Moab or Whistler have seen enough photos and YouTube clips to wash the excitement clean off those places.
So we seek new terrain, new trails and new destinations. Within the pages of this issue we feature some of America’s best, if least-known destinations. “Secret Stashes,” which begins on page 63, details a half-dozen areas with untamed trails—places such as Graeagle, California, which has hid in the shadow of Downieville for years, but has riding that is every bit as good. We also include the truly remote trails of Terlingua, Texas; the challenging singletrack outside New Haven, Connecticut; and places like Ellicottville, New York, which might be the best-kept secret in the Northeast. Not only do we pinpoint the top trails in each area, we also highlight the best bets for camping, restaurants, bike shops and spots for post-ride margaritas.
This issue also includes a photo feature on Black Rock, Oregon, which might be the best network of trails in the country still fl ying under the radar. Not only does the town of Falls City welcome mountain bikers, but the 500 acres of drops, doubles, wall rides and berms constitute some of the most fun terrain in America. And speaking of fl ying below the radar, Rob Story profi les Ross Schnell, who could well be the best rider nobody has ever heard of.
And, proving that we practice what we preach, the Bike staff is preparing for a weeklong trip to Kernville, California, another of the hidden destinations included in our “Secret Stashes” feature. Although it is less than three hours from Bike’s offi ce, none of our current staff have ever ridden there. Putting this issue together provided all the inspiration we needed to fi nally check out its trails. We hope you fi nd the same inspiration within these pages.
BY LOU MAZZANTE
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When Dan and I fi rst landed in Alaska, our thoughts naturally turned to getting in a quick ride before the evening sun set. But by the time we arrived at the Gold Mint trailhead, 8 o’clock had come and gone; hopes of getting a decent pedal that day had all but evaporated. But incredibly, Tony, our guide, was putting on his shoes, testing his tires and preparing to head out. We shot this image a good two hours into the ride, in June light that refused to retreat. In Alaska, limitless terrain and endless light make it seem possible to ride forever. —Dan Barham
Dan Gronross. Palmer, Alaska.Photo: Dan Barham
buzz
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This is Willow Koerber on the Ribbon trail in Grand Junction, Colorado. It’s a cool, scenic shuttle run (or uphill on the road) that starts on a big, wide-open slab of slickrock, like a big, fl at table that is tilted sky-ward a few degrees. You can almost get lost up there until it drops into this section, where the trail winds through sand and slickrock before fi nishing further down the valley. —Scott Markewitz
Photo: Scott Markewitz
buzz
It’s hard to explain what piles of dirt can mean to a person. They can be your best friend and your worst enemy, all wrapped into thirty piles of carefully shaped terra fi rma. This shot was taken during the fi nal session at the Hidden Valley jumps in Huntington Beach, California. Everyone was there—the Athertons, the Lacondeguys, the Aptos clan, Hidden Valley regulars and even fi rst-timers. Three days later, the city closed them to riding and the trails were gone. —Taylor Sage
Taylor Sage. Photo: John Gibson
This is a legendary trail in Laguna Beach, California. It is quite steep and can have bitter consequences if one comes off the trail or doesn’t make a turn. I would rate it a triple-black diamond, and it takes a skilled rider to tackle it with anything less than 7 inches of travel. This particular drop needs to be approached and ridden very slowly, braking hard before hitting the berm. It’s steeper than it looks. —Hans Rey
Photo: Craig Glaspell
buzz
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We were driving down some dirt roads in Utah when we came across a big ditch that our rental van couldn’t make it through. I looked out the windshield and saw these two big piles of dirt—one gray and the other red. There was a good run-in, a good run-out and a manageable gap. Big Red Ted and I went to work and dug until it looked rideable. I tried it a few times, but had to hit the eject button. After a few tweaks to the lip and run-in, I fi nally made it across. This is one of the few jumps that I’ve only ever landed once. —Cam McCaul
La Verkin, Utah. Photo: Matt Domanski/NWD
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Although Mount St. Helens is most famous for the Plains of Abraham—a windswept, high-altitude, pumice-garden moonscape accented by “ghost trees” stripped raw by the devastating eruption—killer riding also exists in the dank shadows of this Cascades wonderland. The day after touring the Plains, we explored the remarkably lush Lewis River trail, which serves up 10 glorious miles of point-to-point ripping through Jurassic old growth. We entered the buff, tight singletrack seconds from our campsite, charging down the gentle, endless roller coaster, zipping past giant ferns, enormous trees and little waterfalls. —Rich Wheater
Senja Palonen. Mount St. Helens, Washington. Photo: Rich Wheater
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letters
LOM LETTER OFTHE MONTH
GETTING PISSED
I thought my rival was the mountain (okay, hill in the Midwest) until I read the latest issue. I literally pissed myself reading “Your Bike vs. Your Sweetie,” (“Mountain Biking’s Greatest Rivalries,” May 2009). After a week of suffering on rollers in the pain cave, the fi rst thing out of my mouth come weekend is, “Can I ride today?” The process follows the story pretty much to the letter, with the addition of two boys in Little League and the glare of two dogs that literally clean the post-ride singletrack off the rig with their nostrils. Nice one. I hope my sweetie fi nds it as amusing as I did. Now, about that beer....ALLAN THOM;
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
I just peed my pants. Your collection of racing, industry, riding, products, commerce and romance point-counterpoints were fabulously funny and informative. Whoever came up with “Your Bike vs. Your Sweetie” should be put in charge of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. While I’m not sure they’d solve our economic problems, I’d be out riding my bike and laughing too hard to care anymore.GRAHAM HOLMES;
PLEASANTON, CALIFORNIA
Graham, that piece was written
by Chris Dannen, and the entire
feature was a collaborative effort
between the staff here and our
contributors, and edited by Vernon
Felton. Trust me, you don’t want
this group of people anywhere
near a trillion dollars. There’s not
a bar or bike shop in the country
that would be safe. —Ed
GOING WILD
What a coincidence, the day my May 2009 issue, which has the story about Wilderness issues in Montana (“This Land Is My Land”), hits my mailbox, the front page of my local paper announces that the Mt. Hood Wilderness Legacy bill was approved. Guess what, we lost over 110 miles of what your July 2004 issue called “some of the best singletrack in the universe.” And all the Senators and Congressmen said was, “this is so great for our economy and recreational possibilities!” Duh: bikes can’t be ridden in Wilderness.
As a former IMBA rep, I have been involved in this particular Wilderness proposal for over four years. It is a sad day for mountain bikers in the USA. This new Wilderness has set a bad precedent. If they use this same example in other places—asking mountain bikers to give up 57 percent of their access in other places—slowly but surely, we will be losing trail mileage from now on.
We did our best to refute the enviros and their lies, deceit and backstabbing, but we lost out to a better-funded and more organized group.ROGER W. LOUTON;
PORTLAND, OREGON
POUNDING IT
Just a couple of things I wanted to tell you. One, I loved reading the May issue’s bike tests. To include the weights and riding styles of the test rider is the best idea I have ever seen in a bike magazine. I weigh 225 pounds. I’m not fat, just big and strong. My riding style is pound it and ground it. I abuse my bike when I ride. I have seen
some über bikes come out that have a weight limit of 185 pounds. Riding characteristics for one bike would be different for every rider. Please include the weight and riding style of each test bike rider from now on. I guarantee that your magazine (which is already the best one out there) would be even greater. I have many friends who ride hard and weigh over 200 pounds. We need that information to help us make educated decisions on what we ride. STEVE SLIMMON;
CALGARY, CANADA
Steve, we’re glad you found the
rider weights useful. We’ll try to
include them whenever we think
it will help readers like you make
better buying decisions. —Ed.
LEFT FOR DEAD
I hardly call myself a mountain biker anymore. Just two years ago my routine was eat, sleep, ride, repeat. I would hang out at the local shop and look at all the bikes I dreamed about riding. I entered races and won, I looked under seat cushions to fi nd spare change to buy that beautiful Fox fork I saw shining in magazine pages. I lived for the ride and any free moment I hit the trail. Then something happened. I went to high school, homework and school sports consumed me and, as I grew, my beloved Gary Fisher Piranha seemed to shrink.
Even though riding was becoming less and less a part of me, I never canceled my subscription to Bike; you guys are keeping the sport alive for me. Your articles make me remember all of the joy biking brought me. I remember long summer days where I rode until the sun slipped behind the mountains, and begging my mom to take me to the trailhead. Thanks to Bike, I’m not through riding yet. Mark my words, I will be back.JOHN PEAKE;
ROANOKE, VIRGINIA >
Does anyone else seem to recall reading that cycling, of any type, drastically reduces the count of “available swimmers” one could produce? I spent every day of a recent weekend downhilling my Santa Cruz Nomad. Around the same time, the wife and I decided to stop “not trying,” in her words, and leave the baby blockers in the cabinet.
About a month later, and despite beating the hell out of myself on my Nomad, I proved this notion false. I was wrenching on my bike when my wife screamed for me to come upstairs. Needless to say, the word “positive” has never evoked such emotion or surprise. Originally, I thought that I would have to stay out of the saddle for a few months or at least give up the DH. While I’m stoked that I don’t have to take a break from riding, I now have to get my sh*t together, seriously together.
Lesson of this story: riding is not effective contraception. However, teaching my soon-to-be hellion on two wheels how to ride seems pretty awesome. Hopefully, he/she is as crazy about riding as his/her old man. JUSTIN; ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
Congratulations, Justin—not just on the soon-to-be little ripper, but also on learning one of life’s great lessons: you can’t trust anything you read in a magazine. Let me guess—you’re still waiting for your six-pack abs and the secrets to super shifting.
As for getting your life in order, sounds like you’re halfway there—you’ve got a wife, a nice bike, and a kid on the way. Just take care of the hellion the way you take care of your Nomad and things should work out. And since the little one will be receiving piles of baby presents in the near future, here’s something just for you. Enjoy the Bellwether Sedona jersey and Switchback shorts. —Ed
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letters
John, I don’t know whether to pat you on
the back or slap you across the face. While
I appreciate that this magazine keeps you
tethered to the sport, I can’t help wondering
why you so ruthlessly abandoned riding. My
guess is that you’re too busy lifting weights
and chasing skirts. Trust me, there’s more
to life than football and cheerleaders. Surely
you can fi nd an hour or two a week for
riding, just to keep a fresh coat of dirt on
your tires. —Ed
FLAT ATTACK
Two damned fl at tires in two days. Why? Is it because I am riding an XC/trail bike on trails that people would say are better for an all-mountain bike? Does my bike feel pissed off and depressed that I am not shaving my legs and going on longer rides half naked in spandex and not using it for its purpose? Is my bike a prude that cannot handle the legal terms of the trails I ride? Maybe my bike has problems with jumps larger than the inches of travel it possess? Either way, I have to go buy another tube tonight and tomorrow is just another day, possibly with another fl at tire.IAN STOWE; MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
Ian, I can assure you that your bike is not
pissed at you. It is not a prude. And it
defi nitely does not want you to shave your
legs. It only wants to be loved and maintained,
and to have someone who can make sure the
right amount of air is in its tires. Flats happen.
Change your tubes, check for thorns, stop
plowing into every sharp-edged rock you see,
quit complaining and go for a ride. —Ed
THE MOUNTAINS WIN AGAIN
I have been reading Bike magazine since is-sue number one and have been a subscriber since year two. I never miss Grimy Hand-
shake, written by my favorite bike and life philosopher, Mike Ferrentino. The last time I wrote was after he wrote “Mountains that Speak.” He has such a great understanding of what mountain biking is all about. His lat-est masterpiece in the May issue, “Molded by Mountains,” once again says it all.
I am at the end of a very stressful job; I retire in July at age 55. I have been riding mountain bikes for 27 years now. I have
only survived my job because I too have had my ass kicked on a regular basis by the mountain. The people, the stressful times and all the diffi culties in my life both at work and personally have always paled compared with the adversity brought on by the mountain. Whenever I am climbing relentlessly up the Colorado Trail or trying to push my 50-pound mud-laden bike out of the woods or crouched down in the oak brush waiting out a lightning storm with every mosquito within 20 miles, I am toughened by the mountain. But at the same time I fi nd peace deep within my soul, which helps me not just survive, but thrive. The mountain kicks my ass summer, fall, winter and spring. It also continually adjusts my perspective; it allows me to see the big picture—a picture much larger than myself.
Thank you, Mike. You always fi nd a way to express so well what we all fi gure out while grinding up and fl ying down the mountain, but can never quite put into words. JOE SARGENT; DURANGO, COLORADO
Catch & Release Intern ProgramWant to spend your summer riding the best trails in Southern California, working for Bike magazine? We are looking for interns for the editorial, photo and digital departments. If you have a knack for the English language, like mountain bikes, maintain your composure around deadlines, can pinpoint random spelling mistakes buried in mountains of text, know your way around a camera or a website, are currently enrolled in college and willing to work for credits, then we’d like to hear from you. We’ll work you hard, show you some great trails and release you in the fall, just in time to return to school. E-mail your résumé to: [email protected].
WIG
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VERBAL RECALL In May’s East vs. West “Rivalries” feature, we misspelled Tupac’s name. Sorry, but Biggie put us up to it. Also, in the June issue, a line of text is missing from the bottom of the fi rst page of “Making the Brand.” The words were inadvertently covered by the black background. They read: “At that time, Joel was North American sales manager and brand manager for Answer Products.” For the complete text, go to Bikemag.com/DIY.
WRITE US> Bike welcomes your input, and we’re suckers for
cavalier use of the English language. Letters may be ed-ited for length, but don’t expect us to fi x all your spelling mistakes, okay? Send correspondence to: Editor, Bike magazine, P.O. Box 1028, Dana Point, CA 92629. Or send an e-mail to: [email protected].
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Montana’s ride-inspired refueling station
PART RESTAURANT, PART bar, part shrine to the cult of mountain biking, The Huckleberry Café (known locally as “The Huck” or “THC”) in Big Sky, Mon-tana, is easily the coolest gravity-sports-themed restaurant in the state, and possibly the entire country.
More than 20 vintage bikes hang from the rafters and walls, including a
Schwinn Orange Krate Sting Ray, an original 1984 Specialized Stumpjumper, an ’87 Fat Chance, a black-and-yellow “bumble bee fade,” team-issue Miyata from Greg Herbold’s fi rst year as a pro, and an array of impressively broken bike parts and ski gear.
The Huck’s owner, Brian Franks, has created a menu inspired by (or maybe stolen
from) some of the best eat-eries in the mountain-sports world—including well-known haunts in Durango, Moab, Missoula, Telluride and San Luis Obispo. It’s entirely likely your favorite dish (like the delicious fruit-and-custard-smothered “Jammin’ Rad Cakes,” lifted from Durango’s now-de-funct Meeting Place Café) is already on the menu.
You’ll fi nd The Huck (406-995-3130) in the Big Sky Town Center, just down the road from the resort. Group rides roll out every Saturday morning at 10 during the riding season, and lifts at the Big Sky Ski Resort start shuttling bikers up the hill in late June.
