Aaron Gwin is back. Can he find another race win?
Gwin wants to go through the trials and tribulations of being an elite athlete, and that’s what makes athletes like him so special and fun to watch.
Read MoreSleeping like babies and working like horses
What makes the Tour de France so compelling? The three week race through France is a collection of stories, some harkening back in time, some illustrating what a modern sport is, many doing both at the same time.
Read MoreEgan Bernal's Tumultuous Tour de France
Egan Bernal is an easy rider to root for.
He is the first Colombian to win the Tour de France. He is one of the youngest ever winners of the race, as well as a member of a super star generation of young riders lighting up the peloton. He upset the British control of the race, even though he rides for the same team who delivered Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, and Geraint Thomas to victory.
But Bernal’s performance today was further confirmation that the defending champion is struggling. If this trend continues, he won’t land on the podium in Paris.
Credit: A.S.O./Pauline Ballet
Stage 13 climbed 4400 meters (over 14,000 feet!) to a summit finish at the top of the Puy Mary climb in the Massif Central mountain range. EF Pro Cycling’s Daniel Martinez beat out two Bora-Hansgrohe riders to win from the breakaway, but the race for yellow was still being fought further down the mountain. Primož Roglič (Team Jumbo-Visma) defended his race lead with fellow Slovenian Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in tow. Bernal couldn't keep up—bleeding 38 seconds—which places him third overall and 59 seconds back.
"If I look at my figures, they are among the best values I have already set, Bernal said after the stage. “Then I just have to accept that the others are better."
In the weeks leading up to the Tour, there was speculation about Bernal’s fitness and health. He unexpectedly pulled out of the Critérium du Dauphiné, the traditional final test for Tour contenders, with rumored back pain.
There are two theories as to why Bernal did not continue in the Dauphiné. First, it is possible that he was suffering from some sort of back pain. Second, Bernal’s team could have determined that he needed rest—or different training—and that continuing in the race would not be beneficial to his fitness.
Either way, it’s not a good look to drop out of a race just weeks from the start of the Tour. In addition to Bernal himself, there are a number of factors related to his team that could be impactful.
On the sporting side of the equation, Froome and Thomas were left off the team’s roster. This summer, it was announced that Froome would be leaving Ineos at the end of the year for Israel Start-Up Nation. It’s rare for a team to bring a soon-departing rider to the Tour, and it seems that Ineos management have lost confidence in Froome’s ability to win.
Thomas’ case is more complicated. He was not on his best form at the Dauphiné, but today he was runner-up on a climbing stage at Tirreno-Adriatico. Thomas was disappointed to be left off the roster, and he has said he wants to compete at the Tour again. While the riders stay mum, there are always rumours of internal politics at Ineos.
“I feel that I’m at the stage of my career now where I want to make the most of every year,” Thomas told The Guardian. “I’ve done so much for other people throughout my career.”
Perhaps Thomas wouldn’t cede leadership to Bernal?
It has been argued that even if Thomas was not in tip-top shape, his knowledge of the race could come in handy as a road captain or super domestique. There’s no doubt that the experience of riders like Froome and Thomas could have aided Ineos along the route, but that hinges on their fitness and willingness to work for Bernal.
In March, Ineos Grenadiers sports director Nicolas Portal died from a heart attack. Portal was involved with all of Ineos’ Tour wins, making him a wealth of behind-the-scenes knowledge. In order to achieve success, a rider needs not only physical toughness, but also mental toughness. It’s possible that the loss of a close colleague is on the mind of the team and impacting their racing.
During such a tumultuous year, it’s understandable that Ineos would be off their game. José Been has argued that this is precisely why Bernal is struggling this year. Ineos wins because of their meticulous preparation and infamous marginal gains philosophy. But this year, COVID-19 has upended everything, and they are not in their usual routine.
Credit: ASO / Alex Broadway
There are a few scenarios where Bernal could salvage his trip around France. Many are speculating that the Colombian will find his form in the Tour’s tough third week in the Alps. Bernal is used to training on high altitude climbs, and that’s how he got his lead last year. This scenario, however, relies on the unknown state of Bernal’s fitness.
Another unknown is the endurance of Bernal’s rivals. Roglič has had a near-perfect race. Though sitting in second place, Pogačar lost time in the crosswinds of Stage 7, a reminder that anything can knock a racer off the pace. The easiest way for Bernal to make up time is for Roglič and Pogačar to lose time, which may or may not happen.
A critical stage will be the time trial on stage 20. The first 30 kilometres are flat, with gradual climbing, then the final 6 kilometres up La Planche des Belles Filles averages 8.5%. The only time trial along the route, this stage is exciting because of the climbing finale. The general classification contenders must set a good time. Equipment choice makes this stage even more interesting. It’s possible that riders will start on their time trial bike and then switch to their road bike at the base of the climb. This decision could significantly impact the results.
Nearly one minute. 59 seconds. That’s the current gap between Bernal and the maillot jaune. It’s enough to claw back, and it’s possible to lose more seconds. Bernal must remain optimistic.
You're About to Hear a lot More About Sepp Kuss
At the 2017 Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, a lone man broke away from the peloton. The field, filled with names like Ned Overend and Howard Grotts, let the solo rider claim several minutes before giving chase.
Mark Aasmundstad, the solo rider up the road, was about to witness the climbing ability of Sepp Kuss, who had only been racing on the road for a couple of years.
As the road gained elevation, Kuss and Grotts tried to bridge the gap. The duo climbed Coal Bank Pass together—5 miles at 7%, topping out at 10,600 feet. By the time they reached the next climb up Molas Pass, Kuss had a minute lead over Grotts, and was closing in on Aasmundstad. Kuss took the lead near the top of the climb, again above 10,600 feet, and railed the descent to the finish line.
The Iron Horse, the second oldest running bicycle race in the United States, is not a big race. It mostly attracts local Colorado talent, although a day of climbing with the local gang of professional riders is fearful even for them. It’s not long, either, but you have to be good at high elevation climbing to be able to hang at the front. When Kuss won, close observers knew the young mountain biker turned roadie would go on to much bigger victories.
This weekend, Kuss will join Team Jumbo-Visma at the start of the Tour de France in Nice. He signed with the team in 2018, and has developed into a key high mountain domestique for Primož Roglič. This year, Jumbo-Visma is considered one of the only teams to be able to rival Team Ineos, who has won seven out of the past eight editions of the Tour.
When his duties riding for the team leader are done, Kuss has proved his ability to power his way to high profile stage wins. He won stage 15 of the 2019 Vuelta a España and has just won the final stage of this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné.
To put it simply, Kuss is the next great hope for American cycling, and you’re about to hear about him a lot more.
If you search Kuss’ name in the online archives of his hometown newspaper, the earliest article that includes his name is a report about a junior nordic skiing race in Colorado. Growing up in a dirtbag town, Kuss was ingrained with a passion for sports and the outdoors. His father, Dolph, worked as a coach for the U.S. Ski Team at two Olympic Games and is a member of the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame.
Durango—the Southwest Colorado town where Kuss grew up—is known for its legacy of mountain bike racing. The ski resort north of town hosted the first UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, and the town has played host to NORBA rounds and World Cups. In addition, the town is home to national champions, world champions, and Olympians. Kuss got his start in this tradition, racing mountain bikes in the Colorado branch of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association’s high school cross country races. He also was a part of Durango Devo, a nationally recognized junior mountain bike program which has produced riders like Grotts, the former World Cup cross country racer and 2016 Olympian.
Durango Devo is known for instilling a passion for riding a bike in its riders. That’s the attitude he took with him to the University of Colorado in Boulder. Attending university in Boulder, one of North America’s highly-hyped pro cycling training grounds, Kuss was introduced to road racing.
In 2016, racing for Gateway-Harley Davidson, Kuss made himself known to the American cycling world when he won a stage of the Redlands Bicycle Classic in California. That same year, he would join Rally Cycling and win a stage of the Canadian Tour de Beauce.
Racing for Rally, Kuss gained international experience at races like Tour de l’Avenir and also raced in the top-tier Amgen Tour of California. It was at the Californian race that Kuss caught the eye of the Dutch Jumbo-Visma team, then called LottoNL-Jumbo.
“Since [Tour of California], we have been following him and we tested him intensively,” Merijn Zeeman, the team’s sports director said upon signing Kuss. He still has plenty of room for development and we will give him the time to do so.”
The following year, Kuss made his World Tour debut in Spain before heading to Italy to race the famed Strade Bianche. He did not gain any meaningful results, busy learning the ropes of the European peloton. But he did get a chance to ride for himself back in the U.S. at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah. Racing up and down the mountains of Utah, Kuss won three stages and took the general classification.
