My Cycling Vacation

I have just returned from an incredible road trip out West to visit family and ride as much as possible. It was just me, my Kona FS, CX200 and 2 weeks off of work. Arkansas and New Mexico are not considered "cycling meccas" but it was apparent that there were plenty of places to ride great terrain. I left the day following the Woodland Lanes Fundraiser and stopped at my house in Edwardsburg, MI to spend a few days with the family.

Then it was off to Fayetteville, Arkansas to visit my mom. I had just missed the Joe Martin Stage Race which looks like a pretty cool event for the area. Maybe next year. The roads in the area are unsafe for road riding so to make my mom happy I rode off-road. My first day was at Lake Leatherwood near Eureka Springs. The rock formations and trails were technical and a blast to ride. Trail review.
Beacham Trail

Miners Rock


Sink Hole next to the trail (or it could be considered a skylight if you were at the bottom looking up).

More rock formations. Some of the local huckers have discovered that certain stone outcrops make great launch pads.


Lake Leatherwood dam


The following day was spent at Hobbs State Park in Rogers, ARK. The trail system consists of Stacked Loops. These are various trails which connect and can be rode in any direction through 2nd growth forest. Less technical, flowing singletrack and very fun to ride.
My last day was spent trying to ride Devils Den State Park, home of the Arkansas State Mountain Bike Championships. Due to the heavy rains a portion of the primo Fossil Flats trail was washed out and off limits. I broke out the road bike bike and found some long steep hills to ride on. The best part was a stretch of highway climbing out of a Lee River valley with ten 180 degree switchbacks. It wasn't the Alps but it was amazingly scary fast coming back down!
Lee River

After a few more days in Arkansas it was off to Ruidoso, New Mexico to visit my brother and sister-in-law. The fire danger was EXTREME and all the State forests were closed so I headed out on some of the most excellent New Mexico roads. High desert plains with long climbs and descents, altitude, wind, zero traffic (or humans) and an occassional cattle grate to bunny hop. All just a stone's throw from Roswell.
The road to Capitan, NM.

Even the roadside cows are at risk.

My bro and I tangling with the local wildlife.

Portales, New Mexico loves their Greyhounds. Everywhere I looked the Greyhound was King!


The next and final stop was to head North and visit my other brother in Durango and ride the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. Due to a scheduling conflict (my bad) I made the decision to bag the race and head home to attend my son's HS graduation. It was a good call as it turns out the powers that be decided to dump a foot of snow on Silverton and the road race was cancelled. I was sooooo close to finally doing this incredible ride from Durango to Silverton. Again, maybe next year.

Team Fundraiser

Friday, May 9Th was the 2Nd annual RACING GREYHOUNDS team fundraiser. This year one of our sponsor's, Woodland Lanes hosted the gala event. The event was a great success with a large turnout. The party was private and we had the entire bowling alley available to meet new friends and team mates. I suck at bowling but it sure was nice to have something to do while drinking, eating pizza and goofing around. The raffles were very popular and the winner of the cruiser bike rode the bike up and down the concourse all night. A huge thank you to Big Gary and his staff at Woodland Lanes, Daniel from Cycle to Fitness, the team members, family and friends for making this event a great success for the team.

Ft. Custer Stampede XC

Sunday, May 4 marked stop number two of the MMBA CPS (Championship Points Series). It was sunny with temperatures in the high 60's and the trail was in perfect condition. Ft. Custer Recreation Area is a state park located next to the Ft Custer National Guard base. The trail features areas such as The Trenches which were used for training as far back as WW1. The reference to Stampede has it's origin from the start line as riders thunder across the grass before the trail funnels down to singletrack. The holeshot rules here! I am now in a new rider classification and I am still trying to figure out the various aspects of racing a singlespeed. The class is now Elite/Expert SS which is an open class without age breakdown. Age should never matter but it can have some advantages. I quickly found out it is a very fast class. We started in wave #1 in front of 6000 Sport riders (jk). I knew I would have to push just to stay ahead of the throng of riders behind me. As usual, I was off the back within the first 5 minutes as those leaders must have been pushing a very tall gear while I spun out my 32X17. We hit a couple of short, steep hills and I was well on my way to blowing up! I settled in behind another SS rider while we finished lap 1 and I recovered well. My mistake was I settled in too long and should of gone around this rider much earlier. Once the leader of one of the Sport categories caught me (and woke me up)I made a move around several SS riders and pushed it to the end. I had no issues with the bike as it performed flawlessly and the gearing was fine for the course. Although I placed 10 out of 14 with a time of 1:20:47, I was happy with the result. I know I will only get faster on this new rig and I'm looking forward to the next race.

Video Mondial Du VTT

Check out this video from Mondial ski resort in the French Alps. Crazy fast downhill with tons of dangerous passing. Not cool but the video shows some first rate downhilling.

Mondial Du VTT Descente de Venosc caméra embarquée
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