—JOHNATHON ALLEN
PHOTO: BOB ALLEN
HUCK YOU
Big Sky’s THCCafé combines vintage bikes and classic food
splatter EVENTS * PEOPLE * PLACES * TRAILS * CULTURE
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JULY 5–10
Stage racing has fl ourished around the globe, but America has lacked a race of its own. Until now. The inaugural Breck Epic is a six-day race crossing 200 miles of Rocky Mountain trails, many of them above 10,000 feet. The course weaves its way through the Breckenridge backcountry and offers about 40,000 vertical feet of climbing; breckepic.com
JULY 10–12
The Downieville Classic is a weekend of two famously rugged races. The 29-mile cross-country race offers nearly 4,500 feet of climbing and more than 5,500 feet of descending. The next day, riders tackle one of the longest downhill courses in the nation, descending more than 5,000 vertical feet in 17 miles. Add one good bar, a cool river and 500 or so mountain bikers and you have one heck of a good time; downievilleclassic.com
JULY17–19
We all like beer, food and singletrack. The Mt. Bike Oregon event in Oakridge, Oregon, offers huge quantities of all three. For just $279, riders receive daily shuttle rides that access hun–dreds of miles of singletrack, three meals a day, two nights of camping and locally brewed beer in the evenings—just bring your bike, camping gear and a desire to ride; mtbikeoregon.com
JULY 16–19
Highland Mountain’s Claymore Challenge promises to be one of the most exciting slopestyle events of the year. Nineteen of the world’s top pros plan to compete, including Paul Bas, Ben Boyko, Aaron Chase, Brandon Semenuk and last year’s winner, Cam McCaul. Expect the rider-built course to include huge jumps and innovative stunts; highlandmountain.com
JULY 30–AUGUST 2
Following on the heels of the Claymore Challenge is Crankworx Colorado, the only other major slopestyle contest in America. But the freeride event isn’t the only draw here. The three-day event, modeled after its bigger brother in Whistler, also includes downhill, super-D, cross-country, big-air and dual-slalom contests; crankworxcolorado.com
WOT WHAT’S ON TAP?
tHERE ARE PLENTY OF STAGE RACES THESE days—the Cape Epic, La Ruta de los Conquis–tadores, the Transalp and the TransRockies readily come to mind, with new races such as the
Intermontane Challenge in Kamloops, B.C., and the Breck Epic in Breckenridge, Colorado, set to stage their inaugural events this summer. Most of these torture-fests have multiple stages, tough climbs and ample suffering. But one of the more recent additions to the endurance-racing scene, the B.C. Bike Race, has loads of something that many other races skimp on: singletrack.
“Our event has the most singletrack, period. And not walking paths, either; these are trails made by mountain bikers for mountain bikers,” says Andreas Hestler, the event’s spokesman and a veteran endurance racer. Hestler is not alone in this assessment. BCBR veterans and pro racers Kelli Emmett and Chris Eatough, both connoisseurs of fi ne dirt, rave about the quality of the trails. It’s a “mountain biker’s dream course,” Eatough says.
For 2009, the BCBR—now in its third year—has a few twists. This year’s event will start in downtown Vancouver before sampling legendary North Shore
singletrack classics. Organizers say they expect singletrack to account for about 70 percent of the 248 total miles. They also have added a solo category, which should appeal to those who prefer to suffer alone, as well as to racers who are unable to fi nd a partner.
Whether racing solo or with a partner, the race is no cakewalk—it features seven demanding stages, averag-ing about 35 miles each. If that kind of distance doesn’t sound impressive, consider the technical diffi culty. Every stage is a hard day in the saddle. Take the fi rst, for ex-ample. While only 28 miles long, the stage is likely to take even pros more than three hours to complete, says BCBR vet and Team Jamis rider Chris Sheppard.
Although the race is demanding, the level of support reduces the sting. Massages will be available at the end of each stage for an additional fee. Transportation between stages and campsites for the racers are dialed. And the food? Delicious and satisfying. “In short,” says Eatough, “the organizers have everything covered.” —COLIN MEAGHER
This year’s BCBR will run from June 28 to July 4.
For more information, go to bcbikerace.com.
PHOTO: CHRIS CHRISTIE
DANGEROUS CURVES
The B.C. Bike Race promises many things—at the top of the list is incredible singletrack
keep it narrowThe B.C. Bike Race sticks to singletrack
t
GO ONLINE FOR MORE INFO
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IN THE ANNALS OF MOUNTAIN biking, there are racecourses, and then there are racecourses. These are the six tracks that the world’s best riders approach with a mix-ture of fear and elation. Some are stops on the World Cup circuit. Others have historical signifi cance. Still others are part of the growing trend toward endurance racing. But all of them are defi ning cours-es that have shaped our sport and continue to awe fans. They are mountain biking’s Kitzbühel, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Madison Square Garden.
Fort WilliamFor pure downhill, the king is Scotland’s Fort William. The track drops more than 1,700 vertical feet and is unrelentingly steep, taking riders on a high-speed romp through the barren peaks
of the Nevis Range before fun-neling them into a tight, technical stretch of root-infested forest. As Steve Peat puts it: “Fort William is a true man’s track and is barely rideable on anything other than a full-on DH bike. And then there’s the crowd—wow. No other venue
has ever witnessed a crowd com-parable to the hordes at Fort Wil-liam.” The course also gets bonus points for the rowdy beer garden at the bottom.
Mont-Sainte-AnneMont-Sainte-Anne is the ogress of eastern Canada. Every facet of the World Cup venue is big and scary, yet undeniably irresistible. The downhill course demands Jedi-like focus—rated tops by longtime pros, it pushes riders to top speed quickly, then constant-ly challenges them with some of the circuit’s rockiest terrain. The XC trails snaking through the woods offer healthy servings of humble pie to everyone. The 4X is big and beautiful, and every single event draws legions of cheering fans. This is what World Cup racing is all about. Nowhere else combines so many world-class courses in a single venue.
La Ruta de Los ConquistadoresReligious penitents go to extremes to atone for their sins: the torment, the fl agellation, the long journeys. In the religion of mountain biking, the true masochists fl ock to La Ruta de Los Conquistadores. The race across Costa Rica is a four-day painfest composed of endless hike-a-bikes, 30,000 feet of elevation gain and hundreds of miles of mud-dy roads. And yet, year after year, the lemmings come. It defi es logic, but if you feel compelled to suffer the fi res of hell on two wheels, this is your race. It’s not the prettiest course on the planet, but the trails and roads of La Ruta helped defi ne the sport of endurance racing. >
Steve Peat. Photo: Victor Lucas
Photo: Colin Meagher
Photo: Colin Meagher
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KNOW THEMLOVE THEMFEAR THEM
THE SIXGREATESTRACES
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Megavalanche Alpe D’Huez“That was the worst, gnarliest, best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” raved former World Cup DH racer Sven Martin following the 2008 Megavalanche in Alpe D’Huez, France. This is the granddaddy of epic enduro races. Riders start, en masse, on an icy glacier with several hundred other competitors and then plummet 6,500 feet in 19 miles. The course is fast and technical, a mix of snow, scree, fi reroads and singletrack. The fastest riders take about 45 minutes to complete the race; mere mortals must suffer for well over an hour. It is complete insanity—a course that spawned a new style of racing, and a new style of riding.
NevegalIn racing lore, some races have a ring to their name. Something menacing. Nevegal, in the Dolomites of Italy, terrifi ed generations of downhillers, thanks to its freakishly tough terrain. From 1996 to 1999,
While Nevegal hasn’t hosted a World Cup downhill in a decade, the name lives on in the popular Kenda Nevegal tire. Since its introduction in 2004, it has become one of the most popular tires of all time—it comes stock on everything from $6,000 freeride bikes to $1,000 hardtails. The reason? Its tread works in almost every condition. And there’s a good explanation for that—when John Tomac set out to design a signature tire, he based it on the toughest course he’d ever raced.
“Nevegal was extremely challenging to both the riders and the equip-ment we rode on at the time,” Tomac says. “It completely hammered the suspension, the brakes, the frames, the wheelsets, the tires completely and, of course, tested your mind and body to the fullest.
“The top was open ski slopes with undulating, high-speed terrain. Next was the white ‘limestone of death.’ This was a steep, twisting chute of solid, rounded-off, baby-head rocks about 1 meter wide. When wet, it was seri-ously gnarly stuff. If you wadded it up in there, it was straight down onto the baby heads; broken bones were quite common. If you survived the chute of death, you were treated to some killer singletrack through wooded sections before getting dumped back onto the lower slopes for the fi nish. Simply fi nishing a race run at Nevegal was a great accomplishment.
“When I designed a tire for Kenda that I wanted to work on almost all ter-rain, I used that course to inspire me, and called it ‘Nevegal’ as a tribute.”
Photo: Colin Meagher
Photo: Victor Lucas
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INSPIRATION FOR A TIRE
NEVEGAL
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Nevegal was a main-stay on the World Cup circuit and ground zero for some of history’s greatest downhill rival-ries. Martin Whiteley, former director of the World Cup, put it this way: “This was prob-ably, in my mind, the fi rst track of the new generation. Nevegal had the high speed, the jumps and a magic technical section un-der the chairlift, which was awesome for both spectators and riders. Nevegal tested every aspect of downhill racing. If you won at Nevegal, especially in the wet, you had conquered Euro down-
hilling.” DH veteran Eric Carter echoes that sentiment. “Having a good run at Nevegal was something to cherish, regardless of whether you made the podium or not. It was a beast.”
HouffalizeNo place on earth has a tradition of racing two-wheeled machines in absolutely terrible conditions like Bel-gium does. And the World Cup course in Houffalize, Belgium, is the track every cross-country racer wants to race at least once in their career. The brutal, 4.2-mile-long course has hosted a World Cup 16 times. It begins with a 14-percent-grade climb right out of town, and then alternates between cruelly tilting skyward or dump-ing riders down steep and tricky chutes, such as the famed “Fosse d’Outh” and “Arsenal.” More than 40,000 spectators throng to see the carnage each year. America’s top XC racer, Adam Craig, sums it up best: “Classic mountain biking terrain, a beautiful village nestled in Belgium’s Ardennes region, tons of people who are fi red up on bike racing, perfect weather (whether that means warm sun or sleet), and even organized bike-theft rings to keep things interesting.”
—COLIN MEAGHER
Photo: Rob Jones
John Tomac. Photo: Malcom Fearon
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North Shore-caliber trails, without the crowds
BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTOND E S T I N A T I O N :
PHOTOS: COLIN MEAGHER
GALBRAITH When riders wax poetic about Bellingham’s amazing trail system, they’re usually referring to the stuff on Galbraith, the north end of Lookout Mountain. Galbraith hosts more than 40 miles of trail renowned for chewing folks up and spitting them out. In truth, there are trails here for every level of rider, and all are built to IMBA standards by mountain bikers.
The easier, cross-country-style trails are on the north side of the mountain. Cut your teeth on Cedar Dust, a mellow singletrack that weaves through dense cedar forest and is dotted with beginner-level log rides and ladder bridges. Then explore longer trails such as Ewok Village, Esophagus, Intestine and Candy.
Many of the routes that demand serious skill and body armor are on the southern side of the mountain. Cheech and Chong’s Wild Ride is a great example: It’s a one-way downhill trail bristling with ladder bridges, rock drops and countless twists and turns. There are easy ride-arounds to all the stunts—a real plus if the idea of surfi ng a wet, 4-inch-wide skinny onto a rolling ladder bridge scares the hell out of you. Want more? Give Evolution, Scorpion and Mullet a go; all are within striking distance of this trail.
IN JUNE THEY BEGIN TO TRICKLE INTO TOWN. BY July, it’s a fl ood of F-150s, Xterras and 4Runners from Los Angeles, San Jose, Portland and parts south; each rig loaded with pilgrims on a journey to the famed North Shore. Vancouver’s Mount Fromme and Seymour lie just across the border. Whistler, a couple of hours more. They can practically taste A-Line. For most of them, Bellingham, Washington, is simply a place to take a leak and fi ll their tanks. They have no intention of riding here, and absolutely no idea what they’re missing.
Bellingham is a mid-sized college town about an hour and a half north of Seattle. It’s a pretty place. Look to your left and there sparkles Puget Sound. Look to your right and you have the Cascades—a wall of snow-capped mountains that march north to south as far as the eye can see. And there are trails here. Miles and miles of trails that rival much of what you’ll fi nd on the Shore.
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CLOSER TO HOME
Once passed over by riders on their way to Whistler, Bellingham has trails that are worth the detour
From the beginning, the Dakar XAM earned a rep as an incredibly
plush, efficient trail bike. This year, we re-worked it from head tube to
rear dropout, making it the best-handling/best-pedaling 6-inch travel
all-mountain bike to ever set tread on dirt.
The XAM’s mp3 rear suspension gets a new one-piece bell crank, new
pivot hardware, new seatstays and dropouts for added stiffness at the
back end, and a 2.63:1 shock leverage ratio that improves shock life and
offers more progressive control.
Up front there’s 20mm of stiff thru-axle strength to keep you firmly
planted and pointed where you want to go no matter how aggressive
the conditions.
All powered by SRAM’s revolutionary Hammerschmidt: a lightweight
transmission system that shifts instantly from 1:1 to 1:1.6, effectively
providing a 22/36T chainring setup. No more chain dropping. No more
chain suck. No grinding chain during shifts.
Dakar XAM. All Mountain. Any Mountain. All the time. Any time.
www.jamisbikes.com
Dakar XAM. All Mountain.
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THE CHUCKANUTS Just south of town, and west of the I-5 are the Chuckanut Mountains. The trails here are of the epic, cross-country variety and the best bet in these parts is the Chuckanut Ridge trail—a root-and-rock-infested, 4-mile-long ridgeline trail that offers jaw-dropping views of Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands. You’ll have to slog up either North Lost Lake trail or Cleator Road to reach the Ridge trail, but the adrenaline rush on the way down is well worth it.
IN TOWN First things fi rst—head to downtown Bellingham’s Boundary Bay Brewery. The micro-brews are amazing and the food is surprisingly sophisticated. I could be stoned to death in public for saying this, but the best Mexican food in town is undoubtedly Taco Lobo, also in downtown Bellingham. Local riders love the burritos at nearby Banditos, but Taco Lobo is the real deal. For outstanding Thai, try Busara. There are plenty of options when it comes to coffee, but the best espresso drinks are at Adaggio, just a couple of blocks north of the brewery. For the best drip coffee and breakfast, head south a couple of miles to the Harris Avenue Café in historic Fairhaven.
Upscale travelers looking for lodging should try the Fairhaven Village Inn (360-733-1311); it’s within walking distance of several great restaurants, and you can pedal to the Chuckanuts in fi ve minutes. On a budget? Try the Motel 6 (360-671-4494); it’s within 3 miles of Galbraith’s northern entrance.
—VERNON FELTON
Before You Go: The local advocacy group, the WMBC (www.whim-psmtb.com), produces an outstanding map of Galbraith’s extensive trail system. It sells for nine bucks and, bonus, it’s waterproof. The best map of the Chuckanuts is made by Square One Maps—you can grab one at REI (360-647-8955).
Bellingham has some excellent bike shops. Two of the best are the Fanatik Bike Co. (360-756-0504) and Kulshan Cycles (360-733-6440). You can pick up a WMBC map at either, as well as dig for trail informa-tion. As a general rule, folks ride year-round up here, but the best sea-son is June through October. The later months offer less mud.
the inside line
FOR TRAIL INFORMATION, MAPS, PHOTOS, VIDEOS AND GPS DATA OF THESE TRAILS AND OTHERS, LOG ON TO BTRAILS.COM.
son is
FOGPBT
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American men and women combined for 40 top-10 fi nishes in the World Cup last year. Me-lissa Buhl took home a 4X World Championship, and two men—Aaron Gwin and Luke Strobel—each fi nished in the top 10 of a World Cup downhill. It’s time to start paying attention to what happens between the tape.
We are fi nding new and in-novative spots to ride. Places like Black Rock, Oregon, (see page 74) Ray’s Indoor MTB Park in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Colonnade bike park—located under an I-5 overpass in Seattle, Washington—continue to thrive. Public dirt jumps and pump tracks are gaining popularity, and lift-access terrain continues to expand at Diablo, Northstar, Winter Park, Snowshoe and Highland.
While we continually risk losing trails, there has never been more money available for
trail building. In the past year, SRAM, Specialized and Trek have combined to commit more than $1 million to IMBA and other groups devoted to building new singletrack.