Writing for VeloNews, Chris Case succinctly explained what type of rider Kuss is. “Sepp Kuss doesn’t know how to follow wheels. He doesn’t care what the textbook says. He doesn’t want to patiently play defense.”
Later in the year, Kuss made his Grand Tour debut at the Spanish Vuelta. His results were nothing special, but in one year’s time it would be a different story.
In 2019, after delivering Roglič to general classification victory at the Giro d’Italia and taking 5th in a stage of the Dauphiné, Kuss again raced the Vuelta. Roglič was safe in the general classification, so Kuss was allowed to breakaway on the final climb of Stage 15. About to cross the line, Kuss began high-fiving fans as he rode past, celebrating the biggest victory of his career.
“I had no strategy on the final climb, I just went full gas,” he said after the stage. Speaking with the Associated Press, Kuss said: “It’s pretty big, I guess. Honestly, it hasn’t quite sunk in. It is an incredible day.”
After a few early season races, COVID-19 shut down the 2020 pro cycling calendar along with the rest of the world. Kuss chose to stay put in his European homebase of Andorra during the lockdown. Unfortunately, many countries, including Andorra, banned cyclists from training outside during the lockdown, so Kuss and his peers were relegated to indoor training platforms like Zwift.
Staying in Europe turned out to be a smart decision, as the European Union later banned Americans from travelling to Europe, citing American failures to control the virus. Luckily, Kuss could return to outdoor training early in the summer to prepare for the resumed cycling schedule.
And that brings us to last week’s Dauphiné. Roglič dropped out of the race after crashing, intent on healing quickly before the Tour. On the final stage, with Roglič out of the race, Kuss went on the hunt for a stage win. He began chasing the breakaway on the penultimate climb and caught them at the base of the final climb. After responding to an attack, Kuss counterattacked and soloed to victory.
Kuss’ Victory is a high point in the 25-year-old’s young career and will certainly make the Jumbo-Visma bosses confident in his form leading into the Tour. But how the team will perform at the Tour is still unknown. Roglič is confident that he will recover well enough to be a top contender, however Steven Kruijswijk will miss out on the Tour because of a shoulder injury.
The squad will still be strong, and we can expect to see Kuss riding in support of his teammates. As the Tour proves every year, you can never predict what will happen, so maybe American viewers will be delighted to see Kuss standing on a Tour de France stage podium.
Americans cycling fans, often feeling isolated in the European dominated sport of professional cycling, expectedly get excited when a new rider shows hope. Too often the optimism doesn’t pan out.
The HypeTrain often disappoints, but Sepp Kuss has proven to the conductor that he’s worth the hype.
The Poggio: Why Descending is so Important at Milan-San Remo
After 300 kilometres, the race was hardly decided.
Julian Alaphilippe made the decisive move on the infamous Poggio climb during Sunday’s pandemic-rescheduled edition of Milan-San Remo. Wout van Aert was the only racer whose legs could muster the fire power required to follow the Frenchman.
From the top of the climb, the finish line is still 5 kilometres out. The first half of that distance is the winding Poggio descent—about 2 kilometres at a -5% gradient—-and the rest is a flat road along the beach.
If you want to win Milan-San Remo via attacking on the Poggio, you have to get the descent right. There are a number of factors that complicate an escaped rider’s chances at perfecting the Poggio’s hairpins.
Let’s start from the top. When Alaphilippe attacks, he is likely going full gas. A near-max effort attack makes a racer tired, especially after 300 kilometres in the saddle. Fatigue combined with an increased heart rate is going to become a problem when the racer must become intensely focused on the descent.
Alaphilippe’s adrenaline will already be spiked from the attack, and the descent will spike his adrenaline even more.
Now, let’s take a look at the descent itself. There are about eight hairpin switchbacks and a series of sweeping corners. Because of the relatively shallow gradient, the racers will be pedalling or supertucking in between the corners. Vincenzo Nibali’s Strava segment KOM of the descent clocks the Italian riding 35 miles-per-hour.
A view of the Poggio’s hairpin descent which features in the finale of Milan-San Remo.
The hairpins are the most important thing to get right. The general technique is to set up on the far side of the road, dive inside through the “apex” of the corner, and exit the corner with as much speed as possible. Most of the racer’s braking will be done before entering the corner, and the rider should try not to brake while in the middle or exit of the corner. There are myriad exceptions to the past two sentences, but that is generally the most effective technique.
A racer must get the braking exactly right. Too little braking results in too much speed, and the racer risks crashing or having to slam on the brakes to correct their trajectory. Too much braking and the racer is going too slow, and the chasing riders will gain an advantage.
To sum up, fatigue and adrenaline combined with a need for precision braking and handling skills at high speed make the Poggio descent extremely challenging—but also vital for a successful attack.
Of course, van Aert caught Alaphilippe on the descent, and the duo went to the line together with a chasing peloton in pursuit. The Belgian did the majority of the work, with the Frenchman trying to launch out of the slipstream in the final metres. Wout van Aert brought too much power, though, adding Milan-San Remo to his previous win at Strade Bianche one week prior.
Repack, Pearl Pass, and the North Shore: A Geographic History of Mountain Biking
The riders sat thousands of feet above the San Francisco Bay on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. The sport of “mountain biking” did not exist yet. Rather, this crew of riders from Northern California were out for the novel challenge of riding a bicycle far from smooth, predictable pavement.
The Larkspur Canyon Gang, made up of a large collection of loose knit friends, modified their town bikes to ride better off road, calling the bikes “clunkers.” As early as 1968, the Larkspur Canyon riders would push their bikes to the top of Eldridge Grade on Mount Tam and race back down.
Meanwhile, another group from Marin—including Joe Breeze, Charlie Kelly, Gary Fisher, and Otis Guy—belonged to a road cycling club called Velo Club Tamalpais. In 1973, Larkspur Canyon riders Marc Vendetti and Kenny Fuetsch became mechanics at a San Rafael bike shop, and both riders also joined Velo Club Tamalpais. Vendetti persuaded Breeze to buy a clunker for $5, which Breeze rode to a Velo Club Tamalpais meeting where the rest of the cyclists caught wind of the off road action.
If this sequence of events did not happen, perhaps Charlie Kelly’s only claim to fame would be working as a roadie for local rock band Sons of Champlin. Instead, more than 20 years before the first officially sanctioned Mountain Bike World Championship race, Kelly and his peers would contribute to the creation of mountain bike racing.
***
History is not linear. Events don’t fit neatly into a single narrative. That’s one reason why the study of history is so compelling. The uncovering of differing perspectives can alter our understanding of the popular telling of history.
The popular understanding of the history of mountain biking in North America usually centers around the Repack downhill races in California, but that’s not the whole story. While this article will start with Repack, it will also examine events in Colorado and Canada. Each region put their own spin on the sport, which influences the ways we ride and compete on fat tires today.
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Back at the top of the hill, tension would naturally brew between the riders. Before long, competitive urges would take over, and the race would be on. Since many of the riders were road racers, they had experience racing time trials. They figured a time trial race would be the best format to test who was the fastest at riding clunkers down the mountain.
A view from the top of Mount Tam. Photo by Michael Pujals via Flickr Creative Commons.
On October 21, 1976, Kelly organized the first of the Repack races. The course was referred to as Repack, since the constant wear of the racer’s coaster brakes would require them to repack the bearings with grease after each run.
Held on Mount Tam’s Cascade Canyon Road outside of Fairfax, the course drops roughly 1,300 feet in under two miles.
“These young men belong to the same breed that skis down cliffs, jumps out of airplanes, or rides skateboards down Everest; they have developed their own unique athletic challenge, a race which is known only to a few dozen locals and is referred to as ‘Repack,’” Kelly wrote in an article for the January 1979 issue of Bicycling Magazine.
Accounts vary, but a dozen or so racers competed that October day, using an old Navy chronometer and an alarm clock to conduct the timing. The sheet of results disappeared after the race, but Alan Bonds finished in first place with a time of 5 minutes and 12 seconds.
Bonds won, as he later admitted, by taking a “short cut” under a closed access gate. The Repack course featured a gate which forced racers to dismount their bikes and run around to the side before continuing down the hill. However, Bonds previously saw another rider navigate a similar gate by sliding himself and his bike under a gap between the gate and the road surface. Bonds pulled the same maneuver on Repack and was victorious.
In total, 24 Repack races were held from 1976-79. Two more were held in 1983 and 1984 in conjunction with the National Off-Road Bicycling Association.
***
There’s a saying that goes something like this: The first bicycle race was the day that the second bicycle was built. While it’s possible that there were other downhill style races around the same time as Repack, Repack can claim that the 1983 NORBA race was the first officially sanctioned downhill race.
The slopes of Mount Tam birthed a novel format of mountain bike racing. In the span of 50 years, downhill racing evolved from bombing fire roads on rigid clunkers, to the fighter-jet-like bikes that we see on the downhill World Cup circuit today.
