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March 28
Corral Hollow Down Hill Race
Hanging Out near the G-Out
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The guy who won a custom SWD frame. Man, that's the only reason I even bought a raffel ticket.
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Dirtydogmtb.com has some trick rotors and ths monkey skull stem on display.
I took one photo of the guys racing, I frankly just don't have the camara to take worth while photos of high speed racing. So if you want to check out some good ones, check out Steve Wolf's set of photos.
Speaking of photos, go grab the new issue of MTB Action, turn to page 64 and check out a picture of SWD rider McWesty going over bars. He bought about $100 worth of raffel tickets and probablly walked away with $400 worth of stuff. I was giving him crap too. I told him with that many raffel tickets, he's bound to walk away with just a pair of socks. Then they started calling numbers and they pulled numbers 3 times in a row, and then another 3 or 4 times after.
I haven't seen any results from the race yet so I don't know how well Steve's team did?
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The Duryea Downhill
A mix of urban and dirt for a DH race looks cool as hell.
The Sea Otter Classic is coming!!
I'll be heading up early Friday morning and winging the rest. I should have my radio and phone on me so give me a call.
Friday there looks like a ride being set up with a bunch of SoCal mtbr regulars. I plan on getting i on that ride and then making it back in time for the MTBR raffel. The classic MTBR raffel in which Trogs have a pretty good record of scoring some good scwag year after year.
March 19
"Falling down is the Esperanto of mountain biking. If you ride with any passion, you've wiped out. A good crash makes you blood brothers, memebers of a scarred and happy clan."
-Allison Glock
From Steve at SWD Racing,
Hello Everyone! Well, as we all know, the 2006 Downhill Mountain Bike race season is here! The winter/off-season months seemed to have just flown by and my focus on all of the many frame-builds over the winter, since the U.S. Championships at Mammoth, has gone just so so. My main goal was to hammer down on all of the custom frame builds in an effort to get them all completed and delivered well before the start of the racing season. Many of the frames have been completed and delivered/shipped. We have had bikes ship to North Carolina and Quebec Canada as an example. The actual frame-fabricating has come along very nicely and we were even able to dedicate time to an all-new downhill design layout that we will have on the mountain soon. This bike will feature the same time-tested and podium-proven suspension configuration of the Crazy 8, but will be packaged a little differently. Where our main hold up has been with completing the frames is with all of the machined-parts. As many of you know, over the past 2 years, I have been very fortunate to have had my good life-long friend Gianni Giomi do basicly ALL of the machining of the pivot-pieces on all SWD frames since Feb-2004! Gianni has been a tremendous help to SWD Racing, as many of you are aware by my mentioning of his work over the past 2 years. During this off-season, as me and Gianni often kick around new ideas, we thought that it would be the right time to try a bit different layout of the front triangle part of our DH frames, in an effort to make the fabricating easier. The regular Crazy 8 has a couple of bends in the top tube part of the triangle and the seat tube connector and seat tube both have to be mitered for fit. So, as Gianni spent all of his spare time fabricating the new layout, it was my intention to finally have all of the small pivot parts, (Bearing Housings, Bearing Plugs, Pivot-Boss Inserts, Internal Bearing Spacers), all CNC-machined through a local company that I had been friends with the owner for many years. However, as most of you know by now, the company lost its owner to an unfortunate plan crash about a month ago. This has been a real loss for me personally, as I had fully planned to have batches of all of the pivot-parts completed by now and ready to weld up and finish the frames. We currently have a rack full of frames and a stack full of swingarms, we just do not have enough pivot parts to get them all finished! Currently, Danny has been trying to do as much Lathe work as he can to machine enough sets of pieces so we can slowly get all the frames completed. Machining each piece on the Lathe, as we have always done, is MUCH slower than just having the parts CNC'd, as was the plan. Anyhow, we will get caught up, just hang in there! Coming up NEXT weekend, March - 25th & 26th, is our favorite local DH race of the year, The former Groovy Gravity Games - GGG. The race is now called the CHDH - Corral Hollow DH. I will be paying for a space in the new Expo area for all of us to pit and hangout in!! We will be there next Saturday for the practice day as well. Please get your bikes cleaned up and ready to DH! Go to the SWD website and there is a link to the race website. Sea Otter is in 3 weeks of course as well!! We have many new SWD riders again this year and look for more great podium results! Thanks - Steve - SWD
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Del Puerto Canyon Panorama (click for large.... very large)
Utah Videos
God I love the St. George area. If you ask me, it kicks Moabs ass. And I've been to both places. I just found a bunch of helmet cam videos that show some really cool trails in the St. George area. I'm going to have to find a way to make it over there for spring break. If I can just get past Vegas.