Even better, an anonymous donor recently pledged $1 mil-lion to create a 35-acre mountain bike park in Portland, Oregon. The proposed area will include trails, a freeride zone and even a cyclo-cross course. According to Mike van Abel, IMBA’s executive direc-tor, the park is proof that “we’re entering a new era of mountain bike facilities.”
Local race series and grass-roots events are exploding. The Mountain States Cup, Downieville Downhill and Fluid Ride Series all report increased numbers, proving that riders will race as long as courses don’t suck, or cost $100 to enter. “Grassroots events have carried the industry for the past three
or four years,” says Epic Rides’ Todd Sadow, whose Whiskey Off Road race has ballooned from 400 riders in 2006 to more than 800 this year.
The NorCal High School Moun-tain Bike Racing League has be-come more than a one-hit wonder. The league has 33 teams and 560 racers, while its offshoot in SoCal has attracted 14 teams and 103 riders in its fi rst year. Now, the league is looking to expand to other states. League Director Matt Fritzinger hopes to have programs in Colorado and Washington within two years, and a total of 10 programs on the ground by 2015.
According to the National Sporting Goods Association, mountain bike participation increased 20 percent between 2006 and 2008 to 10.2 million enthusiasts, its highest level in a decade. People are stoked about riding.
—Lou Mazzante
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THERE’S HOPEFOR RIDINGIN AMERICA
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“Brent had a vision for Bootleg,” says David “Crash” Collins, a close friend of Thomson. “He put everything he had into it. He’s the reason those trails exist. He’s the reason mountain bikers go to Bootleg.”
THE TRAILS: They have names like G-String, Diva, Mother and Ar-mageddon. They are rocky and pain-fully jagged, steep in places, beauti-fully contoured in others. They de-scend mountains and dance through canyons. And every year, they become more popular. Boulder City’s Bootleg Canyon trail network, not far from Las Vegas, Nevada, possesses some of the Southwest’s most thrill-ing cross-country and downhill tracks. More than two dozen have been hewn into the rocky moon-scape, including IMBA Epics, rowdy DH shuttle runs, super-D courses and rolling loops of singletrack.
THE TRAIL MASTER: Brent Thomson built nearly every inch of trail at Bootleg. He was a painter
and a trail builder, and he ap-proached both with the passion of an artist. Unfortunately, Thomson passed away in February, after suf-fering a heart attack while riding the very trails he built. Thomson fi rst discovered Bootleg more than a decade ago, and quickly began building trails on the city-owned land. By 2004, the town hired him as Bootleg’s trail master, and he devoted himself to digging trails and establishing the city as a legitimate mountain bike destination.
THE PAST: Thomson discovered mountain biking after undergoing a quadruple bypass in 1994. Doctors told him that he needed to exercise if he wanted to live, so he turned to mountain biking and began explor-
ing the hills outside of Boulder City. When he tired of the existing trails, he built his own. The Mother trail was his fi rst, and it helped the net-work earn IMBA’s Epic designation.
THE FUTURE: Thomson’s passing leaves a gaping hole in the mountain bike community, and the trails at Bootleg Canyon in limbo. The town is looking to hire a new trail master, but several Boulder City board members have suggested eliminating funding for the trails. Local riders, members of the bike industry and race promoters are fi ghting to keep the trails open.
—LOU MAZZANTE
To contribute to the Brent Thomson
Memorial Fund, contact Barret
Thomson at [email protected].
PHOTOS: MORGAN MEREDITH
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ask chopperBY GREG RANDOLPH
QOM QUESTIONOF THE MONTH
IF YOU HAVE A QUES-TION FOR OUR SINGLE-TRACK SAGE, SEND IT TO [email protected] WITH “ASK CHOPPER” IN THE SUBJECT LINE. BECAUSE NOT ONLY ARE THERE DUMB QUESTIONS, THERE ARE EVEN DUMBER ANSWERS.
THE BIBLE OF BIKE ADVICE
BALL BUSTERI am somewhat vertically challenged and can’t fi nd a full-suspension rig that fi ts. I am about 5’4’’ with a 29” inseam, and most standover heights are too tall. I am most interested in an all-mountain/light freeride setup. Any suggestions? I took this question very seriously and sent an e-mail to an over-worked colleague suffering from ADD who did some research on standover heights. His effort, which cost me three pints and a bourbon at a grungy watering hole in New York City, yielded the following data on this year’s extra-small trail bike lineup:
MODEL STANDOVER
Giant Reign 31.5Kona Coilair 32Norco Six 29.1Pivot Firebird 28.5Rocky SXC 31Santa Cruz Blur LT 27.8Specialized Enduro 29.2Turner RFX 28.9Yeti 575 28.5
Norco, Pivot, Santa Cruz, Specialized, Turner and Yeti look like companies that realize small bikes are purchased by people with shorter inseams who value their family jewels. You can’t go wrong with any one of those.
CRAMPIN’ ON THE CANI fi nd myself spending too much time sitting on the throne reading Bike. My question is, how do I keep my legs from falling asleep?If you had written this to me three years ago, I would have recommended going to a local Pesky Learning Center or picking up a copy of English
for Dummies. But now that this damned magazine has gotten so big and bitchin’ your legs are likely to go numb while you fl ip through the pages. [Editor’s note: Despite Chopper’s claims, Bike
has not been taking ExtenZe; we’re just average size, and we’re okay with that.]
For anyone who has cramped while on the can, I suggest my soon-to-be-patented Two Session Technique. Session One: read until you get to the start of “Crucible” and pinch it off. Go make some coffee and do jumping jacks in the kitchen while it brews. Then head back to fi nish what you started. Get the dirty business done quickly, courtesy fl ush, and close the lid. Sit on top of the throne with the lid closed. This will raise your effective toptube height and place less pressure on your femoral nerves, allowing you to sit comfortably in that nice cool sanctuary and fi nish this rag in ultimate style. Or get a padded, gel-fortifi ed seat. A heated one might be nice in the colder months. I hear old people love them.
THE BIG UNITIs there a calculation to determine how many calories one should eat to replenish the calories burned from a ride?While it is very true that I have trouble with counting or actually organizing anything, I do know that the “calorie count” school of thought is an incomplete method of analyzing your body’s energy needs. To provide the most precise information possible, I consulted a very respected nutritionist. After all, Jenny Craig has done wonders for Valerie Bertinelli—that woman is back in the smokehouse!
Each minute of a ride gets one “unit.” We will use “units” since “calorie” is just a fancy word for “unit.” Thus, a two-hour ride is worth 120 units. If you are a woman, each kilogram of body weight equals two units; men get 2.5 units. Then suppose a PB&J sandwich is worth 120 units. A slice of cold pizza is worth
I’VE SIGNED UP FOR THE TEST
OF METAL IN SQUAMISH,
B.C., THIS SUMMER AND IT’S
MY FIRST RACE IN YEARS.
I’M NOT CONCERNED ABOUT
PLACING, BUT WANT TO GIVE
IT MY BEST. THE COURSE
COMBINES A LOT OF MILEAGE
AND ELEVATION GAIN WITH
GNARLY DESCENTS. SHOULD
I BOTHER ADJUSTING MY
SEATPOST DURING THE RACE
OR JUST RIDE WITH IT AT A
CONSISTENT HEIGHT?
Brother, if you throw a leg over a toptube with zip ties on the bars, you’d better care about the result. Pucker up and give me your best effort, because this shit ain’t free.
Now, forget about manually fussing with your seatpost during the race. You will lose precious time raising it before every climb, and you can’t race with your saddle at half-mast.
If you are going to fi ddle with your saddle height, make sure you do it like you are tuning a violin. When you are shelled mid-race, freeballing your own seat height with a quick release is going to be a disaster. The only way to accomplish a consistent and effi cient seat-height change is with an adjustable seatpost like the Crank Brothers Joplin, Gravity Dropper or similar product.
But listen, Panama Red, endurance races are won and lost on the climbs, not the descents. Even with a trick adjustable post, you need to relax and catch your breath on the downhills. Going fl at-out with your saddle dropped may gain you 30 seconds, but if you shoot your load on the descent, your competition will regain that advantage in a matter of minutes on the next climb and use you for traction while you suck fl ies through your teeth. Use the lowered seat to gain advantage only where it is really going to make a difference, and go get ‘em tiger.
THE WINNING QUESTION RECEIVES NEW GLASSES FROM SMITH, LIKE THIS PARALLEL MAX MODEL
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056 I bikemag.com
ask chopper
125 units. Prepackaged astronaut food is worth between 100 and 150 units, depending on make and model. Beer is worth negative 100 units, since it is nothing more than bubbly water with flavor and blood thinners (and because assigning a proper value to beer would be depressing).
Take your ride and fi nd the total unit value. Then take your weight and multiply by the proper number of units. Then subtract ride units from weight units, multiply by 10 and subtract your IQ. Boy, that sure seems like a large number and a lot of food to carry, so help yourself out by drinking some beers, which will have a net negative effect on the amount of food you actually need to satisfy this formula. Keep in mind that the more ineffi cient you are (i.e., doughy and out-of-shape), the more food units you will need to add.
The sooner you can eat post-ride, the better. Aim to get 1 to 1.2 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight (pounds divided by 2.2) within the fi rst hour or, even better, within the fi rst 30 minutes of exercise. Beer has roughly 15 grams of carbs per 12-ounce can, which means I can drink a seven-pack on the tailgate. This sounds about right, and makes me think you can trust this school of thought.
In the end, get a rough estimate of the calories you need and then pay attention over time to what your body is doing. If you are feeling weak, eat more. If you are getting fat, eat less. This science is as exact as a science can get when you are addressing an art with a science.
CLOWNIN’ AROUNDWhy aren’t there any downhill 29er bikes? Or at least a 29-inch wheel in the front? Wouldn’t this increase the bike’s ability to destroy/roll over everything in its path?There are a few obvious reasons for the lack of 29er downhill bikes. 1) Downhillers are not trendy metrosexuals wearing shants, chain-link jewelry and festooned with soon-to-be-regretted tattoos related to bike exploits. 2) By the time you put a DH tire on a 29er you would have to register it as a carnival attraction. 3) The only thing worse than a 29er evangelist is a fi xed-gear poser. 4) The 29er is like parachute pants. Yes, parachute pants. They were incredibly functional, yet the concept was not altogether perfect. Why? Cramming a backpack’s worth of stuff into your pants’ pockets was a nifty idea, but you couldn’t do the centipede or a headspin without loose change, chewing gum, your tape player, urine sample and car keys spraying like water from a lawn sprinkler. They looked great on dweebs, but had limitations. The same goes for 29ers.
Larger wheels roll very well, corner reasonably well, and about half the time they make riding more effi cient and fun. But they also raise your center of gravity, turn slower, decrease the amount of pressure exerted per square inch to the ground (compromising tire bite, especially at speed), and defl ect more under pressure due to their increased diameter. Shhhhh. Don’t have an aneurism. What is done is done, and this isn’t subject to debate—I wore parachute pants for a while, so I know a thing or two about this kind of stuff.
On a downhill bike, 26-inch wheels work well, considering the frame dimensions, weight and power output of the humanoid, as well as the sartorial desires of participants. And if bigger were truly better, I would imagine motorcycles would come with cartoon wheels, too. Alas, even the 69er is a great ride, but the forces of nature make a larger wheel less optimal for DH. In short, you are never going to have a Steve Peat-level game with wagon wheels on your bike. Finally, you might fi nd it trendy to assemble such a contraption, but be sure to wear the appropriate costume.
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grimy handshakeBY MIKE FERRENTINO
sKILL, AS APPLIED TO THE MODERN mountain biking experience, tends to be thought of as a matter of refl ex and bravery—especially as the defi ned
edge of what we deem possible on a bike keeps getting pushed outward in all directions. How hard a rider can crank into a turn, how smoothly that rider can fl oat over a rock garden before a series of step-downs and drops, how much aerial maneuvering can take place between takeoff and landing.
Speaking entirely for myself—lining up what I can and cannot do against what the most grace-ful athletes in this sport do with ease can make a man bitter. Fortunately, speaking entirely for myself, I shut that kind of comparative thinking straight down, and instead content myself with considering the scope of my own abilities and how they manage to fl uctuate from embarrass-ing to almost half-competent and back with pre-dictable, seasonal regularity.
Nowhere does this fl uctuation between almost-grace and clubfooted misery show up more than in the most invisible skill of all. My spin. People
don’t ever strut or brag about their spin, especially in the current zeitgeist of hucking one’s baggy-clad carcass loosely into space. Spinning is for people who can’t really throw down. Except, it’s not. Because sooner or later you have to climb a hill, or chase down that dickwad who just elbowed you off your line, and at those times, a good spin is a godsend. A spin, one nicely honed by years of pedaling, polished smooth by mileage the way a rock gets caressed round by a fl owing river, is the secret weapon that allows people who “haven’t been riding in months” to rip your legs off right when you think you’re the toughest cowboy at the rodeo. A good spin is what enables that crusty beggar-looking guy on the old Giant Iguana with a baby seat to ride you off his wheel on your cross-town commute. No amount of justifi cation can make that feel any better, especially if you happened to be riding a road bike with an Italian name. A good spin—stay with me here—is the only way you’re going to survive with an 8-inch-travel bike, fl at pedals and no access to chairlifts or shuttle trucks (for the sake of brevity, we will refrain here from getting into why the hell anyone would choose something like this as their only bike if they didn’t have either a ski resort or a fl eet of trucks readily accessible), because the only thing nature abhors more than a vacuum is some square-pedaling chump in a pair of untied 5.10s on an 8-inch bike trying to ride up a gentle grade.
My ability to turn the pedals with any degree of fl uidity has become entirely dependent on the season. Admittedly, I didn’t do myself any favors when I was young. Instead of taking the advice of smoother elders who suggested that time spent paying attention to turning circles with my feet would be a skill that would serve me well decades down the line, I derailed myself by playing to the one strong suit I had in my genetic deck of cards. I was kind of blocky and could stomp a big gear. So I did that, a lot. And, as such, ended up being a mostly bow-legged square-pedaling chump. At least I kept my shoes tied.
Now, with the guilt-free smugness of someone who can cop to his own blind spots, I can admit without shame that I’ve read every issue of Bicycling where there was some cover blurb like “Spin
PHOTO: RYAN CREARY
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grimy handshake
Like A Pro!” (Corrected for anytime between 2001 and 2009, that blurb would probably read “Spin Like Lance!”), and I’ve gone on rides where I did nothing but pedal fl at ground and count while trying to let my body sink into some sort of smoothness. I’ve done one-leg pedaling drills in out-of-the-way places where nobody would see me. Hell, I even resorted to fi xie riding, once, about 15 years before tight jeans and matching rim/handlebar grip colors were required to be seen on one of those torture devices. I listened to advice: “Imagine you are scraping something off the sole of your shoe at the bottom of your pedal stroke.” I’ve tried “pedaling in circles.” I’ve even tried to understand what the hell people like Chris Car-michael are talking about when they refer to “an-kling.” Eventually, I surrendered to just letting my body fi gure it out. And what I have ended up with is something called “The Dance of Meat.”