Unbeknownst to the Repack racers, a group of mountain bikers in Colorado were making contributions to the sport at roughly the same time. This high altitude crew was not racing like the Repack crew, but they cemented their own contributions to the history and culture of mountain biking
***
In the summer of 1976, a group of motorcyclists from Aspen, Colorado rolled into Crested Butte and lumbered up to the Grubstake Saloon. They bragged about their 40 mile journey over the rugged, 12,700 foot Pearl Pass. And—according to one account—-the Aspen men also came to eye-up the local women.
A few Crested Butte locals didn’t like that their town was invaded by the Aspen riders. They didn’t have motorcycles, but they had klunker bikes that were similar to the ones being ridden over in California. (In Colorado they spelled klunker with a “K”).
The high alpine Pear Pass in between Crested Butte and Aspen. Photo by trailsource.com via Flickr Creative Commons.
In September, one month before the first Repack race, a group of 15 riders set off from Crested Butte and headed over Pearl Pass. Only two riders, Bob Starr and Rick Verplank, successfully rode the entire distance without assistance from the follow car.
The tour took two days. The first day consisted of climbing the Crested Butte side of the pass, and after a campout near the top, the riders descended into Aspen the next day. Spending the night above 10,000 feet in September is cold, but it sounds like the group was prepared with a large amount of warmth-providing booze. They “consumed one keg of beer, three bottles of Schnapps, 2 gallons of wine, and 3 bottles of champagne.”
“The descent was nothing but horrifying, rough and rocky,” Starr told the Crested Butte Pilot. “The original drop-outs jumped out of support vehicles at the tip and all 15 rode their klunkers down the pass until just before the pavement at Ashcroft where the brakes were smoking and rear ends were seizing up.” The conservative tortoise types cruised past the burning up hares, as it were, and we trickled in one by one, met at the Jerome Hotel and had a party all over Aspen.”
There was no Pearl Pass Tour in 1977, as many from the group worked as firefighters and were busy fighting wildfires throughout the country. In 1978, the Marin racers drove out to Colorado to join after reading about the tour in CoEvolution Quarterly.
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In terms of bike technology, the rugged terrain of Pearl Pass demonstrated the need for sturdier components. The rough Rocky Mountains demanded more from bikes than the fire roads of California, and progressing bike technology meant that riders could more efficiently enjoy the expansive network of singletrack trails that would sprout up in the Crested Butte region as the popularity of mountain biking increased.
The Pearl Pass Tour also contributed to mountain bike culture. As written above, the tour was as much of a bike ride as it was a party. That idea of enjoying oneself during and after a ride still exists today. Breweries are strewn around mountain towns, allowing mountain bikers to borrow from the apres ski tradition.
Finally, Pearl Pass proved that mountain bikes can, and will go, pretty much anywhere. Mountain bike trails wind their way through the world’s mountains, and there will only be more of them. Some riders don’t even necessarily need a trail. They call themselves freeriders, and their discipline of the sport was born in British Columbia.
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North of the border in British Columbia, a similar movement was taking place that would diverge into a much more extreme aspect of the sport.
In the laid-back community of Deep Cove, Charles “Chaz” Romalis and friends were modifying bicycles using similar techniques to what was being done in Marin and Crested Butte. In fact, it could be said that Deep Cove—located in North Vancouver below Mount Seymour—had a similar seaside town feel to parts of Marin, while also featuring close access to big mountain winter recreation like Crested Butte.
Romalis made frequent trips to California to ride in the hills above Santa Barbara. While he was there, he collected parts for his bikes. In 1981, he co founded Deep Cove Bike Shop along with Doug “Dewey” Lafavor and Ashley “Nummers” Walker. The shop was an importer, builder, and seller of high end mountain bikes.
In the ‘80’s, mountain bikers from Deep Cove began exploring the access roads and hiking trails on Mount Seymour. Because of the isolated nature of Deep Cove, riders didn’t know that around the same time another group of mountain bikers a few miles to the west were taking up the same sport near Mount Fromme.
One of the riders from the Fromme area was Todd “Digger” Fiander. Digger got his nickname from the amount of trail building, or “digging” that he did. While working on a trail, Digger pioneered a small, yet revolutionary technique. He took a length of Cedar plank and laid it down, spanning a three-foot-deep divot in the ground. Riders would use the plank as a bridge, avoiding the divot.
Using deadfall found in the forest, trail builders could now build bridges for mountain bikers to more easily navigate parts of the forest floor that were not otherwise passable, like divots or marshland. The riders referred to these kinds of manmade trail features as “stunts.”
Planks of wood were also used to build aerial bridges. The builder would attach smaller planks at a 90-degree intersection, creating something that resembles a ladder. Riders would balance on these bridges and also use them to launch themselves into the air to perform tricks.
An aerial ladder bridge like those found on the North Shore. Photo by bookwus via Flickr Creative Commons.
Digger built a trail called Ladies Only on Mount Fromme, which was the epitome of this new style of trail building and riding. A collection of “freeriders” emerged, melding mountain biking with the adrenaline fueled tricks and stunts found in freestyle BMX and skiing. Wade Simmons came to the North Shore from Kamloops, and immediately started throwing down. He would go on to win the first edition of Red Bull Rampage, one of the most publicized and famous mountain bike competitions, in 2001.
“It was like that game Mousetrap,” Simmons told Privateer of the early North Shore days. “You would go for a ride for 3-4 hours and ride maybe only 2km because all you do is session. It was like skateboarding where kids try and rail slide for hours.”
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Freeriding has contributed a wide array of advancements to the sport of mountain biking today. In the early 2000’s, ski lift served mountain biking blossomed in Whistler. Located about an hour north of Vancouver, Whistler Blackcomb is still considered to be the gold standard bike park, thanks in part to trail building techniques inspired by the North Shore. There are now lift-served bike parks at ski resorts around the world, including in Crested Butte.
A more mainstream version of freeride culture, which may be compared to skate culture, can be seen in the popularity of municipal bikeparks.. Bike parks featuring dirt jumps, freeride features, and pump tracks are essentially skateparks for bikes, and are popping up in more and more cities around the world.
***
Spurred by a number of factors, mountain biking has been evolving from a fringe, niche sport, into a more mainstream activity. Part of the appeal of mountain biking is the number of different disciplines the sport has to offer. From cross country to freeride, there is a version of off road biking for anybody.
These different disciplines were born out of movements in different parts of North America. Downhill racing has its roots in the Repack races, high country cross country riding is associated with the Pearl Pass Tour, and freeriding calls British Columbia home. In ten years, who knows what trends will be popular in the mountain bike community, but it’s inevitable that there will be something worth talking about.
Bikes Are Booming. How Do We Keep it That Way?
There’s a bike boom in the United States. Led on by a number of factors, bicycle shops are running out of inventory and demand for service has increased.
Photo by Larry L. Abraham via Flickr.
Since March, American cities have imposed various lockdown orders, forcing citizens to stay at home in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. In addition, companies shut down their offices and adopted work from home policies. After cabin fever set it, folks rediscovered the value of outdoor activities they can do in their very own neighborhoods, such as bicycling.
Luckily, biking, walking, running, and frisbee throwing from a distance of at least 6 feet apart are all permitted under most lockdown orders. However, it’s hard for everybody to do these things on a standard size sidewalk while also maintaining social distancing. In response, cities around the world have closed car-choked roadways to vehicular traffic and opened them to pedestrians.
Acknowledging that the post pandemic world will look very different, cities have seen the value in making these open streets permanent. In addition, they are creating bike-friendly infrastructure for those who wish to bike to work in order to avoid potential disease spread on public transport systems. Following the lead of cities like Milan and Paris, London plans to create one of the largest car free zones in the world. In the United States, 20 miles of streets in Seattle will be permanently closed to through traffic.
According to The Guardian, The National Association of City Transport Officials has seen an “explosion in cycling” in American cities. And recently, The New York Times reported on a potential bicycle shortage. Robert Margevicius, a vice president at Specialized Bicycles, told the Times: “We’ve never seen a surge like this across a range of products. Everybody is scrambling to get more.”
With bikes booming and Americans seemingly hooked on cycling, how do we keep it that way? After all, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to reevaluate city planning and make changes that are beneficial for all.
Municipal Changes
There are a number of ways of thinking about how to keep the bike boom flourishing. Here, I will start by looking at ways that local governments can improve cycling infrastructure in their cities and towns. In my mind, everything discussed here hinges on making cycling a more safe and inclusive activity.
To start, open streets should stay open. Gone are the days when cars could drive 40 miles per hour down a residential street. If people are going to take up cycling, they need to feel safe first. Across media coverage, I have seen evidence that open streets have encouraged people to start cycling. People are empowered to ride from home rather than feeling the need to drive to a park or trail.