Green Valley Loop Part 1
Green Valley Loop Part 2
JEM Trail Part 1
JEM Trail Part 2
Gooseberry Mesa
Guacamole Trail
March 18
"Live may not be about your bike, but it sure can help you get through it."
- Hallman
Pimp My Bike
MTV Germany has it but we don't.
There's pimp and there's crazy.
Crazy like a Sideways Bike.
And then there's semi crazy, like the SCUL group and thier love of choppers. It's their mission to spread the chopper love. So much so they even made a movie, and you can watch the trailer.
SCUL isn't alone, check out C.H.U.N.K. 666.
There is even a CHUNK Blog so you can keep up with their chopper riding, tall bike building exploits.
Freaks and bikes seem to go together. Not everyone is into that side of cycling, but I find it heart warming.
March 16
Hogan Trail Work
From Dennis:
March 24-26th we have the group campsite at Lake Hogan reserved so we can do some trailwork up there. Char and I are staying up there all weekend, you can camp (free) if you want. We will be doing trail work on Saturday and Sunday for about 4-5 hours each day and riding for a few hours each afternoon. If you haven't ridden at Hogan this is a good chance to give it a try. There are trails for all levels of riders plus we are going to be adding a mile or two of trails where there aren't any yet.
We will have a BBQ on Both days in the evening so BYOB and meat. We will also have an RV with a (medium sized) fridge so if you want to bring luncheon meat or something similar for lunch we can keep it cool.
Here's the schedule for now:
Friday
5:30-6PM - Char and I will arive and open up the camp ground.
If you want to show up on Friday evening please let me know in advance.
Saturday
9:30 AM - Show up at the gate to the Acorn EAST camp area, this area is normally closed
so we will probably have to man the gates. If you show up after 10AM and the
gate is closed park in the day use parking and ride over to the trailhead.
10:00 AM - Head out to the trails. I figure most likely Saturday we will focus on clearing
brush from the edges of the trails.
12:30 PM - Break for lunch, we can either cook sausage or order Pizza??
1:00 PM - Finish up lunch and return to trailwork.
3:00 PM - Wrap up trailwork, get ready for afternoon ride.
3:30 PM - Ride and enjoy trails.
6:30-7:00 PM - BBQ + beer, Bike Sumo?
Sunday
8:00 AM - Char and I will prepare Pancakes and eggs for Breakfast
9:00 AM - Hit the trails. We will most likely work on clearing grass from the far end of the
trails to lengthen the trail. Plus brush clearing and ??? whatever we decide needs
work after the previous days ride.
1:30 PM - Break for lunch...
2:30 PM - More riding
BBQ, Wrap up, head home
http://forums.mtbr.com/showpost.php?p=1591258&postcount=19
Nothing is set in stone, I'm just throwing times and items out there as a rough idea to work from for now.
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Dennis Da-Ogre http://ogrehut.com
On the same weekend the Dennis is working on the trails around Hogan, Team Wrong Way will be hosting the Groovy Gravity Games at Carnagie.
Last year rain turned the event into a sludge fest. The last g-out before the bottom became slick as snot and it was one of the funniest bike spectacles I have ever seen.
This year rain pushes back the race to the next weekned.
Steves boys will be out representing SWD Racing and I play to go watch.
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Recognize any of these VeloBella racers?
I don't, but I'm not used to seeing them out of uniform.
Bike Blogs
More blogs. We'll, if you read this, you read blogs. So here are some other blogs you should be reading.
Team Wrong Way Blog
Drunk Cyclist
Velo Bella Babble
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And with all of this going on.... The Sea Otter Classic is coming.
March 12
A break in the weather.
The weather really wasn't that bad around Patterson. I had hopped to give Red Hills and no one seemed to be up for a road ride so this afternoon I went off to explore Pacheco on my own.
Clouds everywhere and it was cold. Shorts were fine but I wore along sleeve thermal jersey and a vest. I threw a jacket in the camelbak and a headwarmer just in case it wouldn't be enough once I got out on the trails.
I imagine there was snow up here a few days ago but there was no snow in Pacheco, but you could see it on the distant peaks.
It was cold and it was wet but I got a ride in.
Others were more ambitions and thought today would be a good day to race.
From Curtis:
Well...8 inches of snow and it was snowing. It was absolutely beautiful and my 15 year old son asked if we could find a sled.