In the middle of winter, The Dance is more of a grim wrestling match, where I fi ght myself and lose. Stairmastering up climbs, wondering why it hurts so much, mashing down with both legs on the pedals at once (“C’mon guys pleeeeease? Just try and lift up a little on the back pedal, okay?” muttered through clenched teeth while going no-where, chugging like a broken steam engine). By spring, as a semi-regular ride schedule has come into play, the wrestling match is a little less violent.The “thunk-deadspot-thunk-deadspot-thunk” pe-dal stroke has become slightly less lumpy, and cadence of up to 80 rpm becomes a possibility. But it still is far from pretty. Then, fi nally, sometime in those golden days of late summer, it happens. The Dance of Meat. I fi nd myself, without even thinking about it, just fl oating along. My thighs are a pair of ham-slabs working a groove with each other. My shoulders are not bobbing with effort. My hips aren’t rocking. My glutes are playing rhythm sec-tion to the beat of the ham-slabs. I’m not thinking about pulling up on the pedals, and my tires are not going “squelch squelch squelch” in time with each unbalanced spasm of muscle. Sometimes it only lasts for a few minutes. Sometimes I get a week out of it, every ride a whole magnitude easier all of a sudden. It feels like cheating. That’s how much easier and smoother it makes everything, when The Dance of Meat is really working. And I cherish every second of it.
Then the trade show comes along, and it’s back to drinking too much and not riding enough. Then the days get shorter. Then it starts raining. Then the holiday season comes and turns me into a fat bag of turd that doesn’t ride. The Dance of Meat fades into memory, and I get towed into the next riding season on nothing more than hope and self-loathing.
A cyclical life, aboard these bicycles. The Dance of Meat, abandonment of hope, rinse, repeat.
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KERNVILLE, CALIFORNIA. PHOTO: JOHN SHAFER
WE SCOURED THE COUNTRY LOOKING FOR OFF-THE-RADAR DESTINATIONS—HERE ARE SIX THAT HAVE ALL THE TRAILS, WITHOUT THE HORDES.
AMERICA’S
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BREVARD
Most riders have heard of Pisgah—the steep, rooty, rocky, wet wonder-world of trails in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains is the stuff of legend. Most have also heard of Asheville, the hip university town that serves as the Southeast’s answer to Boulder, Colorado. The name many riders might not recognize, however, is Brevard, a small mountain col-lege town about 30 miles south of Asheville and the perfect starting point for some of North Carolina’s best singletrack.
Brevard, with a population of 6,687, sits right at Pisgah National Forest’s back door. There are, liter-ally, a million acres of terrain and 200 miles of trail here—and it’s all just a few pedal strokes from the
west side of town. Be forewarned that a journey into the depths of this dense forest may lead to encounters with poisonous plants and insects, and perhaps even a black bear or two. And every October the infamous “brown ice” leaf blanket covers the forest fl oor.
Those who venture into these woods, however, will be rewarded with fast, technical descents that rage for miles. Pinning rhododendron tunnels and negotiating root-strewn ridgeline crags are highlights, usually accompanied by “damn, we’re really far out” views of the Blue Ridge Moun-tains. Shuttle opportunities are scarce, so bring a good all-around steed that is light enough for the climbs and plush enough for root-fi lled descents. Grueling access climbs such as the 13-mile-long Black Mountain trail, with
its sun-baked slog up Clawhammer Road, weed out the weak and keep the trails largely free of traffi c the whole year round.
Looking for something a little less intimidating? Just a few miles east of Brevard is the Dupont State Forest, where nearly 100 miles of intermediate trails await. While Pisgah is full of big ups and downs, Dupont brims with gen-tler, rolling trails. It’s a beautiful place, fi lled with massive water-
falls and eastern granite domes—mossy versions of Moab’s cele-brated slickrock.
Annual events like the Pisgah Mountain Bike Adventure Race give riders in the South something to brag about: two-man teams pedal for six to 12 hours over
70-plus miles with 15,000 feet of elevation gain in this com-pletely unsupported race. If that doesn’t sound hard enough, there’s always the “Most Hor-rible Thing Ever” in February—think 36 hours and 150 miles of Pisgah pain.
Locals heading from Brevard into Pisgah generally start their rides near the Davidson River campground, which offers year-round camping with hot showers and access to the national forest right across the road for $16 a night (828-862-5960).
While the trails of Transylva-nia County may sound spooky, the quiet town of Brevard is anything but that. Two bike shops sit a minute’s pedal from the trailhead (hubbicycles.com,
828-884-8670; Sycamorecycles.com, 828-877-5790), as does El Chapala, a post-ride favorite, where grande cervezas wash down endless chips and salsa (828-877-5220).
The town is home to Brevard College, and there is a healthy mu-sic scene with a decidedly Appala-chian fl avor. There are also plenty of affordable hotels (Hampton Inn Brevard, 828-883-4800; Holiday Inn Express, 828-862-8900).
When you’re done riding, be sure to check out the 150-foot natural waterslide at Sliding Rock, just 8 miles from town on Highway 276. Got a thing for wa-terfalls? There are 250 of them in the region. And stay on the look-out for Brevard’s “famous” white squirrels, for which the town holds its annual, you guessed it, White Squirrel Festival.
—BRAD WALTON
BREVARD, NORTH CAROLINAPisgah’s Private Playground
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BLACK MOUNTAIN TRAILThe Black Mountain trail pretty much sums up Brevard-area riding: 13 miles long, with 2,000 feet of climbing through a mix of for-ested creek bed, gravel road and steep, technical singletrack. All this climbing leads to epic views before a 4-mile ridge-line descent along rock-and-root-infested singletrack that winds through seemingly endless rhododendron tunnels.
Park at the ranger station in Brevard and turn west on Highway 276 into Pisgah Na-tional Forest. Take a right onto FR-477 road, then another right at the horse stables onto Clawhammer Road.
Sweat out the climb until you reach the Buckhorn Gap saddle and soak up the views. Continue to the right onto the Black Mountain trail, where you’ll climb and climb until you reach the 4,200-foot clifftop view. After the second summit, hang on for your reward—a rough, twisty downhill that loses 1,900 feet of elevation. Follow the white dots to stay on the Black Mountain trail all the way back to Highway 276, where you’ll turn right one more time to return to your vehicle.
SOUTHERN FRONT: ASHEVILLE MAY GET ALL THE ATTENTION, BUT BREVARD’S TRAILS ARE JUST AS GOOD, AND FAR FROM THE MASSES
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TRUMBULL
NEW HAVEN
Go ahead and call southern Connecticut a giant, sprawling suburb. But the area offers killer all-day, all-mountain riding, just an hour and change from New York City.
Get out your magnifying glass and fi nd Connecticut on a map. Tucked into the state’s southwest corner is some of New England’s least-hyped riding—Trumbull’s River Valley trails. Go any further north and you’re in the boonies; go any further south and you’ll
fi nd yourself amidst some very pissy former hedge-fund suits. Trumbull’s trails are extensive, easy-access webs, with new con-nectors and diversions appearing every season, and the nearby town of New Haven is a post-ride oasis with some of the best Italian food this side of the old country.
Trumbull doesn’t have major el-evation changes, so the trails here aren’t lung-busters—just good old Northeastern blast-up climbs, with elbow-splitting rock gardens and dense canopies of green that keep you cool. All this, without bummers such as paid parking, overuse or singletrack traffi c jams.
Like the state itself, the spot is
not huge; we’re talking about 10 to 12 miles of trail. But it’s a time-suck in its own right, keeping you in the saddle all day while tooling around on newfound sections, taking mulligans and working up to the big stuff. And big stuff there is: while there’s plenty of all-mountain fun to be had, Trumbull welcomes your 7-inch bike with three-story roll-ins, severe rock gap jumps, hairy drops and big spines of granite.
Patience is rewarded. Dozens of offshoots from the main trails lead to ledges, drops, rock ravines and other fun stuff, most with clean, loamy lines. While IMBA would probably frown on some of the trail
building that goes on here—one low-lying sandy area is famous for its mud holes—Trumbull’s menu of riding is largely nature-made, thanks to huge glacial rock depos-its and blankets of pine needles that keep undergrowth at bay.
Riders like to say that parts of Trumbull don’t look like Con-necticut, and they mean that as a compliment. The lowland trails have a signature Swamp-Thing feel, with lots of moss, coniferous trees and up-and-over boulders that would love to pitch you sideways into the muck. Bring plenty of tubes here, or run tubeless; you’ll want to run low pressure for the grip, but the edgy rocks seem poised for pinch-fl ats.
This isn’t a place you rip through, so when you pack energy bars, it’s because you’ll be gone all day. Even XC riders linger in some of the playground areas, treating them as skills sections and re-running the odd stunt. Show up on a Sunday and you’ll see herds of riders in gravity gear; get lucky and you’ll see one hit NFW, a 30-foot pants-crapping roll-in
covered in a rare species of moss known as Oh Shitticus.
Survive Trumbull and head to Wooster Street in New Haven, epicenter of the city’s vibrant Italian neighborhood and blessed with incredible pizza, pastries, pasta and coffee. Try Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (157 Wooster Street; 203-865-5762), an 84-year-old eat-ery so famous it has a longer Wiki-pedia page than Gary Fisher. This isn’t pizza like you know it—it’s New Haven-style apizza (separate Wiki-pedia page), a massive, rectangular coal-fi red thin-crust concoction that makes New York and Chicago-style look like Boboli. Don’t get the “famous” white clam pizza—it’s about as good as it sounds—but every other topping combo on the menu is worth the 25-minute drive from Trumbull. —CHRIS DANNEN
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RIVER VALLEY TRAILSAs Trumbull is a clusterfuck of connec-tors, skills spots and shortcuts, it’s hard to tell one trail from another. But riding here can be split into two halves: pre-lowland and post. The fi rst half of your ride will take you through leafy single-track packed into dense groves of trees and scrub. Once you come out the other side, you’ll descend into a sandy open fi eld of tall grass. Traverse it and get back into the woods, and you’ll be riding along several tributary rivers that give the trails a chilly, dank feel. Stay close to the river on your right; the main trail will try to tug you up a rocky 10-minute climb, but the riverside promises undu-lating, stone-knuckled singletrack that weaves over and around huge plates of rock that dip thrillingly close to the wa-ter. When you come out the other side, you’re at a skills section with several four-foot drops, three long log rides and a handful of other bang-around obsta-cles to keep you limber.
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUTTrumbull’s Suburban Singletrack
TRAIL HAVEN: NEW HAVEN HAS ITS SHARE OF NYC SUITS, BUT SWEET TRAILS LURK IN THE SURROUNDING FORESTS
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ELLICOTTVILLE
He was fi t. One of those chiseled, Zone Diet-fanatic, triathlete types. He was also shelled. Bonked. Done. You could see it in his thou-sand-yard stare and the defeated slump of his shoulders.
“How…uh…(gasp for air)…how do I get back to the ski resort?”
I felt for the guy. He was a long way from home and a whole mountain away from the ski resort, a warm bath and a bottle of his favorite electrolyte mix.
It’s easy to get lost on the singletrack around Ellicottville—not that there are hundreds of miles of trail in this corner of upstate New York. To be precise, there are about 30 miles of singletrack within an easy spin of the main drag. The best-known routes—Pale Ale, Big Merlin, Billygoat and Porcupine—wind their way up and down McCarty Hill and Little Rock City state forests, just above town. Ellicottville’s two ski resorts are also open to bikes during the sum-mer. Need more? There’s another 10 miles of tight and twisty stuff a 20-minute drive away at Gold Hill State Forest.
While Ellicottville doesn’t have the sheer quantity of trails as, say, Fruita or Sun Valley, it more
than makes up for it in quality. These trails are good. Really good. Which is why riders from Ohio and Pennsylvania are fl ocking here to join the legions of riders from Buffalo who’ve spent the past decade building and quietly savoring the goods.
The terrain is quintessential East Coast—dense forest fi lled with mud, roots and too many log-overs to count. The riding is technical, no
doubt about it, but perfectly feasible on anything from a rigid singlespeed to a burly all-mountain rig. And while there aren’t many wooden stunts around here, the trails incorporate healthy doses of rock that demand your full attention.
For those not content to simply cruise the trails, there are a variety of races, such as the Wednesday Night Race Series, the Six Hours of Power, and Roots, Rocks and Ridges.
A word of advice: Ellicottville’s trails are well marked, but maps are essential. The trails connect, inter-connect and double back in a man-ner that can leave out-of-towners stumbling around like extras from Dawn of the Dead.
After emerging from the woods, there’s the town to explore—all one square mile of it. Ellicottville is tiny: 1,738 full-time inhabitants tiny, to be exact. But there are a variety of places to cool off and
relax. The fi rst stop should be the Ellicottville Brewing Company (716-699-2537), where riders can sample the burger and wings or get all upscale with the pub’s bruschetta, Thai Chile Mussels or Spicy African Peanut Soup. Of course, the real attractions are the fi ne house brews, including the tasty and very inappropri-ately named Pantius Drop-
pus Imperial Pale Ale. Need caffeine? Head down the street to Dina’s. Ice Cream? Try Coolings Ice Cream Café. Not into sin? The vil-lage hosts the requisite ski-town salons, chocolate shops and antique stores as well as a decent bike shop (Ellicottville Bike Shop, 716-699-2453) and several hotel and camp-ing options (Ellicottville Wingate, 716-699-6000; Allegany State Park, 716-354-9121).
—VERNON FELTON
ELLICOTTVILLE, NEW YORKThe Hidden Empire
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SPOILED FOR CHOICEWhat’s the single best trail in Ellicottville? You have a lot of options here, and you can reach them all by starting out on the race loop behind Holiday Valley. Pressed for time? Try Big Merlin. What Merlin lacks in technical challenges it makes up for with the best fl ow in the area. Think swoopy, roller-coaster time. If you come here look-ing for something tougher, try combining the Finger Lakes trail (FLT) and Pale Ale trails. Ellicottville is home to one of the few bike-legal sections of the FLT (ride sensi-tively, of course, and help keep it that way). The FLT is plenty tough: the rock gardens seem to go on forever. Best yet, you can use the FLT to connect to the North, Middle and South Pale Ale trails, which are arguably the best in the entire region. Still feeling frisky? Take a right on Billygoat, hang another right on the fi re road and then go left on the Rim trail, another great stretch of singletrack that takes you to Rock City. You’re deep in the woods at this point, so hopefully you dropped by the Ellicottville Bike Shop and picked up WNYMBA’s excellent Ellicottville map before you started.
INTO THE WOODS: WHAT ELLICOTTVILLE LACKS IN QUANTITY, IT MAKES UP FOR IN QUALITY
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GRAEAGLE
The tiny Sierra foothill town of Downieville has carved out a mountain bike paradise reputation much larger than most 300-popu-lation towns could ever expect. Riders shuttle up to Packer Saddle, where the spine of the Sierras vectors north, and then descend westward down a now-legendary network of trails and drainages. Few riders ever cast their eyes east before dropping in.
That’s too bad. Because for every mile of well-known, well-traveled trail that drops toward Downieville, there is a correspond-ing distance and vertical drop toward the town of Graeagle, a quiet community of 825 people on the fl oor of the Sierra Valley to the
east of the range (about 18 miles as the crow fl ies from Downieville, but a good 45 minutes of twisty
road mayhem in a car). Whereas the west-side trails are fast and dusty, those dropping east serve up a much more technical diet of rocks and rough-age. Instead of railing down river drainages, the trails clamber over granite slabs and thread down boulder-strewn chutes into the Lakes Basin. The riding is slower, more technically demanding singletrack-fi nessing, with some high-consequence opportunities for speed thrown into the mix.
The Lakes Basin con-sists of some three-dozen alpine lakes, presided over south to north by the slopes of the Sierra Buttes (8,591 feet), Mount
Elwell (7,818 feet) and Eureka Peak (7,447 feet). Graeagle, on the valley fl oor, is 4,300 feet above sea level. Tracing lines between the peaks, through the basin and down into Graeagle, is a network of 40-plus miles of singletrack. From the top of Elwell, 9 miles of steep, narrow trail drops 3,500 feet between the peak and town. A couple of miles further north along the Deer Lake OHV trail, the Jamison Creek trail sheds 2,200 feet in a riotous 4.8-mile de-scent from the spine of the Sierras to Plumas Eureka State Park.