It’s interesting to see how quickly cities adopted open streets. This shows how quick change can come about, when previous proposals to shut down vehicle traffic would result in angry backlash. Perhaps local leaders are seeing the issue in a brand new light. The popularity of open streets should show leaders the value in adopting these policies, even after the pandemic is a distant memory.
Second, if a street can’t be closed, bike lanes are a good alternative. The best type of bike lane is a bike lane, or cycle path, that is physically separated from the road way. Obviously, this takes time and money. Both of which, it should be stated, shouldn’t be excuses for not building them. However, bike lanes do have limitations.
Cities and politicians love to tout that they built “5 miles of bike lanes this year.” The downside is that a bike lane is not good if it is not connected. Five miles of bike lanes are not good when, in reality, they are 5 one-mile stretches of bike lanes that do not connect to each other.
On a small scale, I can see this problem right down the street from my parents’ home. I will be riding along in the bike lane--and then suddenly, for about 100 yards--the bike lane vanishes before appearing again. For those 100 yards, I feel exposed to the whims of whatever the driver of the closest car is doing. The irony here is that the bike lane vanishes right in front of the offices for Giro, the helmet manufacturer, and other brands owned by Vista Outdoor.
Another downside to bike lanes is that a strip of paint doesn’t protect a cyclist from a driver hitting them. According to Outside Magazine, 857 cyclists were killed by drivers in America in 2018, the deadliest year for cyclists since 1990. Plus, cyclist deaths have been on the rise since 2010. This year, 180 cyclists have been killed so far.
Driver Behavior
As I have observed discussions on cycling safety over the years, one thing has become clear. It’s not enough for cyclists to wear a blinky light attached to their bike and for cities to build bike lanes. Something fundamental must change in America’s car-centric culture.
Certain policies can be enacted to make the roads a safer place for pedestrians. For instance, DUI penalties could be made stricter, with longer and more strict driving license suspensions. As for an example of what not to do: definitely don’t give drivers a license to drive without a road test.
What else could we do? Incentivise drivers to get out of their cars. American cities can implement congestion charges for those who wish to drive into the most crowded parts of cities. As mentioned before, improved bike infrastructure could incentivize people to bike rather than drive. Plus, improved public transport, like light rail and better bus routes can do the same.
In the meantime, we can at least let drivers know that if they hit a cyclist, and they don’t kill them, they will at least mangle them and inflict a massive amount of suffering.
Cycling Community
It’s the part in this pro-bike article that I must call out the cycling community. You all can be dicks sometimes! Now is not the time for snobbery and condescension. Now is the time to be welcoming to everybody who wishes to participate in our amazing sport. Smile and wave! If you absolutely must give unsolicited advice, triple check to make sure you don’t sound patronizing.
Related, the cycling community must make an extra effort to diversify our ranks. In the Netherlands, women cycle more than men. The genders are flipped heavily when you look at who cycles in the US and UK. Research mentioned in this article, points out that women express stronger preferences for safer cycling infrastructure. Plus, the willingness of men to fling themselves into heavy traffic on a bike strengthens the stereotype or mentality that cycling is a gendered activity, when it’s really not.
These suggestions are a way forward from the current bike boom, which might ensure that those chains don’t become rusty and tires flat.
Analyzing Danny Hart's Legendary World Championship Run
In 2011, Danny Hart dominated the competition at the downhill mountain bike world championships in Champery, Switzerland. He won by over 11 seconds in incredibly slippery conditions. Let's take a close look at some of the things that made the run so legendary.
'I’m a very analytical person.' - Alex Wild Interview
Introduce yourself
I am 27 now. I started riding when I was 17. I really started mountain biking in the way we know it as racing and training around 19 or 20. I work as a data analyst for Specialized.
How long have you been racing pro?
I’ve been racing pro since 2011 when I first raced u23, or first figured out that u23 existed. When I went from cat 1 17-89, I thought the next progression was cat 1 19-29, and then I showed up to the first race and all the guys I was racing with before in the Norcal League were now in the pro race, and I was all confused. So I raced 19-29 for a year, and then I think I upgraded right before the nationals and raced u23 at nationals.
413 Likes, 19 Comments - Alex Wild (@alexwildmtb) on Instagram: "One more opportunity to represent the Stars and Stripes this year. Always a special experience to..."
How did you get your start in the bike industry?
Through my local shop was my first sponsorship for riding, and I had taken a break in the year of 2014 from work to explore racing full time. Unfortunately, at the same time I incurred a back injury that kind of sidelined me for a couple years and didn't go super well and was looking to kind of rejoin the workforce. I chatted with one of the guys that had given me a frame as a part of our sponsorship and was like is there anything at Specialized. I got in at the ground level as a product coordinator on the equipment team and kind of just grew my skill set and experience from there. Did that for a couple years, then moved into supply planning, and from there I went to analytics.
How do you balance training and work?
It’s an interesting one, but I always tell people that I’m quite lucky to work where I work. I feel like the traditional 9-to-5 story is you either wake up super early and you’re on the trainer or getting out there break of dawn, or it’s like right as you finish work you’re going for a ride or using your commute to train. I definitely have my fair share of that but it’s kind of the exception not the rule. We have a set lunch ride every day at work, so the culture at Specialized is very geared towards riding. I mean on double days when I have gym in the morning, I definitely wake up and get that done early before work, but I’m very lucky in the aspect that if you’re still at your desk at 12:15 at Specialized they look at you funny.
I’m a very analytical person, so I think having a schedule helps. I think I almost race better with a full time job than without. And I think the personal life—I’m getting married this year in October—I think that really helps balance the racing. We train so hard for a result, and it’s very hard to not tie your self worth to that result. I got a sneak peak at that at XC worlds. Some athletes didn’t have a great race, and it’s like that’s right before they have to renegotiate their contract, their living for the next couple years. It’s a pressure cooker. I think having a full time job makes racing more of a passion than it would be if it was a job. I think the analytical part just helps with especially these times. In the back of my head I’ve said alright we’re not racing in 2020, so any races that do happen are just positives. I value my analytical mindset in these times, so I'm just as excited to go out and stare at my power meter and hit numbers as I am to race. Like I just enjoy the process.
How do you manage all the travel associated with racing?
I do a mix of working remotely, as well as taking days off for racing. I think the biggest change it does for my training is I don’t have time for those 20 hour weeks that a lot of pros do, like those big base builds or aerobic builds. My biggest week tends to be about 14 hours. This year, I took a week off work and actually went to Hawaii for a set training camp/vacation, and I hit 20 hours there but it’s very rare that I go over 14 hours of riding in a week. So, a lot of our stuff is very focused and structured and it’s go out, do this power, rest for this much. Everything’s very prescribed and pointed in what we’re trying to get out of it.
Explain your job as a supply chain analyst
I pretty much work with our KPIs which are key performance indicators—so how much inventory we have on hand. Also working with forecast accuracy and aged inventory and new product launches. For example, we launched the new Diverge today, and for the last 12 months we were looking at how much inventory of the new bike we’ll have at launch and how much of the old inventory previous generation diverge will we have at launch, as well. So, trying to have enough to sell through to the launch and also to fuel the launch. So, making sure we have the right inventory at the right place at the right time.
How has the pandemic impacted your job?
It’s definitely put more importance on the inventory management side of things. I’m lucky in the aspect that working from home was already part of my routine, as well as being in analytics—I need a computer, and that’s about it to do my job. My team, before the pandemic, was already in Salt Lake City, at one of our warehouses working out of there, so we’re already set up Zoom and slack and email and text and all the other ways to keep in touch. That was kind of like our workflow to start with, so we kind of saw not a lot of disruption from it. It just had put a lot more emphasis on having the right inventory. Everybody’s seeing low dollar bikes and fitness bikes doing well so making sure we have those. I was proud that we’re sharing the profit off specialized.com. If you order a bike, you can select your local bike shop, and then they’ll get part of that sale even though you didn’t go through that shop. And if you don’t select a shop, we don’t take the money, we take the zip code it was shipped to and find the closest specialized retailer, and we actually give them credit for that sale. We’re doing the best we can to support the retailers through this.
Have there been problems with the supply chain, like sourcing parts from factories?
Everybody is seeing delays. Whether or not the bike comes from China, some piece of it will, so if we’re sourcing Sram components or Shimano—any part of that bike could come through China. Definitely seeing delays but our team that works with the vendors have done a great job to minimize that.
269 Likes, 2 Comments - Alex Wild (@alexwildmtb) on Instagram: "Fun was the name of the game today. Needed to give the body a little time to recover for the last..."
What was your race schedule for 2020?