Bob met me in Cool and there was actually a pretty good turn out for this one. I kept thinking that I had never mountain bike rode in snow...but not to worry...this was muddy...very muddy. Well, Bob and I rode in the same group and we took off together. I have never seen so many people falling down in front of me. Lots of these racers simply had the wrong tires on. I had my mud tire on back and was having no problem...until...my chain started skipping...hmm...thought it must be chain such...kept riding...started getting worse...then bammmm...broke my chain and twisted it when it caught in my rear derailler...race over and I'm fixing my chain in the snow next to the trail.
I met a very decent guy Lee Adamson from Sacramento who stopped and helped me fix my bike. I decided to head back with about 6 inches of missing chain and one link twisted. Within about 1 minute, I came across another racer with a flat (he was running tubeless tires) and I helped him (or at least tried) to fix his tire.
Rode back to Cool in the opposite direction with my chain skipping. Met my kids who were watching a DVD in my Durango and headed back to Auburn to eat at Chevy's. I left my number with a volunteer to make sure they knew I wasn't still out on the trail.
Don't know what happened to Bob. I waited awhile but didn't see him...it was very slow going on the course. Oh well...as Bob said before the race...truly an epic adventure. This might have been a good course for my singlespeed.
Bob...let us know how you did.
Next Sunday is Fort Ord III.
Curtis
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I'm expecting a flood of Cool pictures anytime soon but all I've seen so far were these to of the snow/mud pit.
One last thing..... looks like Floyd won Paris Nice.
March 11
"The wold lies right beyond the handlebars of my bicycles."
Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles
Snow snow snow......
Steve Wolf tried to ride Red Hills today.
I was planning on hitting the trails on Sunday but it doesn't look like it's a very good idea. If I some how scrounge up the balls to head up to Red Hills in the snow. I'll take pictures.
The Cool race is Sunday and there are a few Trogs braving the poor conditions.
Mike Farrentino has a interesting article over on www.bikemag.com . He points an article thats the center of a lot of discussion around the web. Dave from Confessions of a maniac cyclist blog posted his 29er vs 26er article. Data collected from solo racing the 24 Hours of Old Pueblo that suggests that 29ers waste power and caused slower lap times.
Copper Canyon Mexico
A really cool photo essay of visiting Mexico on a bike trip. Western Spirit Cycling Adventures, I'll be digging through their website to see what the deal is.
March 7th
"One reason I ride is because it hurts sometimes."
Rich Griffith
SWD Bikes on DVD
I saw Steve Delay at Cyclemasters the other day and he told me to check out www.bikemag.com . Gravity Pirates 2: Mobbers has SWD bikes in the mix. The shot on the BikeMag website, even has an SWD Bike in the opening pic and the video teaser has Hank and Superfan in it. It's good to see the local SWD crew get up there. There is also a little something on the Pirate DH website.
Something for those Cold Rides
Gary called me Friday from the Hand Made Bike Expo wanting to know if I wanted a flask holder. I had to think for a minute.... a flask holder for my bike? How could you NOT want one. Ahearn Cycles produces this sweet flask holder and and you can get them online from Ahearn, but I paid a bit less that the $30 listed on the website.
Ahearn makes some sweet looking frames but I'm happy with the flask holder for now.
Wired to Win
After wandering around the Hand Made Bike Expo we went walked about 2 blocks to the IMax showing of Wired to Win. Originally, Wired to Win featured Tyler Hamilton and how athletes metally overcome the stress of a race like the Tour de France. We had first seen previews for the movie 2 years ago at a Tyler Hamilton Foundation event at Cliff Bar. The trailers looked awesome so we had high expectations. Well, after the Tyler thing, he was cut out as the focus of the film and the movie was delayed for months. It was re-edited and instead of focusing on Tyler, the movie now focuses on Bradly McGee and Jackie Durrant.
Have to say that something was lost. It's not to say that there not some beautiful cycling scenes, but we expected more. I did both the cycling and the science behind how the brain works, but I have to admit, I wished for more grand scenes of the peleton climbing up the Galibier or flying down a twisty downhill run.
March 6th
Hand Made Bicycle Show, San Jose (all my pictures)
Spent part of the day looking at bikes that are so beautifully built, that I can't afford them. I have to stick to mass produced big company bikes. It's still something I can drool over, and take pictures of. These bikes are so nicely built, and the beauty is in the details, so I spent most of my time taking close up picutres of head badges and lugs.