One of Downieville’s key moun-tain bike agitators has been shift-ing his focus toward Graeagle and the Lakes Basin for several years now. Greg Williams, founder of both the Downieville Classic and the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship (SBTS), lives just south of Graea-gle and has been chipping away at trail projects in the basin for the past few seasons. To date, 15 miles of trail have been restored, capped by the com-pletion of the Smith Lake trail in 2008.
Graeagle itself has the all the trap-pings of a small mountain vacation town: golf courses, a market and gas sta-tion and an assortment of touristy bead- and trinket-type stores. For breakfast, head to the Café Mohawk (530-836-0901) and for
downright lethal post-ride marga-ritas and decent dinners shoot for the Coyote Grill (530-836-2002). The Lakes Basin is festooned with easily accessible campgrounds and lodges (River Pines Resort, riverpines.com, 530-836-2552; Gray Eagle Lodge, grayeaglelodge.com, 800-635-8778), and in sum-mer it offers the perfect post-ride elixir—choose-your-temperature lake bathing.
The only things not on the menu here, and the key reasons for the area’s under-the-radar status, are a bike shop and a dedicated shuttle service to Packer Saddle. You’ll have
to fi gure your own way up to the high country from town, and be prepared to ride self-suffi ciently. Nut up for that, and the rewards are guaranteed to be plentiful.
—MIKE FERRENTINO
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MOUNT ELWELL PEAK TRAILTo seek out the crown jewel of Lakes Ba-sin riding, you’d best be prepared to climb your brains out. Option A: From Graeagle, have someone drive you up to Plumas Eureka State Park, then through the park along a dirt road to the A-Tree. From there, suffer a thousand small deaths heading south by bike along the Deer Lake OHV trail for about fi ve miles until it intersects with the Mount Elwell Peak trail just south of where the PCT crosses the OHV trail. Cinch up bootstraps and bite down on your stem for the next thousand or so feet of climbing to the summit. Op-tion B: Catch a ride from Graeagle up the Gold Lake Highway to the Sierra County line and get dropped off in the Gold Lake Lodge parking lot. From there, pick your way through the Lakes Basin via Bear Lake trail, Mud Lake trail, Silver Lake trail and then a dash of Long Lake trail before accessing the Mount Elwell Peak trail. This will hurt just as much or more than Option A, and you’ll need a map. But if you like technical, rocky singletrack climbing, you’ll have come to the right place.
GRAEAGLE, CALIFORNIADownieville’s Sunny Shadow
SUNNY SIDE: ARIEL LINDSLEY ROCKS ONE OF GRAEAGLE’S TECHNICAL DESCENTS
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TERLINGUA
You know you’ve been formally introduced to Big Bend Country the fi rst time a limestone-loving lechuguilla agave cactus relieves your tires of air pressure. Also known as “letch-u-gotcha,” this needle-tipped angiosperm is in-digenous to the Chihuahuan Des-ert, which fi lls much of Texas’s Big Bend Country.
It’s a long way to this hidden Tex-Mex border outpost next to Big Bend National Park (nps.gov/bibe, 432-477-2251). But those willing to face the heat—and the trailside risks—will fi nd rewards in the purple-hued mountains and solitude of desert singletrack.
With more than 1.2 million acres of public land, it’s tough to know where to start. Singletrack lovers will want to head directly for the Lajitas trail system, one of the few places in Texas where you won’t be shot at for riding on
private land. Texas is also work-ing to develop the 300,000-acre wilderness of Big Bend Ranch State Park (tpwd.state.tx.us, 432-358-4444) into a bike-friendly destination. Already on the ground is the quad-burning, 20-mile Contrabando Loop, one of the park’s premier stretches of
singletrack. High points include the aptly named Crystal trail sec-tion, where glittering stones cover the ground, and the more techni-cal Dome trail, which skirts an extinct volcano.
Big Bend National Park also has worthy options—although it was one of the original IMBA pilot
projects to establish singletrack in National Parks, the riding still is mostly on remote jeep trails. Ar-range a shuttle and bomb the 27 rough, rocky miles of the Old Ore Road through the foothills of the Dead Horse Mountains.
For those looking to explore further afi eld, Desert Sports outfi ts overnight trips to the state park’s seldom-seen interior, where rid-ers will discover the Solitario, a collapsed caldera 10 miles wide and estimated to be more than 25 million years old. From the park headquarters, it’s a 40-mile slog along dusty doubletrack to reach this lonely limestone labyrinth.
Terlingua also plays host to the Mas-o-Menos 100K race, which has 30- and 50-kilometer routes as well. Held each February, the USAC-sanc-tioned ultra-endurance race takes place on mostly pri-vate land (many of which are closed to bikes the rest of the year), and attracts more than 400 racers each year.
After a day of riding, head to the Starlight Theatre (ac-tually a restaurant, starlight-theatre.com, 432-371-2326) for the best selection of beers in town, tasty burgers, hand-cut steaks and a hand-ful of vegetarian entrees. If it’s pizza you’re looking for, try the tasty pies at Long Draw Pizza (432-371-2608) a couple of miles down 170. Both joints have regular live music. For beds, there’s camping in the state and national parks, and comfort-able rooms at Lajitas Resort
(starting from $150, lajitas.com, 432-424-5000) with rides right out the back door. And whether you need to buy some extra tubes or stock up on Gu, head to Desert Sports (desertsportstx.com, 432-371-2727). The shop offers bike rentals and repairs, as well as guided rides.
—DAN OKO
TERLINGUA, TEXASNo Country for Old Men
>
LAJITAS TRAIL SYSTEMWith the main trailhead marked by a simple ki-osk and nothing but mountains on the eastern horizon, the Lajitas trail system crisscrosses the hilly arroyos that separate the 25,000-acre Lajitas Resort from the 800,000-acre Big Bend National Park. Just keep your eyes peeled for airport signs on the south side of Ranch Road 170, halfway between downtown Terlingua and the Rio Grande, 14 miles from the national park entrance at Study Butte (pronounced “stoo-dee beaut”).
From either the airport or the resort trail-head, you can shape up a smoking 15-mile loop almost entirely on singletrack, hitting sections like Dog Loop, Jackrabbit Flats and Fun Valley, which are featured as part of the Mas-o-Menos racecourse.
Those hungry for miles can double back on parallel jeep roads and link together 30 miles or more of trail, but don’t let those West Texas postcard views distract you: In addition to the thorny cactus and ever-present Spanish daggers, desert obstacles include dry-creek dips, ass-busting lime-stone ledges and loose stone and sand. Still, make time to conquer the Outer Loop (designated Trail 4), and do yourself a favor and hit the roller-coaster-like Lajitas Half-pipe and Brennecke Loop (Trail 3).
LIVIN’ LAJITAS: TERLINGUA HAS MILES OF TRAILS AND A HANDFUL OF DESERT RATS WHO CALL THEM HOME
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KERNVILLE
My career as a mountain bike writer has taken me, with bike in tow, around this continent and well beyond. While there is no shortage of excellent riding destinations, some of my most-memorable trips have been to the trails around Kernville, California, just two hours from my home near Los Angeles. It’s proof that you often don’t have to travel very far to fi nd truly epic backcountry singletrack.
This small town of 2,068 is lo-
cated at the southern foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains and fl ies just below the mountain bike radar. The lack of recognition could be because the area is better known
for its rafting and camping scene. And it’s not one of those prototyp-ical bike-centric towns where you throw a leg over your bike and are a quick pedal away from orgasmic trails. But once you fi nally do get to put two wheels to singletrack, Kernville has trails sweeter than a post-coital afterglow.
The Keyesville Classic, just a stone’s throw south of town at
Lake Isabella, is one of Southern Califor-nia’s longest-running mountain bike races. While the Keyesville racecourses aren’t memory makers, the Keyesville Recreation Area is located right off the Kern River and has plentiful camping. It can also be used as home base for
two notable rides, the Kern River trail and Just Outstanding/Waggy Ridge trail. The KRT is a point-to-point, out-and-back ride com-
posed of undulating singletrack that parallels Highway 178 and has several bailouts, so you can tailor the distance, while JO/WR is a 15-mile-long technical, singletrack downhill trail with minimal climbing.
Those not afraid to drive can travel about an hour north for the Slate Mountain Summit trail—a tough, 8-mile lung-busting ride that rewards the effort with beau-tiful panoramic views and some challenging switchback descents. While you’re in the “neighbor-hood” you can visit the world-renowned Needles climbing area or the truly mind-bending Trail of 100 Giants; a band of massive old-growth Giant Sequoias.
The best time to ride this area is in the late spring when the high-country trails open, usually after Memorial Day, when the soil is tacky and the weather is cool and crisp. Most of the rides in the area are also open to motorized traffi c, and by summer the dust and California summer heat can really take the bite off of even the best singletrack buzz. Fall is another worthy option, as the
annual Kernville Fat Tire Fest hap-pens each October.
Also, unless you love traffi c and crowds, avoid planning trips on a holiday weekend, when Kernville morphs from a quaint riverside village into a three-headed tour-ist monster. The upside of the
periodic visitor deluge is there is no shortage of quality lodg-ing in off-peak seasons, with the Kern River Inn Bed and Breakfast (760-376-6750) and Whispering Pines Lodge (877-241-4100) offer-ing nice rooms at a decent price. For those who prefer camping, the
Kernville area Forest Service is a good source of info as well as trail condition updates (760-376-3781).
The Kern River Brewing Com-pany on Sierra Highway near downtown is an essential stop. The beers are brewed on site, and can pack quite a donkey kick to a de-hydrated rider, so it’s a good idea to also order the fi sh tacos or any of the other fi ne menu choices. For those with a true sense of adven-ture, venture down to The Hut on Kernville Road. It’s a paradise for true dive bar afi cionados.
—RON IGE
KERNVILLE, CALIFORNIAA Gem in the Southern Sierras
>
CANNELL TRAILThe hub of riding in the Kernville area is the Cannell trail. Ridden as a point-to-point shuttle by all but the truly Herculean, this 32-miler is the one trail that must be sampled. In fact, you risk having your true mountain biker membership card revoked if this treasure trove of singletrack doesn’t leave you feeling justly rewarded.
Cannell starts at 9,200 feet above sea level, and about 4 hours later it fi nishes at 2,700 feet. In between are fantastic views of the Sequoia National Forest, a few sig-nifi cant climbs and ecstatic stretches of fast downhill singletrack—the homestretch is referred to as the “Plunge,” and it drops the last 5,000 vertical feet in 8 technical, switchback-strewn miles.
The simplest way to reach the Cannell trailhead is by enlisting the shuttle service from Mountain River Adventures (mtnriver.com). They also offer shuttles to other trails in the region, as well as guided, fully sup-ported, multi-day ride services. It’s also worth noting that Kernville doesn’t have a true high-end bike shop and Cannell’s sus-tained descending loves to chew through brake pads, so come prepared.
TAKE THE PLUNGE: KERNVILLE’S CAN-NELL TRAIL DROPS 6,500 GLORIOUSLY VERTICAL FEET TOWARD LAKE ISABELLA
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CAM MCCAUL TOOK ONE LOOK AT Granny’s Kitchen and knew he had come to the right place. He’d visited Black Rock a year earlier, but back then the Kitchen was just a small section of trails, a few tabletops, a couple of random berms. This time, drops appeared between the trees. Tight berms fl owed around every corner, and beautiful doubles rose from the ground.
Black Rock is tucked deep into the forests of Falls City, Oregon, and offers more than 500 acres of jumps, drops, wall rides, dou-bles and ridiculously fun DH trails. What began after a chance meeting between a mountain biker and a state land manager three years ago has turned into one of the country’s most progressive riding areas.
Word of this place initially spread slowly, but the hype is beginning to boil. Last summer, McCaul and fellow pro Kirt Vor-eis stopped in to check out the trails and fi lm a segment for the latest NWD fi lm. The terrain is undeniably good; the only question is whether this public park can sustain itself as a major freeride destina-tion. We can only hope so.
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This massive wall ride,
ridden by Kirt Voreis, was
inspired by Chris Styler,
an old-school rider who
has built some of the best
BMX trails in Oregon.
–KIRT VOREIS
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—CAM MCCAUL
Left: On scheduled weekends, a
shuttle hauls riders to the top so they
can hit drops like this all day long.
McCaul has seen the light.
Top: Dirt jumps, drops and gaps litter
the terrain, but Black Rock is also
home to some gloriously rocky DH
trails. Voreis samples one of the best.
Right: Immediately after this jump,
the trail funnels into an S-berm that
McCaul claims is “tighter than
a BMXer’s jeans.”
SV
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IN
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–KIRT VOREIS
Riders can either roll off the
bridge or gap the entire thing.
Here, McCaul takes the high road.
the Holy Cross trail was built on Wingate Sandstone, Jurassic stream channels and sizeable deposits of testosterone. Just before drop-
ping into the trail, Ross Schnell, astride a gleaming new Trek Remedy with orange
wheels, peers back over his shoulder and warns, “Hard moves ahead, with off-cam-
ber ledges and corkscrews. Lotsa back and forth.” He alludes to sudden transitions
and hefty drops. “Racers on hardtails with skinny tires do not have fun here!”
Schnell—a 6-foot, 160-pound whippet of a 29-year-old whose dark features,
ubiquitous fi ve o’clock shadow and easy grin evoke a love-child of Johnny Knox-
ville and Adrian Grenier—then leans over his bars, stomps on a pedal and shoots
down the trail, smearing a parabola over a salmon-colored slab of rock, narrowly
avoiding a petrifi ed stump.
Schnell is suddenly mountain biking’s “It” racer. The buzz began quietly when
he co-founded the race team at Mesa State University and proceeded to win
the 2001 cross-country collegiate national title, and then won the 2003 award for
dual-slalom. In 2006, he followed up by winning the NORBA Super D title. Those
were nice moments for Schnell, but hardly the stuff of legends. Then, last year, he
not only won the Downieville Downhill, but also the event’s 29-mile cross-country
race—setting new course records in both. The buzz had grown into a roar. >
DESPITE CRUSHING THE COMPETI-TION AT DOWNIEVILLE, DESPITE THE NEW SPONSORS, ROSS SCHNELL CONTINUES TO DO THINGSHIS OWN WAY BY ROB STORY PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNE KELLER
Luckily, that roar has not followed Schnell to the Holy Cross trail, in the Lunch Loops area of Grand Junction, Colorado. On this warm Thursday afternoon all is quiet—the way Schnell likes it. He grew up in Grand Junction and prefers Lunch Loops to the more famous trails of the Kokopelli or Book Cliffs areas to the west. He loves Grand Junction. This is not a universal sentiment. But to those who’ve questioned the area’s grandiosity after buzzing by on I-70 or U.S. 50, scoping tree-deprived moonscapes and big-box retailers, it should be noted that Grand Junc-tion gets its name from the confl uence of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers, and is home to a growing network of quality trails.
Schnell fi res up Junction’s mellow desert inclines (at least compared to the lung-searingly steep San Juan Mountains a few dozen miles south-east) in a single fast-muscle twitch. Then, at the bottom of Holy Cross, he pulls a deer-like trials move to pop atop a seven-foot boulder and promptly hurls himself off.
It’s easy to see how Grand Junction’s trails made Schnell an elite rider. But perhaps the confl uence, the Grand Junction itself, forged him as well. Schnell joins rivers of infl uence—BMX prodigy, lean-muscle climber, large-onioned downhiller—into the mythical fi gure of mountain bike lore: The All-Around Badass.