The plan for 2020 for me was to start the year with the Pro XCT. I was actually down in LA when the pandemic kicked off. I made the call not to race short track even though that race went on. I just kind of did some research beforehand and started to understand what flattening the curve meant and kind of tried to do my part there. I was going to start off with the Pro XCTs, Sea Otter and then it would be on to Epic Rides Whiskey 50, I had Belgian Waffle Ride on the schedule and then take a little break.I had a big star next to XC National champs. Leadville was back on my calendar, and I was going to do a local gravel race out here called the lost and found 100 that got cancelled, and then marathon nationals at the end of the year.
No World Cups?
With the U.S. securing only one spot, I probably would have needed 2 or 3 spots to have a shot at going to the Olympics, so I am taking a step away from that and doing the races that fuel the personal fire in me. I had always wanted to go back to Leadville after racing in 2018 as that race didn’t go according to plan, and I feel like it’s a good set up for me. So, it’s doing those races that are less points focused and more endurance and fun focused.
What do you think about the state of XC racing in the USA?
We don’t have the level of athlete that Switzerland does or the level of spectator, I guess. But if you look on the women's side like Kate Courtney and Erin Huck and Lea Davison and all those gals who secured 3 spots for the Olympics, they’re killin it at XC. It’s not necessarily like XC is dead, I just think that we have a very diverse set of races around here. Marathon isn’t anything new. I just think there is more grassroots style stuff coming up that people can relate to. People like to watch XC so maybe fans would be more into it if we had more people at the front of the race at the World Cups. I think there’s probably more US fans watching the women’s race because they're seeing the US women win those races so it excites them. Whereas something like an Epic Rides or a gravel race is like the running marathon of the mountain bike world. People go to races to complete the 200 miles. I think it’s more of a participation thing. I don’t think anybody aspires to, necessarily, to do those 7 laps on a short circuit. It’s fun, but I think people are more goal oriented in terms of I want to ride this 100 mile gravel race or I want to take a 50 mile challenging day at Epic Rides. The vibe is more geared toward them with amateur races and then there’s a pro field that can show you what the pinnacle of human can do.
Did I see that you’re sponsored by Orange Seal this year?
Yes, I have gone back to a privateer program. Specialized is still onboard for bikes, but Orange Seal is my title sponsor. I’m working with DNA Cycling again as well as Sram, rockshox and Quarq for components.
The draw to Orange Seal for me is we’re very similar in values. Jon Vargas, The owner— he loves racing. And he doesn’t push you to say anything or to support anything that you don’t believe in. He’s like I don’t need you to go fake a puncture. If you get a puncture on the ride, yeah sure take a story of it. It’s a family vibe and they know they make great products, and it’s just a matter of making it cool I guess. They support athletes who are kind to people and represent their brand in a good way, and they know that's what makes people try their product, and they have the product to back it up. So it’s not a pushy sales pitch kind of thing.
Mountain Biking Risks During The Pandemic
It’s a section of trail I’ve ridden a million times over the years. Sometimes I get a bit nervous rolling up to it—not because it’s hard, but because it’s awkward and constantly becoming more eroded. I take the high line on the right hand side to avoid the first bombhole compression, hop down the next root and finally roll through the stream crossing at the end. Just as easy as I remembered it.
A bit further along the trail, I roll over a tangle of roots surrounded by greasy mud, and set up to take my standard far left line through an amalgamation of roots and rocks. During all of this, I’m thinking about the risks involved with riding a trail with technical sections like the one I’m on. While current “stay at home” orders and social distancing rules in Santa Cruz County don’t prohibit outdoor recreation—like mountain biking—a slew of organizations have made clear that now is not a great time to get hurt and further burden our medical systems.
As I enter the section, my left arm brushes up against a tree. It’s not enough to hurt, just enough to realize that every turn of the trail presents new hazards that probably won’t injure me, but there is the remote possibility that they will.
Recognition of Risk
Mountain bike media, advocacy groups, and brands have been spreading the message that if we choose to use the trails, we need to be responsible and mitigate the chance of a serious injury.
The other day, global mountain bike website Pinkbike posted this notice, highlighted in yellow, to the top of their homepage: “NOTICE: Mountain biking irresponsibly during the COVID-19 pandemic puts you and others at risk. Riding injuries put unnecessary stress on medical systems that need all available resources to fight the virus, and group rides increase your chances of exposure. Please follow all local health authority directives, and DO NOT take risks.”
Pinkbike has also highlighted a message from Euan Rossi, an orthopedic surgeon who has served as a medical consultant for the Crankworx mountain bike race series and currently works in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. “You obviously know I love to ride a bike, Rossi says. “I love to race bikes, it's a massive part of my life, but right now you have to make good decisions. One of those decisions is not putting pressure on emergency services unnecessarily.”
Some governments are going as far as banning outdoor recreation and exercise. “Across Spain, VeloNews reports, “police and the civil guard were telling motorists, pedestrians and cyclists that all unnecessary movement is banned.” The rationale is that a cycling crash which injures a rider would put the healthcare system of the nation with the world’s second highest number of COVID-19 deaths under further stress.
Normalization of Risk
Since I am a regular rider, mountain biking does not feel like a risky activity. In fact, I don’t think I have ever crashed on the trail I mentioned above. Plus, In my eight years of mountain bike racing I have only had one incident where I needed help getting off the hill, which was followed by an ambulance ride to the emergency room.
As mountain bikers, we are desensitized to the risks involved with our sport. Even on a standard ride, I’ve noticed that I have a “racer mentality,” where I almost unconsciously try to push myself to go faster. Even on a rail that I’ve ridden a thousand times and never crashed on, there are moments where If I do crash, the consequences would result in pain in the best case and injury in the worst. In the past few days, when I feel myself drifting in a corner, I have a voice in the back of my head that I need to slow up since I really can’t afford to crash now.
However, there are a number of contradictions surrounding the risks involved with mountain biking.
The first is what I might call the risk paradox. Many mountain bikers will tell you that their crashes don’t actually happen in the spots with the most risk. It’s the classic story of clearing the hard trail perfectly but crashing jumping the curb in the parking lot. Does this mean we should avoid parking lots?
Second is the fact that some trails actually become riskier when you ride them at a slower speed. Watch a professional racer, and you will notice that in certain cases their bikes actually skip over the top of rocks and roots rather than slamming into them. Riding at speed is what enables this advanced technique. Riding a similar section at a slower speed would cause the bike to slam into the rocks and fall into the holes in between the rocks, making it more likely for the rider to get bucked over the bars.
So, what exactly should we do to mitigate risk? My best answer is that every rider knows their personal baseline of fitness, speed, and skills. It’s everybody’s personal responsibility to ensure that they make it back to the trailhead safely. I know that I will slow down a notch and avoid trails or features that I know have a higher probability of things going bad. Ride like you’re on a remote backcountry trail where a search and rescue operation would take three hours minimum and the closest hospital is a two hour drive away.
The Worst Case Scenario
Outside Magazine recently published a riveting account of what it’s like to go through an almost-fatal accident in the backcountry.
On March 24, a snowboarder triggered and became caught in an avalanche above the small town of Ophir, Colorado near Telluride, a region where I used to live. The snowboarder, who was riding with a partner, was critically injured, so they radioed down to town for help. Locals deployed a search and rescue team, but the victim was a 90-minute climb on skis from town.
Days before, the sheriff of neighbouring San Juan County implemented a policy to avoid situations like this. A local’s only policy bans backcountry users who don’t live in the 600-or-so resident, one-town county. The sheriff will hand out tickets to cars parked at backcountry access points with out of town license plates. I personally think this is a prudent decision to limit accidents in the notoriously avalanche prone San Juans. But the order has rightfully garnered debate over the constitutionality of blocking access to federally designated public lands.
There are no bans on backcountry recreation in San Miguel County, where Ophir is located. Plus, skiing is embedded in the culture of the place. Even the chief medical officer of the local hospital, who responded to the scene of the accident, skied earlier that day.
“More than 50 people were involved with the rescue, from civilian first responders to professional air-medical crews, and many on scene worked close enough to breathe on each other,” writes Devon O’Neil, pointing out how the snowboarder’s accident could have exposed many people to COVID-19. The victim suffered a broken leg and multiple internal traumas, and his life was saved by those who responded to the scene.
While mountain biking in California poses risks much different than avalanches in Colorado, the Outside piece has important takeaways for any trail user during this time. I highly suggest reading it, as it paints a nuanced and thoughtful picture.
For me, I’m going to slow my roll and stay healthy to ride another day. Lately, my time spent in the woods has seemed to be more cathartic than usual. I notice the light glowing through the redwoods, the smell of damp soil, and the rustle of the leaves. It’s a great time to take it slow, and appreciate the natural world that we usually speed through.
