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April 29th
It's been a long time since updates so I should have plenty to write. Let me pick up where I left off.
Sea Otter Left Overs
MTBR has some video highlights from the Sea Otter, plus they have a whole section where you can upload your own videos from the Sea Otter. Looks good.
Steve Wolf has posted some of his pictures from that weekend. His knees have kept him from riding but he seems to be taking lots of pictures.
Steve Delay's crew had a good showing at the DH race at the Sea Otter, he has a full write up on his results page.
While we were a Sea Otter, Ogre went to check out Pinecrest Peak Trail.
After the Sea Otter, the CHDH put on by RideSFO was the event to see.
It was a good day to watch DH racing. After the early morning rains cleared up the sky turned big and blue and left great weather until it got chilly again for the results.
RideSFO added a guy with a radar gun at the bottom of the big G Out this year. Top speed got a prize of $300. SWD Racing's Brian Hapgood tied Pro Curtis Beavers for the highest speed in the big G Out. They both hit 47 mph but they gave the prize money to Curtis because he had a better overall time. Brian still ended up winning his Expert class age group but that doesn't pay $300 like the top speed prize money does.
Lots of pictures of the CHDH have been posted.
A bunch from Single Pivot, from PhotoLady, from Steve Wolf and from RickR. I shot some interesting video but it'll be a while before I go through the footage to put it together.
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What else?
Looks like there is going to be a Fairfax Fat Tire Festival in May.
Speaking of May, it's time for May by the Bay 9 and it looks like there is going to be a lot of stuff going on the whole month.
Also, early June is bringing something called The Bra Ride. It's a charity event supporting the Oaklands Children's Hospital.
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Funny or Die
If you haven't seen the Landlord video yet, you need to pause to take a look.
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April 14
The Sea Otter
I spent all day in Monterrey yesterday checking out this year's Sea Otter. I used to really enjoy spending 4 days at the event, camping with a bunch of people, and really soaking up the whole event. Every year I used to look forward to these few days in April and made sure I had time off of work to be there to do it right. But the last few years, not so much. The Sea Otter has just gotten more and more expensive each year and I'm just tired of giving them the piles of cash. But I still had to go down for at least one day.
As always, I got to see a lot of familiar faces and a lot of cools stuff. The SO seems to get bigger ever year and this year they've built a huge dirt jump ramp. They needed a scissor lift to get people and bikes to the top of the ramp.
As always, the weather turns bad for the Sea Otter. This morning it looks like the Beginner XC racers were treated to some cold rain. The Doppler radar showed a lot of yellow and red in the area between Salinas and Monterey. Talking to John it looks like most of the rained missed his race but it rained pretty hard afterwards. For some reason he's racing Beginner's class XC but I've already told him how I feel about that issue.
(Sea Otter Classic XC course helmet cam video)
LB Scott raced also but he flatted, Mark D. was expected, but didn't show, and Gizzelle raced her first race in Begginers XC which was only 10 miles this year, but she completely missed the turn and ended up doing the full 19+ miles. That should really killer her time... lol.
The MTBR booth was jumping yesterday, I wasn't able to spend much time there but I made sure to get my raffle ticket for the afternoon drawing. I had long shot dreams of picking up a 9'er frame but it was not to be. I had texted Impy earlier that I'd look for her at the booth. I missed her the first time but came back around 4 pm and saw her at the far end of the booth. I waved and looked for some acknowledgement and all I got was this blank stare. I was thoroughly confused and then started to question my sanity, took my hat and glasses off and and gave an "It's me." look and go nothing.
I then felt really stupid as Colette came up from behind me and said "Hi." I swear this other woman could be her sister, having not seen Impy in 6 months didn't hurt either but that feeling of being stupid lasted for a while.
I then went out to try to catch schwag from the product toss or get lucky and have my number pulled for any kind of free goodies. I came up completely empty handed, nothing even landed near me and my number was never called.
I also spent some time at the SWD race camp and watched some of the DH pro practice. I'm sure we'll get an extensive SWD race report after the Sea Otter is wrapped up.
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Levi Racing Local
Levi Leipheimer raced locally last weekend and repeated his win from last year. Some big named pros have showed up occasionally at Copperopolis, it is called California's Paris-Roubaix.
