Illusionary Lines video trailer

Great video to get the blood flowing. The whip at 75 seconds is sick! The music is "the captured vibe" by the Hilltop Hoods.

[MTB] Illusionary Lines ( Teaser ) [ Goodspeed ]
Uploaded by Goodspeed-FreeRide

BEIJING OLYMPIC MOUNTAIN BIKE COURSE

The International Cycling Union (UCI) has unveiled the Olympic cross-country mountain bike course for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The course length is 2.6 miles with 735 feet of climbing. I expected to see a meandering trail through old growth forest or better yet, bamboo. Check out the shots and you'll see it looks like a newly cut trail in a small patch of woods. I am sure there are critical design factors involved in the layout such as making it spectator friendly and wide for passing with a few technical aspects as well. We will see how it goes in August.

The Beijing Summer Olympic Games are to be held August 8-24, 2008, in Beijing, China.
The mountain bike competitions take place August 22 and 23.

The Olympic mountain bike circuit layout and profile, as well as a mile-by-mile virtual photo ride of the course, can be viewed by clicking here.

Iceman 07

Kyle S., Cory S., Don S., Me, Dennis B., Dave H., Pat S.
I received a Christmas card from a friend which included a shot from November's Iceman race. The shot was taken post race before we headed out to watch the Pro's event. The look of satisfaction on our faces underscores the unique experience we each went through. The look on my face resembles fatigue. We all showed up, had fun and lived to tell the tale. A huge thank you goes out to Don and Donna for the invite as the accomodations were nothing short of top shelf. You guys are great!

COSMIC - Colorado Ski Mountaineering Cup

I came across this and it looks like a pretty cool alternative to the various alpine race series that float around each season. The COSMIC series combines back-country, steep accents/descents and telemark skiing in an extreme format. It's only a matter of time before a local promoter starts their own series version here in Michigan. The photo includes number 79, my personal hero and Mountain Bike Hall of Famer, Mike Kloser. Looks like a great way to stay competitive. Race recap here. Check out the elevation profile. Click on link.

Craig's 2008 Race Schedule...

2008 Race Schedule

Date Event/Location

4/13/2008 Pontiac Lake - TT
4/20/2008 Yankee Springs Western Chapter Benefit – TT
5/04/2008 Fort Custer Southwest Chapter Benefit – XC
5/18/2008 Boneshaker - XC (Ruidoso, NM)
5/24/2008 Iron Horse Classic - Road (Durango, CO)
6/01/2008 Hanson Hills Challenge - XC
6/14/2008 Lumberjack 100
6/21/2008 8 Hours of Cannonsburg
7/12/2008 Boyne Challenge – Marathon XC
7/19/2008 6/12 Hours of Ithaca
7/27/2008 Stony Creek - TT
8/16/2008 6/12 Hours of Pando
8/23/2008 Maybury Metro South Chapter Benefit – XC
8/30/2008 6/12 Hours of Drummond Island
9/13/2008 12/24 Hours of Hanson Hills
9/21/2008 Addison Oaks Metro North Chapter Benefit - XC
9/28/2008 Pando Challenge – XC
11/8/2008 Iceman Cometh

"I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK...."

Well, I finally took the plunge and signed up for my first 100 mile MTB race. The Lumberjack 100 is in it's third year and part of the National Ultra Endurance MTB series. The trail consists of 4-25 mile loops of pure singletrack near Manistee, MI. Now that Floyd Landis has signed up for this series I am certain participation will jump. More on this later. See LINK for story.

Lumberjack Song Lyrics

NUTS RULE!

As a kid I often wondered why anyone of sound mind would ruin a perfectly good brownie or chocolate chip cookie with the addition on nuts. I often turned down a sweet if I detected a hint of nut lurking beneath the surface. Things change and today I love nuts. All nuts. Although some are better than others. The Meijer brand Peanut Butter is a great deal and simply contains: Peanuts. The Nature Valley Almond Crunch bar is great for packing on rides as it doesn't melt. Bon Appetit.

Ice Ice Baby!

OK. Today I cancelled my outdoor activities because of a couple inches of snow and now I feel like a big wuss after seeing this video on ice climbing in Durango, CO. This city livin' is making me soft!

Snow day

Yesterday I had to hang around the house all day to wait for the Livonia City Inspector to do the final inspection on the new furnace. Long story short the inspection never happened and I missed a great chance for a ride. So I decided to take the Cross bike off the trainer, switch out the tires and psych up for a quick morning ride to celebrate the Reverend Martin Luther King's Birthday. I was greeted with several inches of snow which fell overnight and I chose to celebrate by cleaning my oven instead.

Black magic?

For Christmas I received a gift from my brother and sister-in-law. Straight from New Orleans, Reverend Zombie's fish scale is a sure bet to give me the edge in those endurance events. It resembles a giant toenail (ugh) and leaves me with many questions on it's use. I need to look up how to process this. Do I grind it up and sprinkle it on my cornflakes? "Just a pinch 'tween my cheek and gum". It even comes with a little bag (gris-gris) for storage so I can take it with me. Grrrreat. I'll keep you posted on the results.

Minturn Mile

As I have little bike related stories at this time I thought a would share another passion in the meantime. So, I used to live in Minturn, Colorado an older, smalltown railroad suburb of neighboring Vail. A fun "end of the day" run would be to ski off of Vail's Game Creek Bowl and continue down the valley several miles to Minturn, a short walk away from home or the nearest local bar. The run can resemble a luge at times and is pretty wild. The novelty of using downhill skis for something more suited to XC as well as the contrast between the two towns is unique. The doods in the video are on Telemark skis. Here is a related article about "the Mile".

Vail video

Now this is how to deal with a ton of snow! Check out this video from Vail. Epic conditions, soft moguls with a back flip thrown in . Very nice.

Rain delay

Ugh. It's raining cat's and dog's right now (no snow) and it looks like I have some more time to spend with Coach Troy. After doing those one-legged spin excercises yesterday I kept walking in circles afterwards.

My day with Coach Troy

Today was warm (for January) and wet outside so I borrowed some training DVD's from the shop and spent my day with Coach Troy. As much as I would prefer to ride outdoors I will still mix it up with some indoor spinning. At least the video's are motivating. Holy crap, nothing like 90 sec. intervals and spiking my heart rate to 175 BPM to round out the day!

Durango snow!

My brother Mike and his girlfriend Jean as well as their dogs live between Durango and Silverton, Colorado. Last night they just received a massive dumping of snow and more is on the way. Too much snow to get out of your house or driveway to drive up to the nearest ski area 2 miles up the road. Sweeet. Seeing snow like this makes me wish I was reliving those ski bum days of yore....

Carbo collage

So I was doing the wash today and looked down at the trash can next to the washing machine and noticed the colorful array of post-ride debris removed from my jersey pockets. I dumped this out on the floor and reflected on the season's worth of carbo related debris. I guess I better empty my trash more often...

Craig's 2007 miles...

Total miles - 4,378 *

YTD Rides - 140

Elapsed Time - 283:27:05

Avg. Speed - 15.72 MPH

*Combined Mountain Bike/Road Bike