“Ross is a Dave Wiens type,” says Troy Rarick, owner of Fruita’s Over the Edge (OTE) bike shop, where Schnell worked in the early 2000s. “He’s just a natural on the bicycle. The amazing thing about his riding style is he’s not remotely single-faceted. He can do trials, DH, dual-slalom, BMX or cross-country. He’s the fi rst collegiate racer to podium at every single
event. That’s real indicative of Ross as a racer. He’s comfortable in every situation, a mutant.”
Suddenly, Schnell has been credited with saving competitive moun-tain biking. Suddenly, big-name sponsors like Trek, SRAM and Crank Brothers are falling all over him. He recently returned from Oakley’s headquarters, where he signed a coveted contract with the company. But with each new sponsor, each new contract, expectations rise. That’s especially troubling for someone like Schnell, who never re-ally wanted anything except to ride his bike. “I’m specializing in being non-specialized,” he says. “Which is kind of stressful. I’m expected to be good at everything.”
if you’ve ever wondered what a fake boob feels like, head to Schnell’s place on a block full of modest ranch houses in central Grand Junction. Sitting there on the coffee table is a pliable silicone bra-stuffer. “Girls will come over, look at it, and say, ‘ewww’,” Schnell laughs, “but by the end of the evening they’re squeezing it, too.”
While the fake boob’s providence is a mystery, one suspects the long train of medical infl uence in Schnell’s friends and family. He earned a degree in radiology and worked at a hospital in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He dates a physician’s assistant, Cathryn Haskins, from Montrose. His sister works as an ultrasound technician. And his parents own Mesa Orthopedic, which, among other things, makes orthotics for shoes. “Their small business…is basically my motiva-
LLAASSTT YYEEAARR AATT BRIAN HEAD SSCCHHNNEELLLL WWOONN THE SHORT TRACK, AANNDD AALLMMOOSSTT WWOONN THE XC RACE. HIS SSEECCRREETT?? DDOOWWNNIINNGG A WENDY’S SUPER-SIZE BACONATOR, WWIITTHH SSIX JUICY STRIPS OF BACON, AANNDD AA CCHHOOCCOOLLAATTEE FROSTY THE NIGHT BEFORE, WHILE HIS TYPE-A TEAMMATE JEREMIAH BISHOP LOOKED ON IN HORROR.
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tion for not owning a business,” Schnell says. “They work ungodly amounts of hours, like 80 a week. Not good.”
Still, his parents’ union produced three hyper-athletic kids. Sch-nell’s baby brother is an upper-echelon rock climber, and he and his sister Rana competed for a dual-slalom Division 1 title on the same day in 2003. “I watched her win the national title as I climbed into the gate,” he says. “I was psyched, then I told myself to pull it together. I was lucky enough to take the title, too.”
Luck really has little to do with Schnell’s career, though. Consider self-fulfi lling prophecies, for one: The word schnell means fast in German.
Plus, he’s been doing this for a long time. He grew up a BMX rat and his life revolved around 20-inch wheels, races and checkered Vans. Everything was neon then, and he was a huge fan of the movie Rad—the BMX cult classic from 1986 that features Ray Walston (Mr. Hand
from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) riding around fl ipping the bird and a young star named Cru Jones who blows off his SATs to race his bike. Says Schnell, “I so wanted to be Cru Jones.”
Schnell caught Troy Rarick’s eye in 1994, during the World Cup in Vail. “I saw him on the news,” Rarick says, “this young local teenager taking third in the juniors there. I called his dad and asked if Ross had a sponsor. His dad said no, and I offered to sponsor him at Over the Edge. He did a bit of everything for us over the years: wrenching, retail, you name it. Ross has been and is a great person to know. Still goes on staff trips with us, still drinks beer in the hot tub.”
Though interrupted somewhat by that radiology degree and brief hospital job, Schnell remains a fi xture/legend at OTE. Skip Hamilton, a shop regular and the coach of Specialized’s inaugural mountain bike
continued on page 116
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07/09Cannondale Rize Carbon 1: “System Integration” comes to a head with this ridiculously light, sturdy and fast 5-inch trail bike.
Moots Cinco: This trail bike has more sus-pension than any other Moots model. But can the titanium frame withstand the punishment?
EWR OWB29er: A high funky-freaky fac-tor and a BMX heritage make this unconventional 29er ready for almost anything.
Titus FTM: This longer-travel offspring of the classic Motolite looks stunning. But does it deliver on the trail?
CANNONDALE * EWR * MOOTS * TITUS
TITUS FTM, SAN JUAN TRAIL. ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. PHOTOS: MORGAN MEREDITH
bike test
bike test
> CANNONDALE RIZE CARBON 1 $5,849
CARBON FIBER OR ALUMINUM? IT’S NOT AN EASY choice, but Cannondale has made the decision easier by melding the two materials in the 5-inch-travel Rize Carbon 1—a stiff, light and strong trail bike.
Starting with a structure called the “Backbone,” Cannon-dale created a fi rst-ever 3D forging to combine a bottom bracket, pivot and seat-tube from a single piece of aluminum. The Backbone is bonded to an oversized carbon-fi ber front triangle, and the transitions between the Backbone and top and downtubes are undetectable, both cosmetically and in practice, when pinballing through a rock garden.
A sturdy frame needs an equally stout fork, and though the Lefty Max Carbon weighs less than 3 pounds, its dual-crown design delivers exceptional stiffness. Adjustments include a push-button lockout as well as rebound and air-spring adjust. But the fork lacks travel-adjust, so you have to stay on top of it—literally. Short, steep climbs require the rider to get over the front of the Rize more than on bikes with low-er front ends, but the 68.5-degree head angle kept the bike in check, so the front end didn’t wander too badly on climbs. The Lefty slides on a roller-bearing system that is supple over small bumps and ramps up pro-gressively on
bigger hits while never bottoming out.Cannondale applied generous engineering mojo
to the cranks as well. The BB30 Hollowgram Si SL cranks, which weigh an industry-leading 645 grams, feature a bottom bracket with ceramic press-in bear-ings and a huge 30-millimeter aluminum spindle.
Mavic’s Lefty-specifi c Crossmax ST wheels with Maxxis Rendez
tires gave the Rize a decidedly racy feel.
But I swapped for some higher-volume
Geax Lobo Loco 2.3-inch treads for a bigger and stickier contact patch. The bigger tires excelled on slippery, sandy,
rock-infested trails with lots of off-camber technical terrain.
Even with the extra rubber, and pedals, the Rize never breached the 26-pound mark.
If you’re looking for quibbles, look at the XT shifters and cassette. On a bike
with a price tag scraping $6,000, one might expect top-shelf components across the board. Still, with so much engineering effort invested in making the Rize’s standout frame, fork and cranks, Cannon-dale can be excused.
After four months of winter testing on rugged desert trails, the Rize leaves little to complain about. It is expensive, but all the innova-tion makes it a solid value. And more importantly, it all adds up to
a stiff and light trail bike that marries the best of carbon fi ber and aluminum.The 2010 model year will be the
last that Cannondale makes frames in the United States, so anyone looking
for an American-made Rize should pick up one soon. —ALAN DAVIS
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HIGHS
LOWS“System Integration” limits fork and crank options; no fork travel adjust
MORE INFO:800-245-3872 CANNONDALE.COM
Super stiff, very light and strong; lifetime frame warran-ty with no rider weight limit
THE EWR OWB29ER IS A UNIQUE BEAST, AND THE bright green paint job is just the beginning. The 5.6-pound, praying-mantis-looking frame is built of steel tubes usually reserved for BMX bikes, but that shouldn’t be too surprising—company owner Jay de Jesus is a former national-level trials, dual-slalom, downhill and BMX racer.
EWR emerged on the East Coast riding scene more than a decade ago and established a loyal following of rid-ers. Bikes like the fi rst OWB (Original Woods Bike) featured high bottom brackets and short chainstays and were designed for rip-ping through the rocks, roots and downed trees common on the East Coast. They excelled at everything from trail riding to dirt jumping.
After a several-year hiatus, de Jesus revived EWR and the OWB29er is the company’s second offering. The new bikes are built by Bilenky Cycle Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but still adhere to de Jesus’s distinctly different, do-it-all ethos. And the OWB is as different as they come.
The unorthodox front end uses a truss system similar to cantilever bridges to increase durability. The less-acute angle between the downtube and headtube creates a stronger junction, says de Jesus. Even for a 29er, the bike’s dual-slalom roots could be felt in the corners. It preferred to be leaned and pumped into turns, rather than steered through them. The lively steel frame, coupled with the stiff, short rear end, launches the bike out of corners.
The bike’s 12.2-inch-high bottom bracket made it easy to tip into turns, but also caused it to wander a bit during steep climbs. The frame design yields some unusual bottle-cage mounting options, too. And
while I’m listing grievances, the OWB requires an odd-sized 29.4-millimeter seatpost, which limits post options.
The OWB excelled on rough and steep terrain. The 70.75-degree head-tube angle eased the twitchy, about-to-endo feeling that plagues many 29ers. And with no seat-tube-mounted bottle cages, the saddle drops all the way to its rails. All that extra standover height provides for excellent maneuverability, and the Reba Race fork with a 20-milli-meter through-axle was a perfect match
for the bike’s predilection for rough terrain.
Without turns to carve or rocks and roots, however, the OWB felt like a fi sh out of water. On long climbs or smooth fi re roads, the hefty frame, which built up to 27 pounds with lightweight cross-country parts, was defi nitely noticeable.
I punished this bike on everything from lung-crushing XC races with 4,000-plus feet of climbing to steep, rock-strewn shuttle runs where 5-inch full-squish bikes rule the roost—and it handled each admirably. It may be an odd duck, but the OWB is a great go-anywhere, do-everything, all-mountain hardtail. —RYAN LABAR
> EWR OWB29ER $1,395 (frame only)
HIGHS
LOWS
Nimble geometry; incredible standover; likes it rough
Heavy; less-than-ideal bottle placement; odd seatpost size
MORE INFO:610-659-4430EWRBIKES.COM
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bike test
bike test
THERE’S REALLY NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT: THIS BIKE IS Abastard child. Born from a Colorado mother, a California father, and named after a distant Mexican relative, the 5-inch Moots Cinco is a prod-uct of mixed breeding.
The titanium front triangle clashes with the shiny aluminum Ventana-made rear end, and the ride qualities are just as mixed.
Weighing in at a respectable 28 pounds with pedals, the Cinco is easy enough to pedal, but on plodding climbs or even rolling terrain, the bike squats lazily in its travel. Switching on the Fox RP23’s ProPedal lever deliv-ers a hint of that magical feel titanium hardtails are famous for, but it begs the question: Why not just ride a full ti hardtail?
I rode the Cinco on fast, rolling trails in SoCal and New Mexico, but it wasn’t until I hit some technical, Grade-A, rock-and-root-strewn New England singletrack that I found the answer. Hauling around a thuddy 5-inch rear end becomes worth the effort when muscling through rocky
terrain and up short, punchy climbs. As soon as the going got rough, any complaints about the rear end evaporated—this bike handles like a hard-tail on steroids.
Handling is tight and fast without being too twitchy, and a big front tire and a 140-millimeter Fox 32 TALAS RLC helped rake the headtube angle out slightly past its 71-degree
stock measurement. Plus, the solid 15-millimeter axle lent the bike a little extra gusto when things got rough.This test bike arrived
with Mavic Crossmax SX wheels and pinner Hutchinson Bulldog tires, but I opted for a beefi er setup. Instead, I ran a Maxxis Ardent 2.4 up front and a WTB Mutano Raptor 2.4 in the rear, with Stan’s sealant in lieu of tubes.
Combined with an already light Crank Brothers
Cobalt wheelset, the setup
delivered a superlative sensation while charging through technical sections.
The legendary durability of the Moots front end is complemented by the robustly built Ventana rear end, which uses two stout cartridge bearings per pivot. I noticed zero rear-end slop during the test, and although I found myself missing the economy of an active suspen-sion on the climbs, I can rationalize the trade in traction for the added stiffness and simplicity—something lacking in a complex multi-link de-
sign like a DW-Link or VPP. It may be a bastard child, but the
Cinco inherited the best qualities from its parents, and it will likely deliver a
lifetime of faithful companionship. Mutt or no mutt, me gusto. —CHRIS LESSER
> MOOTS CINCO $3,550 (frame and shock)
HIGHS
LOWS
Loves rough terrain; custom frame options available; made in America; brilliant seatpost clamp
Uninspiring suspension performance on tame terrain; expensive
MORE INFO:970-879-1676MOOTS.COM
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bike test
EVOLUTION IS A FINE THEORY FOR NATURE, BUT WHEN IT comes to bikes, Intelligent Design reigns supreme. As much as we like to personify our bikes, they don’t just “evolve” on their own into lighter, stronger, faster beasts. Instead, bikes are given life by designers and product managers, and in the case of the Titus FTM, those guiding hands managed a near-miraculous job.
The FTM began life years ago as the Titus Motolite, a widely acclaimed Horst-link bike with 127 millimeters of travel. But as trail bikes grew from 4 inches of travel to 5, losing weight in the process, the Mo-tolite was left in the evolutionary dust. It was replaced this year by the FTM, a modifi ed version that boasts an extra 13 millimeters of travel while trimming a bit of fat in the process.
The new model, made by Sapa in Portland, Oregon, features car-bon seatstays and asymmetrical chainstays with forged and CNC’d dropouts. The seatstays also lose a structural bridge that was prone to clogging with mud. Those changes shave 230 grams from the old rear end, yet the bike remains every bit as stiff, Titus claims. The FTM also jumps up to a larger 30.9-diameter seat tube to accommodate adjustable-height seatposts. The geometry stays mostly the same, but the bottom bracket was slightly lowered to keep a 69.25 headtube angle with the longer-travel fork.
Despite the increased travel and the new name (FTM stands for “Full Tilt Moto”), this is not just a Motolite built for bigger trails. This is a decid-edly lightweight trail bike. The bike we tested came with a 140-millimeter Fox TALAS RLC 15QR fork, but the rest of the kit screamed XC: Magura Marta SL brakes, FSA Team Issue carbon cranks, Maxm carbon post and carbon Ritchey WCS bars. With pedals, the bike weighed 27 pounds.
When it came to ripping around the trails, the FTM, like its orange
anodized fi nish, was as hot as the Arizona sun. It scorched climbs, and even with the sag set at 30 percent of travel the bike delivered a solid pedaling platform and reacted quickly to pedal input. Climbing will never be an effortless task, but ev-erything from ledgy switchbacks to steep and loose fi reroads seemed a little more tolerable aboard the FTM.
The suspension also offered smooth small-bump absorption, and despite the lack of a seatstay bridge, the FTM tracked true while cornering. The geometry was spot-on for most terrain.
This isn’t the stiffest or plushest bike on the market, however. The shock ramps quickly on harsh terrain and the lightweight brakes can’t withstand fast, technical descents—so anyone who expects to repeatedly rally this bike on steep trails littered with big hits might be disappointed.
But the FTM doesn’t pretend to be an all-mountain bike. This is a pure trail bike, and it excels at its job. Anyone who likes to rip singletrack, sprint up climbs, and possibly enter some endurance or XC races should give the FTM a spin. —LOU MAZZANTE
> TITUS FTM $6,495 ($6,195 as shown)
HIGHS
LOWS
Excellent climber that is responsive on the trail; high drool factor
Rear shock ramps up quickly; undergunned brakes; lacks quick-release seat collar
MORE INFO:800-858-4887TITUSTI.COM
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SHIMANO SLX $898 (complete group)
949-951-5003; BIKE.SHIMANO.COM
ALL-MOUNTAIN, TRAIL RIDING, SUPERFUZZY-
BunnyHucking—whatever you call it, more riders are tackling tougher trails on light, long-travel bikes. The market is awash with 5- and 6-inch rigs, but until recently components have generally fallen into either the ultra-light cross-country or extra-burly freeride camps. Enter SLX: Shimano’s take on all-mountain parts that are both light and strong.