The Contexts In Which We Ride
The climb feels like one of those roads you would see watching a Grand Tour on television or in a cycling magazine. A steep pitch takes me up and out of a dark forested gulch. After the grind comes glory.
The width of the road is ten feet, if that. Trees hangover, and there’s a white picket fence on the right hand side. Tall grass borders the edge of the pavement; on days like today, after a little rain when the sun sneaks through a selection of clouds in the sky, shining just right, the grass seems greener than it should be.
It’s up here, my heart pounding and lungs burning as I crest the top of the hill, that I can finally think clearly. I don’t have to tell you what’s going on in the world. After becoming glued to the computer screen reading news and social media, riding my bike seems to take on a new meaning.
***
I often think about the contexts of daily activities, like going to the grocery store. A mundane trip to the grocery store is not exactly riveting. You might buy some meat, stock up on essentials like eggs or milk, and grab some snacks for work. But when you go to the grocery store because you’re planning an elaborate barbeque celebration party is quite fun. Going to a coffee shop near work for a quick lunch is fairly ordinary. Going to a coffee shop in your free time for a cappuccino and cookie? Delightful!
All that has changed in the above situations are the contexts in which the activities occur. Our daily lives are filled with context that change how we perceive such activities and how we perceive our days overall.
***
Nearing the end of my ride, I turn off into some singletrack, still moist from the rain but not too much. Flowing through the woods, turning over the pedals, it all feels different based on what’s going on in the world. I go down a trail I never have gone down before—only up it. Hopping off little rises on the trail brings short moments of joy.
I’m out in the open now, overlooking my hometown below. I sprint towards a corner, pushing into the hero dirt knowing it will hold me upright.
It’s only an hour and a half escape from the context of our current life. It sure felt glorious.
The Men of Mid South
Racer’s had not yet crossed the finish line at yesterday’s The Mid South gravel race in Stillwater, Oklahoma when multiple social media commenters noticed something off with the race organization’s coverage of the field: there were no updates on the women’s race. Even the Epic Rides series of marathon mountain bike races chimed in that there was no coverage of the women multiple hours into the event.
By my estimation of looking at time stamps , there was no mention of any women on Mid South’s main Instagram feed until about two hours after they had posted their first picture of the men’s field. The Mid South account posted over 20 pictures of men, and only 8 pictures of women on race day. Most of the pictures of men were posted before any women were posted, despite this being a mass start event where the races run at the same time.
The Mid South did acknowledge the lack of coverage in an Instagram Stories post that said: “The Mud is insane. Lots of vehicles are stuck. We will have coverage of the women’s race as soon as possible.”
So the excuse from the race organization seems to be that it was that the mud hindered coverage of the women’s field. This statement is a non-sequitur as this did not impede coverage of the men’s field. Why did it impede coverage of the women’s field? It’s necessary to ask questions about why something happened in order to be welcoming off all athletes in our sport.
On The Mid South’s Instagram Story, it looked like the people following the men’s race were driving a 4WD vehicle that could handle the muddy conditions. Why couldn’t that vehicle have circled back or waited at a section of course to provide coverage of the women’s race?
One instagram commenter mentioned that there was only one media team covering the race for the race organization. I do not know if this commenter was affiliated with the race organization (so I don’t know the accuracy of his claim), but what the comment implied was how could one team provide coverage for two races. I would point to my suggestion above of circling back on course. I don’t see why the media team needs to see the men to the finish before covering the women.
One of the photos posted in The Mid South’s main Instagram feed is of what looks to be an older woman who has just crossed the finish line. The caption reads, “Death to the exclusivity of cycling. Everyone matters.”
One way to change the culture of inclusivity in cycling is by greater representation of women in coverage of racing. Only posting 8 photos of women on race day adds to this exclusivity. If The Mid South is serious about inclusivity, they should make better plans ahead of next year for how they will cover the women’s race.
No More Hugs
Today I bring you a story from the Can’t Make This Stuff Up files.
The Mid South gravel race is one of two major bike races in the United States this weekend to run despite mass cancellations because of COVID-19, and—I kid you not—one of the mainstays of this event is hugs. Yes, the race promoter has a tradition of hugging every racer who crosses this finish line of the Oklahoma race dubbed a “Monument of Gravel” by VeloNews.
On a normal day, the mass hugging after the mass start event is harmless if not a bit gross. But these are not normal days. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, experts are warning that the most impactful way to curb the spread of disease is to practice social distancing. The rationale is that even healthy people can become a carrier of the disease and not show symptoms. These people then can pass along the disease to other people, eventually impacting people who are at a higher risk of dying from COVID-19, like the elderly. The end result is an overburdened and failing healthcare infrastructure, like what’s happening in Italy.
Lucky for Mid South participants, the race announced on Thursday that finish line hugs would be off the table. They also announced that participants could choose to sit out this year and defer their registration to next year, an action which I commend. But these measures still miss the whole point—the point that has cancelled events from the Absa Cape Epic mountain bike stage race in South Africa to the first two rounds of the Enduro World Series in South America. If social distancing can significantly stop the spread of the disease, then holding a bike race which attracts thousands of people is a surefire way to spread it.
I understand the pressures put on race promoters. Certainly the economic impact of cancelling the event is at the forefront of promoters' minds. I also understand the human urge to keep on and carry on and have a little fun before everything goes to shit. However, everything has already gone to shit. We’re in the midst of a global pandemic. One year of not running a bike race will mean nothing in the course of human history but deaths caused by COVID-19 will.
I’d also like to address the role of professional athletes here. I understand that athletes are faced with a tough choice here. With lots of racing off the table at the moment, they must have a big desire to put in at least one race effort to satisfy their personal goals as well as show their sponsors or teams that they are committed. What’s left out of that equation is these athletes’ influence. Professional athletes are influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers. If a few pros had pulled out of Mid South or the US Cup mountain bike race in Southern California for public health reasons, the athlete would have sent a message to their large base of followers that staying home is the best thing to do right now.
Given that we are in the middle of community spread of COVID-19, and even the world’s political and celebrity elite are testing positive for COVID-19, it’s only a matter of time before somebody who was at Mid South or the US Cup tests positive too.
Next weekend, there is another US Cup race in Bonelli Park. There’s still time to cancel.
(Update: Next week’s US Cup race has been cancelled.)
The Best Thing You Can Do For A Passion
For the first four years that I was a competitive mountain biker, I would ride and train year round. The race season was long, stretching from as early as February until well into fall, and the weather in California allowed for year round riding. Then I moved to Colorado, where I realized it was a lot more fun to go skiing when it was cold and snowy out.
I didn’t necessarily think about it in these terms back then, but when you take a break from something you do all the time—like bike riding—when you come back to that activity, it’s so much more exciting.
I experienced this recently. Since I was travelling for 3.5 months, I didn’t really ride bikes at all, save for a couple of bike share rentals. I got back earlier this month and was extremely excited to go for a mountain bike ride.
When you do something for a long time, you tend to stick to certain patterns. In the case of mountain biking, we ride the same trails over and over. We get to know the trail systems so well we could draw a map with our eyes closed, but at the same time, things can get a bit monotonous. This is certainly how I feel sometimes.
I once heard somebody explain that it can be tough to deal with mental health problems in beautiful places, like the mountains of Colorado, because a criticism may be “How dare you feel bad when you live in a beautiful place and get to do all these amazing things.” I think that same strain of logic can be applied here. When all of your friends are cyclists and you’ve deeply embedded yourself into the culture, it can feel weird taking a break from the sport. Your friends or peers may look at you weird: “Why would you take a break, cycling is your passion.”
But that’s exactly the point. When you take a break from something, you allow your passion to come back even stronger. You can go trail running or hiking for a bit and come back to cycling with a whole new perspective. It’s good to broaden horizons. At least that’s how it works for me.
Cool E-Bike Race Ideas
Last week, this blog discussed the creation of an e-bike World Cup series, and pondered the question of why, exactly, is the UCI becoming involved with e-bike racing. While I was writing that piece, I came across a comment on Pinkbike about the format of e-bike races.
Honestly, just making it an XC race with ebikes is a missed opportunity. I'd like to see an ebike race with technical climbing and enduro caliber descents. That fully maximizes the ebike capabilities, while also producing exciting racing. Oh well.
While dealing with the Pinkbike comment section is risky business, I agree with this user. It looks like the e-bike World Cup will just be XCO style races on e-bikes instead of regular bikes. In addition, the Enduro World Series released details on their own EWS-E series format, which is basically an enduro race on e-bikes instead of regular bikes.
The comment from Pinkbike user roma258 highlighted above inspired me to think about e-bike race formats that would actually be cool and interesting to watch.
