The Brewer Creek - Panorama ride is described in the latest Doug Eastcott’s classic Backcountry Biking in the Canadian Rockies guidebook. An online sampler of this can be found at trails.com. Parts of the Brewer Creek single track and trail were used for the 1st day of the 2008 - Trans Rockies mountain bike stage race. As the Trans Rockies is a glorified road race on dirt, it’ll be interesting to hear the reaction of the participants to tough alpine singletrack and hike-a-bike.

We set out to ride Brewer Creek mid-way through a week’s vacation in the Rockies (For more pictures and rides check here). At the time we had no idea that the trans rockies would go through such technical terrain. The trail itself is a decent distance of almost 25km ending with a 1000m descent on lovely singletrack. The riding and pushing your bike part takes place at a fairly decent elevation of above 1800m - the prize is a ride in the alpine!

Be forewarned that getting to the trailhead involves a pretty long shuttle of 47km on 2WD logging roads. We dropped one of our vehicles at the base area at Panorama ski resort close to the tennis courts. We then drove to the trailhead.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to: Whafe and ebxtreme for pictures and text.

See original post: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Crankworx 2008 (Version 5.0) | 5 Jim Beam Air D |Slope Style

:: Day 1 ::

:: Dual Slalom ::

by ebxtreme

Crankworx 2008 (Version 5.0)

Spending the week up here with CBX and riding with a bunch of good friends.Friday got a little park time in after working most of the day. Conditions were beautiful and they were setting up the village and the boneyard is getting pimped.

Saturday, it rained a big chunk of the day, so we watched some bike pron and hung out for a bit. Whafe has a new Nicolai (look at the pics over in the Nicolai forum if you have a drool rag) and was chompin’ at the bit to get out for a spin on it and he needed to get some laps on the Garbo DH course, so he talked Muttonchops and me into getting out for some laps. The top was MUCKY and super sketch……but it was gonna be a fun race for sure. After, we hooked up with MattPatt and Goose to watch some dual slalom action.

Rachel Atherton. She ended up getting beat by Anneke Beerten (sp?) who might have one of the best gate starts I’ve ever seen.

( Cedric and Dan Atherton. Cedric won this matchup.)

(JD Swanguen and Sam Hill. JD ended up winning the whole thing and really put on a cornering clinic.)

Index:

Dual Slalom - part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4
Garbanzo DH - part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12
Jim Beam Air DH - part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 | part 17 | part 18 | part 19 | part 20
Slope Style - part 21 | part 22 | part 23 | part 24 | part 25 | part 26 | part 27

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What is Hell Ride?

Hell Ride is the brain child of Santa Cruz Bicycles, created to prove that the Nomad can be road in any condition.

“What has in the past been an opportunity for two unlucky souls to get mugged by Mark Weir and Rachel Lloyd for about 12 solid hours, with the chance to limp away at the end of it all with a new Santa Cruz Nomad for their efforts, is taking a new twist this year.

The Hellride itself will take in somewhere between 65 and 75 miles of prime high country riding, mostly singletrack, with anywhere between 12,500 and 15,000 feet of climbing. The contestants will race each other, as well as the pursuing wheels of Weir and Lloyd, in battle where attrition and willpower will feature as strongly as fitness and bike handling ability, in the hopes of winning a brand new Nomad, kitted out with SRAM and Rockshox finest, valued at more than $5500. ” - source

This years winners were Kurt Adams and Erin Moeschler

www.santacruzbikes.com/hellridefive/winners.php

Forrest Arakawa Image Page 1

(Rachel Hell Climb)

(Matt Hell Climb)

(Mark and Jason Hell Climb)

(Kirt Hell Climb)

(Kelly Hell)

(Jason Corener DH Hell)

Index:
Forrest Arakawa’s Images: Page 1 | Page 2
What is Hell Ride?
Doug Kubler’s - Hell Ride Participant - Images and Story: Pre-View/Day 1 | Nomad Part 1 | Nomad Part 2 | Pre-Ride/Summary

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posted by Rotmilky

For our 10th anniversary, my wife and I decided to take a two week tour through Tuscany on bicycles. The wife is a saint to agree to this–she’s not a big biker. She’s also a saint for staying married to me. It didn’t hurt that the luggage was ferried from hotel to hotel while we did nothing but enjoy the riding, the scenery, the wine, and all the other great things of Italy.

We started out in La Ciusa, then we went through Montefollonico, Montepulciano, Pienza, Montalcino, Siena, Radda, and ended up in Florence. There were loads of small towns inbetween those whose name I can’t recall–my italian is absolutely atrocious.

We rode cross bikes and didn’t do any singletrack riding except for one morning when I left at sunrise and scoped out some short singletrack trails. Mostly, we stuck to tiny roads–some ‘paved’ if that’s what you want to call that peculiar state of crumbling disrepaired road, some gravel, and some two-track. I snapped several thousand photos, so posting a selection here was a real challenge.

On the first morning, I got up early to catch a Tuscan sunrise. Here it is rising behind the town of Montefollonico…

As the sun rose over the horizon, I got a great view of what the days riding would hold…

Here’s some of the mornings ride awaiting our passage…

Shortly after starting down that rode, we passed through a field of poppies. Here’s my wife posing in them….

A shot of my wife and some of the other people we rode with as she approaches Pienza

Another photo of my wife (lower right corner) as she passes through yet more scenic Tuscany countryside…

Along one of the routes, we went down this cyprus-lined road. The Tuscans do love their cyprus trees….

My wife riding by an old farmhouse…

A photo of me with the biggest grin thinking “I can’t believe I’m riding through this”…

Where’s Waldo #1: My wife and others heading into Montepulciano…

Where’s Waldo #2: My wife riding toward Siena through more breathtaking countryside…

The trip was a blast…next year we’re hoping to maybe do something similar in France or Germany–if the dollar will ever stop devaluing faster than the Mexican peso.

Here are some non-riding photos that I liked. Hope you enjoy them.

Bikes parked on a vine-covered wall…

Some windows in Rome…

My bike parked on a large wine cask…

Roof tiles with flowers growing on them…

Bike chained to post outside of train station…

Sheep on a hillside….

Bike, bikes and more bikes…

A case of Gelati…

Bicycle parked in front of “Bucca Del Orafo”. Check out that seat!

Towers with crosses on them in Rome…

Bicycles parked in front of picturesque house…

Bottles of wine in Vitner Vittorio Innocenzi’s wine cellar…

(this article original posted in the Passion forum here: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=420560 Many thanks to Rotmilky for the great contribution!)

originally posted in the Passion forum here: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=399161

This is a ride report that really needs few words. It was so beautiful, I cried. So without further ado, here is my ride. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

It’s been about five months since the San Diego fires. I went out to Sweetwater Reservoir to climb Mama Miguel and see what effect the winter rains and spring sunshine had on the mountain. I was stunned. The regenerative powers of nature never cease to amaze me…

Mt Miguel in the distance, from the top of Mama Miguel, March 2008.

I’d never seen the aftermath of a forest fire…

For comparison, I’m posting my photos from October alongside recent ones taken at about the same spot.