Positioned as a sort of supercharged LX kit, SLX represents a Best of Shimano compilation al-bum. There’s a whole lot of anniversary-edition XT in the disc brakes and shifters, a dash of new Saint in the cranks, and, as always, a bit of XTR trickle-down technology.
I spent a couple of months with SLX and came away pleasantly surprised. Shifting is spot-on, brake modulation is fantastic and the double crankset is downright impressive. Shimano’s old LX group was about as sexy as a bowl of brussels sprouts, but I’d put SLX on any of my bikes.
BASH-WORTHY CRANKSThe SLX cranks ($240 with bottom bracket) come in two fl avors—a conventional triple ring or a com-pact double. Shimano claims the double, which fea-tures an overbuilt spider and axle, is twice as strong as its XT sibling. Lacking a squad of German engi-
neers, I can’t verify the “100-percent stronger” claim, but can attest to the cranks’ incredibly stout nature. They exhibited no noticeable fl ex. The SLX double cranks come stock with a larger-than-average, 36-tooth big ring. Those extra four teeth provide a very usable gear range when riding a light, all-mountain-style rig. It’s a nice touch.
The SLX double also sports steel pedal inserts (a la second-generation Saint), which will be a great relief to thread-stripping, ham-fi sted mechanic types who work on their bikes with a 40-ouncer in one hand and a pedal wrench in the other. Style-wise, the SLX crank arms take their cue from the latest iteration of XTR, and the brushed-aluminum fi n-ish proved nearly immune to scuffi ng.
The polycarbonate (plastic) bashguard doesn’t immediately inspire confi dence. In fact, it looks suspiciously like a toy that you’d pull out of a box of Cap’n Crunch. However, after a dozen poorly executed log-overs (including one event that threatened to shear my frame in two), the guard still appears shiny and new. I can’t say how it will fare against sustained rock, but it shrugs off logs with ease.
PRECISE SHIFTS, BEEFY BUILDThe SLX shifters ($100) have innards similar to the XT. Not surprisingly, they function just as well and weigh the same as their workhorse big brothers. The main difference between the two is that XT shifters have fancier metal thumb paddles. Being a stickler for proper cockpit setup, I appreciated the fact that I could mount the SLX shifters on either side of my brake levers.
SLX breaks new frontiers in the front-derailleur department. There are no fewer than seven models to choose from, including Shimano’s new plate-mount “D” standard—there truly is something for every conceivable frame confi guration. The stubby, double-ring-specifi c version shown here ($60) features a stout, compact cage that reduces derailed chains and boosts tire clearance. Installation was brainless, shifting was spot-on, and I didn’t drop a chain once. >
PHOTOS: MORGAN MEREDITH
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The rear derailleur ($90) is essentially a slightly beefi er XT model. While it’s meant to be stout, it eschews the axle-mount of Hone and fi rst-generation Saint for the newer, lower-profi le Shadow design. It also features a stronger guide spring than its LX predecessor. As a result, shifting is ac-companied with a more defi nite click—it’s not the convincing ka-chunk delivered by SRAM’s X.0 derailleur, but it’s defi nitely a solid shift that should please many riders.
HITTING THE BRAKESWhen it comes to form and function, the SLX brake levers are almost identical to XT. They have a nice ergonomic shape, with a pronounced hook at the end that makes one-fi nger braking feel a bit more secure during rough downhills. The SLX levers also feature the tool-less reach-adjustment knob found on XT and Saint levers.
Unfortunately, SLX lacks the free-throw ad-juster screws you fi nd on XT and Saint, so you can’t adjust the actual brake-lever travel. Bum-mer. That would have been a nice feature. While I’m quibbling, I wish Shimano had used a split-perch design (a la Hayes or Avid) on their brake levers—it would make lever swaps and cockpit adjustments a whole lot easier.
The SLX calipers use a two-piece construction, which is cost effective, but a bit heavier (77 grams more a pair) than the one-piece, forged XT cali-pers. Dual, opposed pistons drive the pads home. The SLX brakes cost $320—for a front and rear set, pre-bled. That makes them cost-competitive with Avid Juicy 5s, and about half the cost of XT.
When it comes to actual braking power, SLX fares well. Shimano’s “trail” brakes, XT and SLX, produce 120 to 125 percent more power than the previous XT 755 brakes, which Shimano uses as a base to measure braking power in new models. By extension, the cross-country-oriented XTR is rated at 105 percent of base, and the recently re-launched Saint group chomps down at an astonishing 150 percent.
With this SLX kit I opted for the 180-millimeter rotor option, and stopping power was decent, even with the resin pads in wet con-ditions. Modula-tion was excellent. It’s very easy to sense when the brakes are about to lock
up and to back off ac-cordingly. SLX rotors only come in Center Lock, however, which means wheel choices are limited.
Speaking of rotors, I experienced little to no drag between rotor and pads. The Servo Wave cam inside the SLX levers not only boosts brak-ing power, it also allows the pads to rest deeper inside the caliper, reducing rotor rub. On the subject of noise, the resin pads were church-mouse quiet. I never encountered the annoying, wounded-turkey warble that I experience with a lot of other brake systems.
DELIVERING THE GOODSAre there burlier component groups on the market? Absolutely. Saint is an obvious choice, and you can build a bombproof SRAM X.0/Avid Code/Truvativ Holzfeller kit. Are there lighter parts out there? Plenty. The same selection of parts in XT fl avor will shave two-thirds of a pound (319 grams, to be exact) off your bike. But are you willing to pay an extra $340 to save 319 grams? That’s what upgrading to XT will cost you.
SLX is precise, it’s durable, it actually looks cool and, when it comes to shifting and braking, it’s pretty damn hard to tell it apart from Shimano XT. In fact, once you consider SLX’s excellent double crankset/front derailleur combo, you al-most have to wonder whether XT will have a job next fall. Shimano’s done a bang-up job of build-ing a budget group that doesn’t ride like a budget group at all. —VERNON FELTON
“The best part of commuting is the ride home
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A COMPUTER &A HEADLIGHT
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PHOTOS: MORGAN MEREDITH
LOUIS GARNEAU TREELIUM$100 / 800-448-1984; LOUISGARNEAU.COM
The Treelium is Louis Garneau’s top mountain bike helmet. It features extra protection in the rear and carbon-reinforced bridges to keep the
safety factor high, while 26 air-scooping vents keep craniums cool.
E.THIRTEEN SRS WITH TURBOCHARGER$150 / 978-537-9313; E13COMPONENTS.COMThe e.Thirteen Turbocharger is designed to keep riders charging through the roughest terrain. The unique bashguard works like a one-way spring, fl exing away from impacts, but also away from the chain. And the meticulously re-engineered SRS guide eliminates dropped chains.
HURRICANE COMPONENTS FORK UPS$35-$70 / 951-280-6036; HURRICANECOMPONENTS.COMHave a sweet new through-axle fork, but an old fork-mount roof rack? The California-made Hurricane Components adapters provide a simple solution and can accommodate just about any axle size, including the 15-millimeter, 20-millimeter, Specialized, Maverick, Cannondale Lefty and Surly Pugsley standards.
ESI GRIPS $17-$19 / 760-947-4345; ESIGRIPS.COM
These American-made morsels of bike candy are slightly thicker on the palm side to help absorb hand-numbing vibrations.
The high-friction silicone material prevents the grips from twisting, sliding or becoming slippery, regardless of the conditions. They come in
two sizes: the Chunky (shown here) and the slightly thinner and
lighter Racer’s Edge.
LOOK QUARTZ CARBON
$200 / 866-430-5665 LOOKCYCLE-USA.COM
The Quartz Carbon pedal is made of injection-molded carbon fi ber and uses
cartridge bearings at the near side of the spindle and needle bearings at the end. The space between those heavily sealed
bearings allows for effortless mud shedding and a wide platform for no-nonsense power
transfer. The 260-gram pedals come with cleats that release at 15 degrees and shims
for a dialed shoe/pedal fi t.
fresh produce
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P R O M O T I O N
G E T M O R E I N F O R M A T I O N A T B I K E M A G . C O M
EVENTS I HAPPENINGS I PROMOTIONS
Freedom RidersWorld TourFreedom Riders is a gritty, rootsy documentary that offers a unique look into the creation of one of the fi rst legal, purpose-built downhill trails on U.S. For-est Service land.
Narrated by Wade Simmons, the fi lm includes interviews with local riders in Jackson, Wyo-ming, action sequences shot on the once-illegal trails and archi-val shots that trace the progres-sion of freeride mountain biking.
The fi lm premiered in April at Sea Otter in Monterey, Cali-fornia, and the producers have embarked on a 50-stop U.S. tour to raise money and aware-ness for IMBA. For more details on the fi lm, trailers and a list of tour dates, visit bikemag.com or freedomridersthemovie.com.
Win Fox MTB Team Rider Aaron Chase’s gear! Fox, Cannondale, SDG, SIC and Bike magazine have partnered up for the sweepstakes of the year.Roll over to foxmtb.com to enter. The grand prize winner will be chosen in June so get to it!
B I K E A L S O S U P P O R T S :
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PRO KORYAK BARS AND STEM$65; $60 / 949-951-5003; PRO-BIKEGEAR.COM
Pro, now owned and distributed by Shimano, is a new name on the mountain bike scene, but the parts go through the same rigorous quality
control and testing as Shimano-branded components. This 270-gram, 685-millimeter-wide Koryak OS riser bar has a 9-degree backsweep with a 5-degree upsweep. The forged, 90-millimeter-long stem weighs 160 grams
and uses a box-like shape to resist twisting forces.
CRANK BROTHERS IODINE$1,000 / 949-464-9916; CRANKBROTHERS.COMFewer holes means increased strength. At least, that’s the concept behind Iodine wheels. The spokes attach to a vertical spine that runs along the inside of the 21-millimeter-wide rim via 12 cylindrical steel shuttles. The tubeless-ready all-mountain wheels weigh a respectable 1,907 grams.
WTB VIGO CARBON SLT$180 / 800-975-2453; WTB.COMThe Vigo is a medium-width saddle with thick padding designed with long-distance riders in mind. The seat features a long profi le, replaceable rails and WTB’s signature Love Channel groove, which is designed to reduce pressure on sensitive areas.
SIXSIXONE EVO $70 / 888-520-4888 SIXSIXONE.COMThe amazingly fl exible D30 foam armor in these gloves takes a high-tech approach to preventing bloody knuckles. The secret? D30 says the molecules in its fl ubber-like material stiffen under impact. We say it’s magic. The gloves’ unpadded synthetic palm offers a tight grip on the bars, while highly breathable mesh helps prevent clammy hands.
FREELAP JUNIORTX
$390 / 973-277-9437 FREELAP-USA.COM
Stop wondering which line through the rock garden is faster and
settle the debate once and for all. Ride past
the fi rst beacon to activate the stopwatch, pin it down the hill and
sprint past the lower beacon to stop the
timer. Afterward, upload the data to a PC and
compare times against previous runs or the times of other riders.
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photos * news * trails * videos * gear
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LEZYNE SABER$30 / 805-548-8780LEZYNE.COM It’s not a light saber; it’s a Lezyne Saber—a super-long, plated-steel tire lever with a built-in 15-millimeter open-end for changing pedals or, if you’re wearing your sister’s jeans, tightening the axle nuts on your fi xie. The icing on the cake is an integrated bottle opener that even the hippest hipster can appreciate.
TROY LEE DESIGNS
D2 CARBON HISTORY
$375 / 951-371-5219 TROYLEEDESIGNS.COM
Troy Lee helmets are known across the globe for
their stylish graphics, but only this D2 model includes
iconic images from the company’s 28-year history. More than a mantle piece, the D2’s carbon shell uses titanium hardware to keep
the helmet light, while large, mesh-covered vents
keep the air fl owing.
BLACKBURN MAMMOTH 2STAGE$30 / 800-456-2355; BLACKBURNDESIGN.COM
Thanks to its massive aluminum barrel, the Mammoth 2Stage fi lls the beefi est 2.5-inch tires in its “high volume” mode and tops out at 120 PSI
in its “high pressure” mode. The pump clamps to Presta or Schrader valves with a simple turn of its TwistGrip smart head, and a lifetime
warranty and bottle cage mount come standard. X
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SIX TRAIL FORKS FOR 2010 THAT WON’T STEER YOU WRONG
future forks
Marzocchi 44 RC3 Ti The titanium spring in this 140-millimeter fork delivers pillowy coil-spring plushness without the weight penalty of steel. Built for lightweight performance, this 4-pound fork features a third-generation RC3 damper, a stout-but-lithe 15-millimeter axle and nickel-plated stanchions.
Marzocchi 44 Micro Air Ti 29 Marzocchi was the fi rst major suspension maker to produce forks for the 29-inch wheel, and the company is diving back into that mar-ket with a vengeance. Witness this 4-pound fork’s 140 millimeters of air-sprung travel, tita-nium negative spring, nickel-plated stanchions and 15-millimeter axle.
RockShox Lyrik Solo Air At just 4.8 pounds, the Lyrik is a battle axe of a trail fork. The new model features a full 170 millimeters of travel and is available in the gamut of steerer tube sizes (1.125, 1.5 or tapered). Other upgrades include a new Mission Control DH damper and a freeride version of RockShox’s Maxle Lite through-axle.
RockShox Revelation Team The completely redesigned Revelation uses Power Bulges for better bushing perfor-mance, receives an increase in travel to 150 millimeters and comes with an optional tapered steerer, like this Team model. With Maxle Lite and Mission Control damping, this 3.9-pound beauty threatens to be one of 2010’s top trail forks.
Fox 32 FIT TALAS RLC 15QROne of our favorite trail forks just got better. Now available with 150 millimeters of travel, this 4-pound 15QR fork benefi ts from Fox’s new FIT damper (plusher, lighter, more consis-tent), as well as some relocated controls that are easier to toggle while riding.
Fox 32 FIT F29 RLC 15QRFox upped the ante with its 29er fork by adding a 15-millimeter axle. This redesigned 3.5-pound model comes ready for duty with the company’s new FIT RLC damper and up to 120 millimeters of travel.
PHOTOS: MORGAN MEREDITH
$779MARZOCCHI.COM
$690ROCKSHOX.COM
$729MARZOCCHI.COM
$860FOXRACINGSHOX.COM
$1,029ROCKSHOX.COM
$795FOXRACINGSHOX.COM
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man’s best friend
Four tools that won’t leave you hanging
PHOTO: MORGAN MEREDITH
Crank Brothers Multi 17 $27949-464-9916; CRANKBROTHERS.COMEverything you need; nothing you don’t. That’s the thinking behind the 165-gram Multi 17. With high-tensile steel tool bits and a knurled aluminum frame, this simple, affordable, effec-tive riding-pack staple comes with a lifetime warranty and just about everything you need to get you out of a jam. The tool bits have a tendency to fl op around after a bit of use, but it comes with a custom rubber band to hold everything in place.
Lezyne Stainless 20 $50805-548-8780; LEZYNE.COMForged aluminum side-plates and stainless steel tool bits make this little work of art as brainy as it is brawny. The thoughtful precision-fi t bits pivot on their central axis, which makes for easy tool turning and smooth, long-lasting fl ip-out action. Size-wise, it’s the biggest tool on this page, but at 150 grams it’s also the lightest. A chain tool that spins off of the main body includes multiple spoke wrenches and doubles as a pad spreader. Another nice touch: a ser-rated knife for divvying up trailside PB&Js.