E-Marathon
Instead of a standard 90-minute XCO style cross country race, e-bike races should be more in the 2+ hour range. This would highlight the “e” part of the e-bikes. Racers would have to strategically plan out how they would use the pedal assist feature on their bikes to ensure that they don’t run out of battery power too early.
Here’s an example. Let’s say the course is a 50 kilometer loop featuring singletrack and dirt roads. The first 10 km is flat, the next 20 km features a big climb and descent, and the final 20 km is flat with rolling hills. Racers would likely opt to use pedal assist on the long climb, but they can’t use too much power if they don’t want to run out of battery before the 20 km run into the finish. Will racers opt to use a lower power level for a longer period of time or a higher power level for shorter bursts? This would make the race much more strategically engaging for fans.
E-Hillclimb
The EWS-E series format alludes to 1 “very short, very technical” climbing stage in each race. This is interesting and goes in the right direction, but if the stage is short that means you can’t really win the race there, you can only lose it there. I’d like to see much more emphasis put on technical climbing. (Not necessarily in enduro races but in e-bike racing in general.)
That’s where a hillclimb race would come in. The E-Hillclimb would be a standalone event (or, perhaps part of an omnium competition) using an individual time trial format. The climb would be long, in the 1-hour range, and feature extremely technical terrain. A course like this would not be one typically featured in a regular cross country race, due to the extremely technical terrain, such as climbing up trails that are typically descended. Thus, the “e” component of e-bikes is highlighted in giving riders a boost up the gnarly sections.
These are a couple of e-bike race ideas that come to mind when thinking about races that would actually be fun and engaging from a fan’s perspective. In my view, e-bike races should take advantage of the pedal assist feature on these bikes, rather than just being a regular mtb race format with battery power added.
Why is the UCI launching a eMTB World Cup?
If you hang around bike circles often—or just read the PinkBike comment section occasionally—you’ve probably come to realize that discussion of e-bikes sounds a lot like discussion of American government funded health care: you’re either for it or against it.
My thoughts on e-bikes tend to be neutral, vearing on the side of good for society, in general. To be frank, I don’t think about e-bikes that often. But I did have a couple thoughts when I saw the press release about the UCI launching an eMTB World Cup series.
There will be five races on the 2020 E-Mountain Bike Cross-Country World Cup calendar in places like Monaco and Barcelona. The series will be organized in conjunction with the World E-Bike Series Management (WES), which ran a similar series in 2019.
It’s not abnormal for the UCI to bring previously outside races under the purview. Starting last year, the UCI began a partnership with the Enduro World Series. In that case, part of the reasoning behind the partnership was anti-doping aide from the UCI and Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation. However, it’s unclear what the UCI can offer to the WES, aside from calling themselves a World Cup series.
It seems that the UCI are pandering to a trend. I get it. E-bikes are extremely popular, and the UCI want to remain relevant in a changing cycling landscape. But without further details, it doesn’t seem like this is helping the sport of cycling. It looks like the UCI slapping their logo on a race series and saying, “Yay, we have an e-bike series now.”
It is relevant to point out that the UCI does have an e-bike section in their mountain bike rule book. However, I did find it ironically funny that there are technically more listed regulations for alpine snow biking than e-biking (6 snow bike regulations versus 5 e-bike regulations).
E-bike racing is fine, but the UCI should focus on the problems in traditional cycling before they venture into the e-bike world.
For instance, the UCI is currently involved in multiple different quagmires between itself and World tour teams. One of the more troubling details is that the UCI has allocated one million euros for legal costs to fight Velon—a business owned for World Tour teams which owns the Hammer Series of road cycling races—to fight an antitrust complaint filed by Velon. The problem, which was originally surfaced to the broader cycling world via Jonathan Vaughters’ Twitter feed, is that the money will come from the World Tour emergency fund, which World Tour teams contribute cash to.
Another recent issue, this time on the mountain bike side, surrounds medical staff preparedness at world championship and world cup level events. At last year’s Mountain Bike World Championships, it took medical staff five hours to transfer Brook Macdonald—who had fractured two vertebrae in a training crash—from the venue to the hospital. It’s clear from press coverage that the incident could have been handled differently, and Macdonald mentions in a recent podcast interview that the UCI made errors in their statement after the incident including the timeline of events and what day he had surgery.
As a cycling fan and observer, I wish the UCI would be a bit more conservative in their decision making on whether to expand into new territories. Let’s make road, mountain bike, and cyclocross really good before focusing on motors. That is assuming that motors aren’t already a part of the equation (insert winky face here).
International MTB Racing Returns to the USA
Two events mark the return of international mountain bike racing to the United States of America in coming weeks.
Enduro World Series
This weekend the Enduro World Series makes a stop at Northstar California Resort.
The world’s fastest enduro racers will tackle dusty, rocky, and high elevation trails over the course of two days. The first day features two stages for over 8 kilometers of total riding. The next day includes four stages for 30 kilometers of riding, though both days include chairlift transfers.
Three new sections of trail have been built for the course, including a 4-kilometer-long trail called Tell No Tales. The new sections of trail will be a part of Northstar’s trail network, and thus open to the public after their debut in the race.
The EWS has not held a race in the USA since 2017, when the series went to Aspen, Colorado. This is the first time the EWS has visited California.
Northstar has been home to elite-level mountain bike racing in the past. In 2012, the resort hosted a round of USA Cycling’s Pro Gravity Tour. More recently, it has also hosted EWS qualifier events.
Currently, Florian Nicolai and Isabeau Courdurier lead the EWS overall rankings.
World Cup
On the opposite coast, the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup will head to Snowshoe Mountain, West Virginia Sept. 7-8 for their series finale.
Both cross country and downhill racers will face tough Appalachian terrain in their last chance to improve their overall ranking.
USA downhill national champion Neko Mulally has consulted with the Snowshoe track builders for the brand new World Cup DH track.
The UCI World Cup has not held a race in the USA since 2015 when the series made a stop at Windham Mountain in New York.
Loic Bruni and Tracey Hannah lead the series rankings on the downhill side, while Jolanda Neff Nino Schurter lead the cross country rankings.
Future Racing in the USA
Despite 2019 being an exciting return to international mountain bike racing in the USA, the EWS and World Cup will not be coming back to the country in 2020.
In the case of the World Cup, the 2019 and 2020 schedules were released at the same time. My guess is that Snowshoe and the UCI are both using the 2019 race to gauge whether or not to come back to the venue in future years.
I think the same is true for the Northstar EWS. It just makes more sense for race promoters to commit to these big series for one year at a time.
It’s certainly a good thing for the sport of mountain biking to have these events coming to the USA. American fans get to see the action up close. Riders get to experience new venues. And the cycling fans around the world will have their eyes on the action.
If everything goes well, hopefully Snowshoe and Northstar will continue to invest in mountain bike racing. A strong reception from fans and good feedback from racers could influence the EWS and UCI to continue to come back to the USA. Seeing these races succeed could even inspire other promoters to hold international races in the future.
Matthew Turner's Ride Across Utah
At the end of July, Matthew Turner set out for a week-long bikepacking trip from the Utah-Idaho border south to the Arizona border. The 23-year-old from Park City has mountain bike racing experience but had never done a bikepacking trip until now. The following is conversation with Turner about his trip.
Was this your first bikepacking trip?
It was my first bikepacking trip. I’ve done a decent amount of backpacking trips, so I kind of know how to handle being out in the wilderness, being alone and that kind of thing. But I’ve never really ridden with so much gear and stuff on my bike before. I did a couple training rides but, yeah it was my first real bikepacking trip.
Turner plotted his route himself across his home state of Utah.
Where did you get the idea?
It's kind of been in my head for a while. A few years back there was a documentary film, Ride the Divide, about the Great Divide race from Banff, Canada, to Mexico. So that’s kind of always had my interest to do something similar. And it was just kind of always fascinating to look at where I can go ride next. That kind of brought me to the idea of why not ride across my home state.
How did you plan the route?
Over a year or so I would look on Strava at what people commonly rode and maps to see how to connect as many dirt roads as possible, trying to stay off of pavement even though I did have to ride a little bit of pavement to connect some areas. And then using Trailforks and looking at what single track areas I could connect in the areas, too.
How much of the route was dirt compared to pavement?
I would say it was probably 70 percent dirt road and 5 percent single track and the rest paved roads. Definitely the majority was pretty nice dirt roads.
What was your bike set up?
I used my mountain bike. You probably could use a gravel bike as well with some decently wide tires, something about 40c. But I used my mountain bike (a full-suspension Cannondale scalpel) with some 2.1 tires on there, just because I didn't really know what a lot of the dirt roads and the few singletrack sections would be like. I had a bar roll bag on the front with another little bag for my food, and I had a stem bag that was on my top tube connected to the stem. Plus I had a bag under my downtube with a cooking stove and that kind of stuff. And then I had a camelbak with three liters of water, two water bottles on my frame, and I had the big saddle bag with my bivy and my sleeping pad.
