Team MotionBased

Car packed - bikes/friends loaded - sunny weekend promised. All the reasons we needed to escape south to warmer climes again as snow flurries blasted through Bend, OR. The Spring Thaw Mountain Bike Race promised an exciting change from last year as the course was updated to avoid the long, flat fire road traverse and add more climbing and double the singletrack! With no NORBA on the calendar, most of the state's firepower made an appearance with the likes of Ryan Trebon, Carl Decker, Jason Sager and Chris Sheppard toeing the line. SoBe-Cannondale riders James Williams and myself were decked out with our new Scalpels that proved perfectly suited for the course - super light at 23lbs for climbing and the full-suspension inspiring a high grin-factor on the downhill soaking up anything the trail could dish up.  It was a quick separation from the gun with a lead group of about 8 of us going clear on the 6 mile climb to the first buttery smooth, fast singletrack back down towards town and loop #2. As time wore on and lactic acid built we strung out along the course, we grunted up another 5 mile climb, took a hard left and the climbing frown turning upside down as entered into the bermed, serpentine singletrack for final descent.Ended up 5th on the day and enjoyed an afternoon of sun, great BBQ provided by the race organizers and laying in the Lithia Park ampitheater relaxing with friends. Not bad...not bad at all. Check out the Garmin 305 stats on MotionBased: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5580005 Day 2 of the weekend's activities followed an evening of wicked badmitton in the yard of our Ashland rental house, a stomach-streching tour of the local Creekside Pizza joint and Grilla Bites eateries and the inevitable last-minute biking fixing. Table Rock Road Race looked fairly docile on the map but proved otherwise...and that mountain bikers can still ride road bikes...hard. A smallish Pro/1/2 field of about 50 lined up to take advantage of the sunny weekend, get some great miles in on a rolling, pitching course and fight for some Oregon Cup points. Somehow in the first lap I managed to gravitate to the only rock sitting in the middle of a 90 deg right turn and blew out my front tire and swerved to a halt without hitting the pavement or taking out the field. Phew - the Cannondale SuperSix was safe. At least I got a rest waiting for the wheel car because I needed it for the 9 mile time trial back to the field. Fun times. The rest of the day consisted of spent legs resisting, fighting, protesting and generally not wanting to stay with the dwindling field. Finally on the last lap my legs beat out my brain and I popped off the back to ride in with a couple other guys. Good times, great sun tan and fun course. Word is that it will be the Oregon State Champs next year - sweet! Check out the Garmin 305 stats on MotionBased: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5580006

The Mudslinger was my introduction to Oregon XC racing one year ago. I showed up and noticed everyone pulling their bikes off of their cars with fenders and lacking any suspension. The bikes looked like they would make for nice "townies" or commuter bikes. So I lined up for the race on my FS bike and promptly got beaten into 22nd place after 2 hours and 33 minutes of racing. This year I came prepared, and here's the recipe: Jamis Dakota hardtail frame, Rigid Carbon fork, Formula Disc Brakes, Single Rotor-Q chainring (38T) w/ chain saver, 9 speed cassette, Gravity Dropper, downtube Fender, Kenda Karma 2.0 tires. Weight: 20lbs. The Gravity Dropper is now on all of my bikes, and for good reason: in the mud it allows you to lower your position through the sloppy descents while using the legs as outriggers. The course was extremely demanding, and there were periods of sunlight trickling through the mossy trees, illuminates ripples of sleet that was falling around us. Surreal. Did the bike work out? Oh yeah. 12 minutes off of my last year's time, and an improvement of 14 positions overall (7th!) I can say the bike works as advertised. Would I trade it for my sweet XCR Carbon? Nah. But it's nice to have something to thrash about in the mud with.