Topeak Alien III $65800-213-4561; TOPEAK.COMLooking beyond its kitschy green alien logo, the 272-gram Alien III has everything but the kitchen sink. Witness its long 2-millimeter L-bend for hard-to-get-at brake lever bolts; its rotor-bending tool; spoke wrenches for Shimano, Mavic and all standard options; its full complement of 8-, 9- and 10-millime-ter box wrenches; and, best of all, snap-in recesses for replacement Shimano chain pins. The tool also includes a knife, a solid chain tool and a chain wire for holding loose links while you pin them down.
Pedro’s ICM $28(978) 657-7101; PEDROS.COMThe ICM has been around for a while, but kudos to Pedro’s for not messing with a good thing. Two very functional tire levers snap onto the sides of the tool, and long, leverage-giving tool bits—in all the critical sizes—swing out to get the job done. The ICM also has a Mavic spoke wrench and a deployable 14/15-gauge spoke wrench nestled in the heart of the tool. Plus, it includes a chain tool with the all-important second position for loosening stiff links.
showcase
KIT
THIS ENDURANCE RACING KIT IS READY TO GO THE DISTANCE
choose your adventure
Hours upon hours of training? Check. Motivation for punishment? Check. Apparel that stays comfortable throughout a day or more of pedal mashing? Better check again, be-cause few things are more torturous in the heart of an endurance race than ill-fi tting and under-performing apparel.
Baggies are great, but let’s be honest: nothing yields all-day comfort like bib shorts. Castelli’s Free bib short ($230; castelli-us.com) features a low-cut stomach, heat-dissipating chamois, fl at-lock stitching and injection-molded silicon leg grippers, making them well worth the price.
Keep your dogs from barking with Sidi’s Dominator 5 shoes ($270; sidiusa.com), which have non-carbon soles that make hike-a-bikes bearable. Pair them with the breathable DeFeet Levitator Lite socks ($12; defeet.com), which have fl at seams to prevent raw spots. Protect your hands with Giro’s Rivet gloves ($30; giro.com), which have a lightweight mesh back and a contoured three-panel palm for a bunch-free fi t.
The Bell Sweep helmet ($140; bellsports.com) has 20 large vents to keep your noggin cool—and thanks to a fl at spot on top, mounting lights is a snap. The Endura FS260-Pro jersey ($90; endurasport.com) offers a snug fi t and a grippy waist hem that prevents the contents of its pockets from sloshing around your keister—plus, a zippered compartment keeps small items like quick links from getting tossed. For long stages, try a CamelBak Lobo ($75; camelbak.com). It’s a step up from the back-pocket-water-bottle routine, and its 100-ounce reservoir and 200 cubic inches of storage leave your jersey pockets free to carry more food, like Honey Stinger’s Organic Energy Chews ($2; honeystinger.com).—RYAN LABAR
PHOTO: MORGAN MEREDITH
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Prior to joining DT Swiss as a product manager in 2002, Silvan Buerge drove a tank in the Swiss
army, worked as an engineer for Siemens and owned his own high-end mountain bike shop.
What’s the goal for this product? To have an all-mountain bike with 6 inches of travel, front and rear, that weighs 22 or 24 pounds with a very solid set of wheels—not just a tiny, non-eyeleted aluminum rim.How did this wheelset come to be? There’s always been a downhill/freeride segment, but there was this big gap between it and the cross-country-race segment. There’s never been a light-as-possible wheel that still had a rim that was wide enough for pretty large tires. So it all started with the [alumi-num, 28-millimeter-wide] EX 1750 wheel, and then as soon as we started the carbon [XRC 1250] cross-country rim project, I said immediately that we would need to have a 28-millimeter-wide carbon rim, and we worked for more than a year on this project.
Nothing is indestructible, so if these rims break, how will they break? They don’t just collapse. The fi ber construction of the rim, plus the double-chamber construc-tion, means that if a rim breaks, it will have something like a half-inch or an inch of a delaminated fi ber section. This makes the rim soft, but it doesn’t really fall apart. The rest of the rim still stays sort of stiff. Of course, you’ll lose spoke tension and your rim will be wobbly and you’ll have to replace it, but the fi bers will not break. With alumi-num rims you might have a dent in the rim or a fl at spot, but carbon doesn’t dent. The level [of force needed to destroy the rim] is so much higher with carbon that it lowers the overall failure rate.Is this the lightest all-mountain wheelset ever produced? Check all the cross-country wheels out there—there aren’t many that are below the weight [of these wheels]. For this rim dimension and this purpose, and still having a very solid, 6-bolt, all-mountain hub with a 20-millimeter axle and big bearings up front, at 1,550 grams per set, I would say it’s a pretty unique product.Isn’t it also one of the most expensive wheelsets out there? It will be a few bucks more. But if you’re talking about high-end carbon enduro frames, people are spending how much for a Specialized or a Scott? Then consider how important the infl uence of the wheel is for the overall infl uence of the bike, well, those are our target customers.
CARBON FIBER CRANKS, HANDLEBARS, brake levers—even frames—are everywhere. But the incredible weight and strength char-acteristics of the magical material aren’t just for weight weenies anymore.
The backcountry is the new racecourse, and products such as the EXC 1550 wheels from DT Swiss prove that carbon is capable of appeasing truly aggressive riders. The secret of these 1,550-gram wonder wheels lies in their fi rst-ever, all-mountain-specifi c carbon fi ber rims. There is nothing like them on the market.
The wheels are hand-built around DT Swiss 240s-based hubs and bladed double-forged spokes. The rims use stainless-steel eyelets, measure an impressive 28 millime-ters wide and weigh just 400 grams apiece.
In short, the EXC 1550s are insanely ex-pensive, unthinkably light and, according to the company, exceptionally strong. The rub? They cost $2,850 a set, but DT Swiss makes no bones about it. This is a high-end product for riders looking for ultimate performance in a 6-inch all-mountain bike.
a new carbon category
DT Swiss’ EXC 1550
blueprintBY CHRIS LESSER
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team, calls him “a terrifi c human being who’s not caught up in himself. When it’s time to focus, he does. When it’s time to relax, he does.”
For Schnell, relaxing often means getting a little goofy. Hamilton remembers him showing up for an OTE group ride bent on tweaking “guys in Lycra body condoms fes-tooned with [Italian road] names they couldn’t pronounce.” For his part, Schnell sported Bermuda shorts, an ancient Styrofoam Bell helmet and old Oakley Pilot sunglasses.
“When the beginner ride began, Ross took off and the Lycra guys were shocked,” Hamilton recalls. “They insisted he try the advanced group, and Ross said, ‘No hablo ingles!’ The Lycra guys were totally befuddled. Ross did that to put competitive im-pulses in perspective.”
though previously known as “Rad Ross” (he even had the nick-name tattooed across the back of the leathers he wore at BMX races), it wasn’t until Downieville last year that Schnell emerged as a mountain bike sensation, a cult hero at the very least. Sure, he had earned a spot on the Trek/VW cross-country team, and he had a handful of top-10 fi nishes at national cross-country and Super-D races. But after the 2008 Downieville Classic, blog posts suddenly began appearing with headlines like: “Why Ross Schnell is Cool.”
Why is Ross Schnell cool? Last summer in Downieville, he started in the mid-40s
in the 29-mile, point-to-point cross-country race. He traveled there with few expectations and even fewer practice runs. Despite crashing, he won the race. The next day, again facing three-time de-fending champ Jason Moeschler and local leg-end Mark Weir, Californians both, the kid from Colorado who’d never even been to Downieville won the event’s renowned 17-mile-long downhill. Amazingly, he set course records in each race.
“I had no idea how serious people are about that race. Winning gave me instant credibility. My career blew up after that,” Schnell says.
Even his hometown newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, which normally concerns itself with Halliburton’s local drilling, crowned him the “new king” of mountain biking. The Sentinel identifi ed him as a Fruita resident in the story and a Grand Junctioner (correct) in the photo caption, but still….
Perhaps more importantly, winning Downieville, in an odd sort of way, justifi ed Schnell’s existence as a professional mountain biker. Throughout his career he has avoided road-oriented training regimens and shown a healthy disdain for monstrously competitive and freakishly fi t cross-country racers. Instead, Schnell thrives on his own irreverence. This is a guy, after all, who believes that “beer is the best recovery drink.”
“In Downieville,” Schnell notes, “you have to pedal up fast and then race down-hill…on a real bike. On the same bike. So it pays to be a hack at both cross-country and downhill. The pseudo roadies who normally win XC races will never show up at Downieville. I don’t know if Downieville is the future of racing, but that’s what mountain biking is. It’s the best race I’ve ever done.”
Undeniably a throwback, Schnell seems of an era when XC courses were rugged and support was minimal. If he had an idol from mountain biking’s boom, it was John Tomac—a rider who could turn around in a phone booth, fl ow downhill like water, and still leave opponents gasping with pulmonary edema on long, rocky climbs.
I’LLLL NNEEVVEERR BBBEE TTHHHE GGUY WHO RIDES A RROOAADD BBBIIKKEE FFOOORR SSIIX HOURS A DAY AND DDRRIINNKKSS WWAATTTEERR AAND EEAATTSS VVEEEGGEETTTAABBLES. I WWAANNNNAA LLIIVVE LIFE.
RELAX: RAD ROSS HAS IT ALL UNDER CONTROLcontinued from page 086
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In the sport’s early days, there were no race teams and no national race series. Now the sport’s governing body is strug-gling to re-establish a national cross-country series after the existing model crumbled last season. And with the de-mise of the powerhouse Trek/VW team after umpteen years, Schnell is now Trek’s lone domestic cross-country competitor. He races commando—alone, old-school, independent.
“Rad Ross” is also “Retro Ross.” At the Snowmass NORBA Nationals in 2006, Sch-nell showed up with a roadie cap under his helmet. He wore white terrycloth short shorts. Sporting a mullet and handlebar moustache as well, he looked eerily like a young Tom Ritchey. “I heard there was a moustache-growing contest [affi liated with the race],” Schnell says. “Luckily, I can grow one pretty fast. And I thought, ‘Hey, this can be complemented with a mullet and short shorts.’ So I did. Then shaved ev-erything off after the race.”
to be a true mountain biker, must one necessarily dislike road biking? It’s an undying question. But Schnell is be-loved for his candor regarding skinny tires. Trek provides him free road bikes, so he owns a couple. Yet, one day in his garage, he points at one and sniffs, “I’m allergic to curly bars, man. I can’t do ’em. Road bikes put you in the worst position possible; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’ll never be the guy who rides a road bike for six hours a day and drinks water and eats vegetables. I wanna live life.”
He holds similar contempt for roadie-infl uenced mountain bike races. Like, for instance, the season-opening, sponsor-booth-infested, commercial-as-Christmas biggie in Northern California. “Sea Otter,” Schnell says, “is cool if you’re into rain and poison oak. More like Sea Slaughter. I don’t think it’s a mountain bike race if you can win it on a hardtail. A pro roadie who’s never mountain biked could win that thing.”
Schnell doesn’t talk about cadence or lactic-acid threshold. He talks about “moves.” To him, the maneuvers required to negotiate tough, technical trails are crucial to the sport. “I talk about ‘moves’ all the time,” he says. “Moves are what mountain biking is all about. When I go out for a bike ride I get more satisfaction from cleaning the local ‘Widowmaker’ than I do comparing best times up the lo-cal road climb.”
Thanks to the moves he made at Dow–
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nieville, and to his emerging reputation as an all-around badass, his sponsors are “backing the idea of me doing fun events with products real people buy,” he says. That includes the mass-start Megavalanche rac-es in Europe, as well as the Downieville-in-fl uenced Super-D races in Ashland, Oregon. He’ll still race cross-country, but aims to hit the killer venues in Colorado, while avoiding the fl at-and-wide courses elsewhere (don’t even mention the word “Fontana” to him.)
Schnell concedes he may have to get more intense if he wants to compete on the World Cup stage. But not just yet. For one, his metabolism remains that of a teen-ager’s. He goes to bed at 11 and wakes up two hours later to chow cereal. “Last night I took down a family-size bag of Doritos…at one in the morning,” he admits. He’s been known to fi ll his CamelBak with Coke. (He likes bubbles. And resents Cytomax for lacking them.)
The irreverence is real. Not long ago, Schnell rode Utah’s 113-mile White Rim trail in a single day powered by an econo-my-size package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups because it was just after Halloween and the candy was cheap. Last year at Brian Head, the last stop on the NMBS circuit, he won the short track, and almost won the XC race—some of the best results in his life. His secret? Downing a Wendy’s super-size Baconator, with six juicy strips of bacon, and a chocolate Frosty the night before the XC event, while his Type-A teammate at the time, Jeremiah Bishop, watched in horror.
“So far in my career, I’ve found zero cor-relation between eating well and going fast,” Schnell says.
That career has lasted more than a decade, and has taken more than a few unusual turns. Even Schnell seems to struggle when asked to defi ne his role in the sport. “At best, I’m mediocre at every single thing. Which somehow stacks me higher than guys who are good at one thing only. My general goal is to mountain bike for the soul of the sport. I’m not the most competitive guy out there. I love the lifestyle and love what I’m doing, to ride and travel to good places. If that means getting beat by a guy who rides 30 hours a week, that’s fi ne. The day I don’t have fun is the day I’ll be done racing.”
So what does being an all-around mountain biking badass mean to Schnell? It means having a good time. “Mountain bike racing should be fun. It shouldn’t be a grim, serious thing. I mean, you are riding around in a circle on a bike. Wearing tights. How serious can you be?”
UNDER CONTROL
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WINGING IT I didn’t even get to ride the bike in the parking lot. I just went for it, fi rst run, and winged a backfl ip. It worked perfectly. The beam didn’t bottom out on the tire and the bike came around nicely. The truth is that this bike is easier to fl ip than it is to straight air—it’s not really balanced for jumping. I don’t think it was born with the intent of being airborne.
THE RUN-IN My biggest concern was whether I could actually lean back far enough, because the seat on this bike is higher than the stem. Usually, my seat is slammed all the way down to the toptube. But the hardest part was just getting through the run-in because you have to manual a
roller to get enough speed for the jump. But you can’t lean back on the Sh*tbike; you have to kind of squat off to the side. Once I got to the jump, the backfl ip wasn’t so bad—getting there was the hardest part.
STEPPING UP We tried to mix it up a bit and do a superman seat grab because the bike has that big old beam. You can grab on wherever you want—instead of about 3 inches to grab, you have about 3 feet. Then to take things up a notch we went for a backfl ip superman. The best part about the backfl ip superman was the cool motorcycle sound the gripshifters made as they spun through my hands while the bike rotated around.
DROP TO FLAT The landing hurt every time. Usually when you land you just keep your back straight, vertical to the ground, and bend your knees to take up the impact. But the seat is so high that I had to lean over with my whole body and absorb all the pressure with my lower back. My head almost hit the bars every time.
THE LESSON You don’t really need a fancy-schmantzy bike to have a good time. We had a little crappy bike today, and it re-minded me that as long as you’ve got a bike that rolls you can do whatever you want. You can even backfl ip a Sh*tbike.
—As told to Lou Mazzante
SH*TBIKE CHALLENGE
Bike (ISSN 1072-4869) July 2009, Volume 16, Issue 4. Published eight issues yearly in the months of March, May, June, July, August, September/October, November and December. Copyright © 2009 by SOURCE INTERLINK MAGAZINES, LLC,. All rights reserved. 261 Madison Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Periodicals Postage Paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offi ces. Canada Publication Mail Sales Agreement No. 40612608. Canada returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O.Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2 Canada. Subscription rates for one year (eight issues) U.S., APO, FPO and U.S. Possessions $19.97. Canada, $32.97 U.S. funds. (Price includes surface postage to Canada and GST—reg. no. 87209 3125 RT0001.) Foreign orders add $15.00 in U.S. funds. For a change of address, six weeks notice is required. Send old as well as new address to Bike, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Bike, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235.
part XII