How heavy was your set up?
I tried to go pretty light weight. I had a pretty light weight pad and sleeping bag and that kind of stuff. It was probably 25 pounds extra weight that I was carrying around. It definitely felt a little heavier on the climbs but wasn't too bad.
Did you face any challenges along the way?
On the first three days or so I was able to ride with a couple friends. They joined me to ride for a day or for sections of the day, so that was a good way to start. The first day it was raining in the morning, and we got stuck in some mud which caused us to basically have to hike for two hours before it dried out. So, that was a challenge for sure. The second day was just kind of my home area around Park City. I had already ridden all those roads. That day I got chased by three different sheep dogs which was probably the scariest moment of the whole trip. You just come up to all the sheep and you’re like ‘uh oh, there’s gonna be a sheep dog here.’ That day I basically used up all the daylight, so I finished riding right before it got dark. That was a big day too. The third day was probably the hardest day of the whole seven days. The first two days wore in, and I was out there all alone that day. That was the longest stretch of no towns or nothing, up at 10,000 for eighty miles. Yeah, that was hard. Later in the trip I met up with my grandparents in a few towns and camped with them for the last few nights, which made it pretty nice. I had some good dinners with them, so it wasn’t completely self supported or anything. Overall it was an awesome trip exploring my home state roads.
The route took Turner from high mountains to the Utah desert.
Did you have a favorite moment?
It was probably towards the end, day six I think. It wasn’t the longest day, only like 50 miles. But it was basically all on dirt roads in a whole new area to me. The day before it rained a bunch so the roads were in super nice condition. Just knowing I was getting closer to the end it was exciting to have that feeling that you’re able to make it. I had no idea how my body was going to handle riding that much.
How was your fitness throughout the ride?
I felt pretty good throughout. The first day is the only day I would say I bonked. Yeah, the first day was probably the hardest day physically. Then the next few days I was able to keep pedaling on. The only other physical pain was my left knee starting day four or five I kind of had some decent pain in my left leg, and it was pretty hard to stand up so I was stuck sitting most of the time after that. But I was really surprised how you could just keep going without your body really shutting down. I definitely could have kept riding on some of the days, but I wanted it to be a little more relaxing than completely pushing myself.
Do you have any future trips in mind?
I definitely want to do some more bikepacking, hopefully with some more friends to join the whole ride next time. I don't know how soon I’ll do this exact route again. I’ve kind of had it in my mind to do the Colorado Trail or possibly do the race in the future. And a little bit further down the road I’ll probably do the Tour Divide race, but that’s probably a few years down the road once I have a little more experience before I jump into that.
Any final thoughts?
It was pretty special to completely come up with the whole route yourself and be out there and see what the roads are like after spending so much time looking at maps. Once your out there it's completely different from what you imagined in your head. I definitely have a few edits I'd make to the route that would make it more enjoyable. I kind of got stuck in a few steep parts that were difficult to ride. Then you just have to look out for weather because two days I got stuck in the mud, which added a couple hours each day.
Nick DiNapoli Makes European Debut
All week, Nick DiNapoli answers emails and throws together component orders from the Praxis Works warehouse in Santa Cruz. On the weekends, he can be found in places like Les Orres, France or Val di Fassa, Italy competing in the Enduro World Series.
This Summer, DiNapoli—who has had success at local races throughout California for years—made his European debut. While making a trip to Europe is a rite of passage for bike racers of all disciplines, most find the racing incredibly difficult. This was the case for DiNapoli, but he acknowledged how racing the hardest enduro tracks in the world offered a crash course in racing at the highest level.
DiNapoli flows through a high alpine track in France. Photo courtesy of Seb Schieck.
Riding and racing motocross from a young age, DiNapoli didn’t spend much time on a mountain bike until 2012 when he joined the local high school mountain bike team. “I knew nothing about mountain bike racing,” he said, but cross country mountain biking spurred an interest in downhill and then enduro racing.
Traversing California’s highway system became a regular occurrence as DiNapoli moved his way up the amateur ranks and into the pro category in the California Enduro Series. Last year, DiNapoli took his racing international, competing at the infamous Whistler round of the EWS, which also happened to be his first time racing the premier enduro series.
Throughout recent years, DiNapoli had been involved with Specialized Bicycles as a sort of unofficial ambassador. This past winter, he got in touch with the Specialized Racing enduro team. They came to the agreement that so long as he could get to Europe, he would essentially receive the same support as the full-time team members for the Italian and French EWS rounds.
Europe has a famed history of mountain bike racing, in part because of its tracks that are different than the race courses in the United States. High-speed grass corners lead to slippery rock gardens and tricky 180-degree switchbacks. No trail? No problem. If it looks like it can be ridden, European track builders have probably sent mountain bike racers down it.
DiNapoli says the tracks in Europe were a stark contrast to those back home. “Everything has a lot in common here [in California], and Europe was like nothing in common.”
The “Euro Style” switchbacks 10 minutes into stage 2 in France particularly stood out to him. “You’re physically pretty fried by then, and then you have to work on like 10 switchbacks in a row. Some were like, ‘my bike doesn’t even fit through this,’ you know. That’s where you’re trying to master the grabbing the front brake, popping the back end around.”
The Enduro World Series will take a racer all the way from alpine fields down to forested creek sides. Photo courtesy of Seb Schieck.
Another difficult aspect of the racing was just how physically tiring the tracks were. “You’re not tired necessarily from pedalling, you’re tired from standing up and just riding gnarly downhill for long periods of time,” DiNapoli said.
Making matters more difficult, DiNapoli was coming off of a recent injury. After a 10th place finish at the Sea Otter Classic enduro race, he crashed and broke his arm while riding his local trails in the Santa Cruz Mountains. While the injury didn’t necessarily hold him back, DiNapoli certainly missed out on additional training and race days leading into the EWS rounds.
The European racing experience quickly taught DiNapoli how to adjust his racing techniques. Leading up to the Whistler EWS, he says he will pay more attention to line choice and reading the trail in different ways than before.
After Whistler, he will get a chance to race on familiar terrain when the EWS comes to Northstar California Resort. While the course is not announced until the week of the race, DiNapoli has raced at Northstar before. “I have been up there enough over the years to kind of know what to expect and know the trails,” he says.
DiNapoli doesn’t have a long term plan cemented in place. Rather, he’ll make decisions as they come. Being a privateer is tough. Racers have to balance their personal sport ambitions with the pressures of work and school. “I would love, depending on opportunity, to keep at it as long as I can,” DiNapoli says. “But it just depends on what comes out of it.”
Public Planning for Cotoni-Coast Dairies Begins
The public planning process for Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument has begun.
The Bureau of Land Management held two public meetings this week for residents to give feedback to the agency. The meetings officially kick off a lengthy process to expand public access to the roughly 6,000-acre property north of Santa Cruz.
On Wednesday, July 17, the first meeting was held at the Louden Nelson Community Center in Santa Cruz. The second meeting was held on Thursday at Pacific Elementary School in Davenport. This author was present for the Thursday meeting.
Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument is located north of Santa Cruz and Wilder Ranch State Park. Map produced by the BLM.
Residents packed an elementary school room to hear a short presentation by the BLM followed by an hour-long public comment session. Comments included a wide array of topics from recreation opportunities to parking lots, traffic, and protection of natural and cultural resources.
According to a graphic produced by Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz, a local advocacy group, 53 individuals spoke at the meetings. Of that figure, 24 of the comments concerned recreation, and 13 were in favor of mountain bike access in the national monument.
Developing recreation access on the property is a priority, according to the BLM. Therefore, it is likely that there will be trails built for activities such as biking, hiking and horseback riding.
Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz posted this graphic on Facebook.
Parking and traffic was brought up frequently by residents at the Davenport meeting. Local residents are concerned about increased traffic on Swanton Road, which parallels Highway 1 and accesses the highway in two places. According to the speakers, the road is already tricky for motorists to safely navigate, and increased traffic on the road would make it more dangerous.
The BLM encourages individuals who spoke—as well as any other individuals who wish to provide input—to submit a written comment as well. The public comment period ends Aug. 2.
Cotoni-Coast Dairies was first protected 21 years ago, and was donated to the BLM in 2014. The property is a part of the larger California Coastal National Monument.
While the BLM is a national agency, Cotoni-Coast Dairies is managed by the BLM Central Coast Field Office based in Marina. The office also manages nearby Fort Ord National Monument near Monterey. Fort Ord boasts over 86 miles of trails over 14, 658 acres.
More information on the national monument and the public comment period can be found at https://www.blm.gov/press-release/public-meetings-set-access-cotoni-coast-dairies-public-lands.