On June 11, 2007, the 45th anniversary of the infamous Anglin Brothers / Frank Morris escape from Alcatraz, three men swam from Alcatraz for the 500th time - without wetsuits – each! Steve Hurwitz, Pedro Ordenes and I, Gary Emich – MB Team’s "token swimmer" - hit the water at Alcatraz and made the 1.5 mile, 55 degree swim back into Aquatic Park. The media was out in droves and one of the questions posed most frequently was "Why?" How do you answer a question like that to members of the media who aren't athletes and who only want a sound-bite? The truth is swimming from Alcatraz is never the same - ever. Let me explain. The San Francisco Bay fills up with water and then reverses and empties every 12 to 13 hours. Water levels can rise or fall in excess of 8 feet in 6 short hours. And, all of that water, 4.5 million gallons per second, flows in and out of the narrow one-mile wide Golden Gate. As you can imagine this creates tremendous currents. In fact, currents can exceed 6 knots or nearly 7 miles per hour for you landlubbers. To illustrate how quickly the water moves, the current record for swimming between the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, a distance of 6 miles, is 49 minutes. That's a little bit over 8 minute miles. I can't even run that fast! And therein lays the allure. Alcatraz is a thinking swim. I'm constantly monitoring what the currents are doing and making minute-by-minute adjustments in my course so I can make it back into Aquatic Park or to Crissy Field. But sometimes I just say "what the hell - jump in and see where the currents are going to take you." And that's when my real education and appreciation of the Bay's powerful currents really intensifies. Take a look for yourself - my last 50 or 60 Alcatraz crossings. As I always joke: Alcatraz is the Forrest Gump box of chocolate swims 'cuz you never know what you're going to get! Important Safety Disclaimer Never, ever, ever swim in the Bay without an experienced pilot accompanying you in a motorized boat!