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Mountain Biking Protection
This was a really weird thread on mtbr Passion last week. Some guy had a question about some ride protection. Frankly, I told him I thought it was a good idea. I hope he tries it out and reports back.
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Senior Project
I've been working with a student over the last 9 months on his senior project. His goal was to ride a century and last Tuesday, Carlos rode 100 miles with me and John. I'm not sure he believed he could do it, at the 70 mile mark I know he had big doubts he would finish, but he road 100 miles on a really really windy day. Even though I specifically picked a course that did not have tons of climbing, the wind made the loop hard. The map shows 98 miles because he started riding from his house which is 2 miles from my house, but his odometer rolled over to 100 miles at the end of the ride.
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Last bit of Coe
Dennis upload a Coe map which also includes pictures from the ride.
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April 3
Evil Coe
Stories are starting to come out about the Coe ride on Sunday. I still don't know all the details but I do have some trial routes to post.
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At the trails show that the group split up. Everyone went to the peak and down then started on the trail, then half went north on the trail in red, and the rest went west in blue. This is a more detailed look at the red track with elevation profiles.
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Turlock Bike Park Meeting
Subject: WEDNESDAY, City Parks Manager at special Bike Park meeting!
Ok Everyone,
This is what we've been waiting for and need. Rick Harden, City of Turlock Manager in charge of Parks, has requested to meet with the community group and participants that will be using the proposed Turlock Bike Park!!!!!!!!!!!
The meeting has been moved to Wednesday at Cycle Masters at 5:30pm (hopefully this is alright with Cycle Masters or we'll meet outsideJ lol) instead of Friday. Thanks Gary and Matt!
This is where the City basically is acknowledging support for the project and will tell us their concerns, ask questions and answer questions. This is the step before getting it approved by the City Council!
TELL EVERYONE you know WHO RIDES A BIKE AT ALL to go to the special meeting on Wednesday April 4th at Cycle Masters on Main St. at 5:30pm.
If there's NO SUPPORT, there's NO BIKE PARK!
Maybe make some flyers and put 'em up at Cycle Masters, put a sign up at the jumps on the Canal past Daubenberger, forward this email, call people, etc!?
So yeah, this is the biggest step really! If the City of Turlock Staff is behind it and says it is good, the Council will approve it easy and we could a Bike Park by Summer (IF THERE'S SUPPORT FOR IT)!
See everyone Wednesday.
DJ Fransen
dj@turlockcitynews.com
678-7759
www.TurlockCityNews.com
Go if you can.
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April 2
Oh No Coe
Brutal, just so brutal, 8 people showed up, I bailed early and ended up doing only 23 miles and 4300ft of climbing. The others ended up doing something around 36 miles with 3 miles of hike-a-bikes somewhere in a ravine. I still haven't heard all the details but it sounds like there was suffering involved.
One the way out, I ran through the Dowdy Ranch headquarters that's being built. There is a good sized parking lot, bathrooms, picknick tables, and running water. Running water is the important part because it looks like the Bell Station entrance will only be open in the late spring through summer months. I'm not sure anyone wants to go back though.
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I've been playing with the Garmin bike computer I borrowed from Gary. I think Gary loaned it to me because he knows I'll end up buying it once I get to play with it. It is really cool. I've used it on three rides so far. The Wednesday Road Ride, the Bell Station Coe Ride, and a 70 mile road ride the day after. This thing gives you just so much data to look at and multiple ways to display it. Garmin also works really well with www.motionbased.com and Google Earth so you can upload and display your tracks of the rides. Here is the shorter Coe route I did on Saturday. (You need Google Earth for it to work, right click to dl it if clicking on it doesn't work)
I did lose about a mile and a half of data in the middle when I forgot to turn the Edge on after a break.
Like I said before, I'm really interested in seeing what the other guys did elevation wise. I know Dennis had an Edge 201 and Scott has an Edge 305. The Edge 305 includes a heart rate monitor and cadence but that doesn't interest me much.
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MSR '92
Don't watch if you don't like road racing but this is what makes road racing great.
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short post
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