Day 1: brain is dead so this will be brief. 3am wakeup/breakfast, rollout at 5am in 80deg, 100% humidity. Into the slickest, snottiest, reddest mud for hours of hike-a-bike climbing out of the coast. Evil. Blew out my rear tire at about mile 20 and had to Clif wrapper the gash and put in a tube. More climbing, then more with a 15k road climb near the finish. 14,500ft ascent in 60miles. 6hrs and change in a soaked chamois. Ouch. Tomorrows a new stage with 11,500ft of climbing in 41 miles. Should be interesting. Ciao. Check out the Garmin 305 GPS stats from stages 1 here: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4472795 Day 2: Well I now know how they can fit 11.5K of climbing into 43 miles but haven't figured out how to recover from a 6+ hr race apparently. Getting the call-up made me feel like I should "race" so tried to keep up with the skinny fast guys up climb #1. Lasted about 35min of running up dirt too steep to ride and doing the cyclocross flying mount to chase before my legs gave me the curtain call. After that, we essentially climbed up gravel and pavement at a 30% grade for 15 miles. Thats a long time in the granny gear. Besides the incredible countryside, pain tolerance testing and friendly, happy locals the highlight so far has been the chocolate funnel cake they have at the aide stations. Good Lord its a good sugar rush. After 4hrs of climbing, we had a gnarly fresh cut descent straight down a couple of thousand feet of hillside, drainage, riverbed, etc. Couldn't bend over to take my shoes off my back hurt so bad after the steep climbing after narrowly beating a 5hr ride time. Tomorrow we get to climb over Irazu, the 9500 ft volcano looking over San Jose on our way to the Atlantic coast. Another quick 45 miler...ha! Check out the Garmin 305 stats for Stage 2 here: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4472796 Day 3: Another 4am wakeup call for breakfast of gallo pinto (white rice and black beans) and a mound of eggs. Leaving the outskirts of San Jose in a "neutral" start gave us time for brief glimpses up into the building clouds around Irazu volcano - our destination for the day. By "neutral" I mean motorcycles were trying to corral the field for safety reasons through the city but sure enough people were zooming up sidewalks, yards and any other available real estate to advance a few spots. Didn't really matter in the end as we did a straight shot up the flanks of the volcano for a 3hr - 8750 ft middle ring road climb. Climbing up into the rain sufficiently spread the field as we peaked at 9000ft with clouds of breath steaming in front, rivers of water cascading down the road and limbs locking up in the chill. After passing the checkpoint we began the gnarliest, chewed up descent on a clearly unused mountain sidecut that was embedded with babyhead rocks, cut by wash-outs and rain ruts all at a 25-30% down grade...in the pouring rain...after a 3hr climb. Went through a set of brake pads and a few of my 9 lives navigating this absurdly hard downhill. Needless to say the ambulance was wailing late into the night retrieving the wounded, gathering the lost and generally trying to keep people from throwing in the towel. Drew a sigh of relief as we zigzagged in amidst the vast coffee plantations of Aquiares to the finish line and another cold shower and lunch, finally having arrived on the Caribbean side of the country. Finally finished a stage with no mechanicals (day 1 blown sidewall, day 2 broken chain)! One more to go. Day 4: Once again we woke to a steady downpour and plowed through yet another 4am plate of rice, beans and eggs. I was hoping for a couple of hot cups of some of the world-famous Costa Rican coffee being grown on the hillsides surrounding us but found out that over 95% of it is exported and not so readily available as one might think. Back at the start we all lined up in our rain capes, standing in the downpour looking forward to the final day - a long 120K stage back up through the coffee plantation then down the final range of moutains to the Atlantic coast. Once again, taking the course description listed as "downhill" with a grain of salt, made the repeated granny gear climbs a little less harsh. The rain also kept the normally swealtering heat at bay however did feel like someone was pointing a pressure washer at your face as well hit 45 mph on some of the long pave descents to the coast. After a couple river crossings, one of them waist deep, we arrived at the notorious railroad tressle crossings - a terrifying 300yd tiptoe on the oily wooden ties 100+ feet over a rushing river. Can't really begin to explain how not-fun this was after already riding for 3 or 4 hours, being tired and having carbon-soled (no grib) bike shoes on. Some of the ties were even missing so you go to take a step over a 2ft gap in the bridge, carrying your bike on your shoulder while looking down at the river far below. Even better this ended up being one of many bridge crossings for the day, all in various states of decay. The final 30 or 40k run-in to the coast took us through some seriously poverty sticken little Caribe shanty towns and then north along the bay to the port town of Limon. Because the roads here were were more paths in and out of the vast Dole pineapple and banana plantations the race organizers ever so kindly kept us on the railroad tracks...literally. What seemed like an eternity of bone-jarring thump,thump...thump,thump we rode down the middle of the tracks over the concrete ties and chip rock. This is where I cracked. Each pedal stroke produced a nearly simaltaneous jolt of pain up my arms and back meeting in a growing knot in my neck. The first 3 days of this journey were phycially the most difficult experiment I'd ever done but this took the cake for mental fortitude. Finally after what seemed an eternity of swearing I'd never ride my bike again and wondering if someone at the finish line wanted to buy it, I saw the sandy finish line on the Atlantic coast surf spot of Playa Bonita and my finish time of 5hr 51min. All the trials and tribulations of the last few days quickly passed into memory as the cerveza Imperials started flowing. After a shower to wash away the grit and grime of the day, a large meal of pork, chicken, snapper, steak and various veggies and potatoes (no beans and rice) I was soon sharing stories with new friends and competitors and shaking hands with the guys I'd raced against but ultimately survived with. Managed a 3rd place in the Master A category that I was placed in now that I'm an old man at age 31. Keeps on giving... Naturally the journey didn't end there, and what became badged as Stage 5 took me about 30hours of straight travel to finally get back to Bend. The main road back to San Jose had washed out because of all the rain so the 2hr bus trip turned into 5hr. Then our bus broke down and we were forced to jump on a local bus and stand in the aisles for 3hrs. We finally arrived back at the Best Western in San Jose about midnight to find our bikes had not made it back from the coast. They finally arrived around 3am and I had just enough time to get, break it down, pack and catch the shuttle to the airport for my 7:15am flight. Got through customs in LA around 1pm only to find that I couldn't get a flight to Bend until 9:15pm that night. Fun times. What's labeled as the hardest moutain bike race in the world certainly lived up to its name. The ride combined the hardest and most severe elements of nature, wickedly steep climbing, terrifying downhills and mental torture even George Bush would be proud of. To cap it off I've even managed to bring a piece of Costa Rica back with me and have been layed up on a heavy dose of antibiotics to purge my system of the hitchhikers.

A while back we told you about Mark Weir's pump track and talked about the peacocks. Today we're talking deer, and it looks like they aren't getting squeezed out after all. Watch the below video to see Old Blue throw-down and claim this turf rights. Read Bucks Gone Wild at WTB for more color on the days events.

With the cycling season wrapping up at the end of September, I was looking forward to a little time off the bike, as I was my wedding and of course my honeymoon. For our honeymoon Amy and I wanted some adventure mixed in with relaxation so we chose a trip to Africa, a climb up Kilimanjaro, followed by a short safari ending up on a beach in Zanzibar.

For those not familiar with it, Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest point in Africa at 19,341 feet and is found in the northern part of Tanzania. What makes Kilimanjaro special is that since it is close to the equator and the base of the mountain is at 6,000 feet or so, is has 5 distinct climatic zones presenting a wide variety of geography and vegetation along the way. There are several routes up the mountain ranging from 5 to 9 days. We chose one of the more scenic, less traveled treks, the 7 day Lemosho Route. Though we have been atop a few 14er’s, “Kili” is a mile higher and we wanted the extra day to acclimatize.

To climb Kilimanjaro you are required to be accompanied by a registered guide. Liberate and Renatus of Nature Discovery provided us this service. Also with us on the expedition were 17 porters who transported our food, water, tents, clothing etc. I imagine you put one of these porters on a mountain bike he would hold his own in the Snowmass NORBA. Our guide Liberate makes over 40 summits a year! As far as the difficulty of the climb, it was hard but it could have been a lot harder if it was not for the support of the crew from Nature Discovery. Liberate and Renatus kept the pace slow aiding the acclimatization process stuffing our faces with good food and a seemingly never-ending supply of water.

As you would expect the most difficult day was the Summit day. We were woken as usual with “bed tea,” a thermos with hot coffee and/or tea at 12 AM (usually it was 6:30). Then we strapped on our headlamps and began our 4 mile crawl covering 4,000 feet vert to Uhuru Peak. Though we were scheduled to summit around 6 AM, Amy was too cold to ever stop and rest and we reached the roof of Africa at 5 AM, the first group of the day and hour before sunrise. Thankfully, Renatus and Liberate toted a couple thermos’ of tea to the top, that and adrenalin kept us warm to sunrise.

For the second consecutive year, I secured the Oregon State Mountain Bike Hillclimb Championships. You may remember that I won the XC championship in May and also was dual champion in 2006. Last year I won the same race (4800 vertical feet) in a record time on my singlespeed. This time I opted to ride my rigid Scott Scale with Kenda Klimax tires and a 38 tooth Rotor Q-Ring driving a 12-27 Dura Ace Cassette. I was able to take over four minutes off my record time from last year!

[RACE REPORT] This year's Mt Tam Triple Crown Hill Climb was the inaugural and included a small field of local riders and runners. The event comprised 3 stages over 3 days over Labor Day weekend 2007. And each stage started in Mill Valley and end at the top of Mt Tam. It started with a mountain bike race on day 1, followed by a road race on day 2, and concluded with a trail/road run on day 3. Below is short summary of each day’s event and my MotionBased GPS digest. Day 1, MTB MotionBased Digest I finished 8th out of 22 riders. The field was mixed; but the good riders were very good! The interesting thing about this race was the variety of bikes. It was as much about one's choice of a bike as much as your fitness. There were single speeds, 29er single speeds, fixed gear single speeds, fully rigid singles speeds, cyclo-cross bikes, traditional mountain bikes. The winner rode a fully rigid single speed. Day 2, Road Ride MotionBased Digest I finished 8th.again! The field was mixed; but the good riders were still very good! Day 3, Trail Run MotionBased Digest The sufferfest ended with a 2.5 mile hill climb, on foot, from Mill Valley to the summit of Mt Tam. I spent 43 minutes of heart-pounding, vomit-inducing running, climbing, and scrambling to finish that stage in 5th and finish the 3 stage Triple Crown in 8th. (Day 3 was also part of the renowned 27 year-old Mt Tam Hill Climb foot race http://www.tamalparunners.org/html/hillclimbarticle.php) Overall, the Triple Crown was such good times. I learned more about Marin's cycling and especially running culture and history. Very interesting!! I'll be back next year for more suffering. My climbing season continues with the 47 year old Mt Tam Hill Climb pro and amateur road race; followed by the more laid-back Diablo Challenge; and in the meantime the weekly Low Key Hill Climbs around the Bay Area.

The Steinbeck Crit course is D-shaped with two long straight-aways, and a tough cross wind on the back straight. The race was rather short at only 60 minutes, and the attacks started on the first lap. Local professional Eric Wohlberg must have attacked half a dozen times before finally getting away with one other rider. Normally, a breakaway with two riders in windy conditions would eventually be brought back to the main group. However, with Wohlberg present in the break the time gap kept growing. When the time gap got to 20 seconds, I knew it was now or never, so I attacked and brought one other with me. We chased for a lap or so before being joined by two other riders, and the four of us were able to bridge up to the original break of two containing Wohlberg. The six of us stayed away for the rest of the race. The cat and mouse games began with about 4 laps to go, but every move was quick to be chased down. One of the best local sprinters was in the break with us, so we knew that if we towed him to the line we would pretty much be giving him the win. With just under 2 laps to go, I attacked and was able to get a small gap. Half a lap later I looked back to see the yellow jersey of Wohlberg gaining on us, but I did not see the other rider Wohlberg had in tow. I still had a good sized gap, so I just put my head down and kept stomping on the pedals as hard as I could. I stayed away until I was caught at about 50 meters from the finish line, and ended up 3rd. This was one of my more memorable races, because I definitely left everything I had out there on the road.

So we all got out to Vermont for Norba National Championships. Dave with some sort of lung infection, and me with a battered moral from Downieville - looking at a forecast of rain for the entire week of racing. Being sick, Dave didn't do so well - but he had a good time anyway and still raced his bike for a while. I (olivier) raced early on Friday morning in the worst conditions of the weekend, waking up at 4:30am to get psyched to go out into the rain and mud to suffer for 3 hrs. It was slow going (Avg Spd - 6mph!), but at least we were all in the same boat, and I managed 10th place to salvage an otherwise lackluster season and qualify to repeat the process a year from now in the same venue. A month has passed, and fulfilling my obligations I have only ridden twice since that last race to focus on building our home (which is a race in itself). Reminiscing on the past season (there are still races going on, but not for me) I am struck by the various aspects of this sport and equipment and preparation that goes into each event. Gravity events have a tug at my inner child, and I'm drawn to those disciplines - but XC is what my body is best suited for and really it may be the best and most challenging event of all. To recap on Vermont perhaps I can just give a quick slide and video presentation. First: A somewhat dried out technical section on the XC course. There were many sections that were unrideable (mostly uphill sections). Exhibit B: The U23 category negotiating the same after the start of their race. And: John Berlinger runs the Mavic support program and is always a great person to run into. Sara B. is too, and she cheered me along in my XC race on a cold and rainy morning! Also: A quick glimpse of Dual Slalom as Team Jamis racer Tommy Tokarczyk goes head to head with Eric Carter on a very short course. Both of these guys are friendly and approachable given their talents. The Super-D lift. Rachel and Kenny. Rachel blew minds with her Super-D win, beating the women by "miles" and most of the men to boot. Kenny finished 7th in the Men's event. Lift access is a treat for XC types used to riding up all the time (I need to go ride more to validate this claim). The start of the Men's Short Track National Championship. Fast. Parting shot. I asked Barb for her autograph, but she was going too fast!