More Sea Otter and 12 hours of Avamore

This is Boise this morning, and this is happening: http://dirtbagpromotions.com/rides/12-hours-of-eagle/

I thought the image was a nice way to represent what you might see at the race, said race being a sunset to sunrise 12 hour jaunt just outside of Boise on July 18. Am I invested in this at all?
No. Am I gonna do it? Well, my racing days of being selfish with my time are long behind me and I hate riding with people on a whole, but maybe?? I am all about Idaho and being in the outdoors and having super-fun events here. Besides, it looks like fun and I need an excuse to buy a new Light & Motion kit  http://www.idahomountaintouring.com/product/light-motion-seca-2000-enduro-lighting-system-9793.htm Let's do it.

And now more Sea Otter Tech

I need a new 'cross bike this year, not because I'm actually going to race cross, just because I'm an elitist snob and I want another very versatile bike in my quiver. We don't deal in deception here, so why not just say it plain?

This is going to sound very much like I'm just schilling for the company, but I'm not. Available to me at IMT in terms of 'cross bikes are the Trek Boone 9 Disc, the Giant TCX Advanced 0, or the Ibis. Honestly, I can't lose given those choices, but I'm goin Ibis (pictured) because a) I think they make a very quality product. b) I love Enve forks...even better than Alpha Q. c) I used to work there and I believe in the guys and their vision and riding an Ibis might feel a bit like home. d) I already said that I'm super elitist when it comes to my bikes. I will never show up at the trail with the exact same bike as the next guy. e) have you noticed I'm all about disc brakes? Disc brakes on everything, all the time. I want Shimano disc brakes on my shoes. I want them on my water bottle cage. I know there are hurdles. Road pros don't want 'em. Tri guys don't want 'em. Don't care, you guys are living in the past and you need to embrace the future. Here is the future: http://www.ibiscycles.com/bikes/hakkalugi_disc/#buildkit

I have to go now, but not without a parting shot. This was the Ellsworth booth.

Can you hear the vultures? They were circling. 

Don't buy an Ellsworth, kids. I tell you these things as a friend.

BC

Ratboy, Neadly, Otter, Meat...Dear lord I love this post

I have a meat fest to go to tomorrow, but it was absolutely time to get something other than Goldilocks headlining this blogspace. What is a meat fest? Well, my best friend Chad and his wife hold an annual BBQ that they prepare for 2.5 days. Smoking meats, harvesting honey, grilling pigs raised only from farmers that they know and trust, and ultimately having the meat-sweats by 3:00 pm. I'm going for a ride in the morning and I don't eat beef or pork, so I can usually walk away feeling just fine about myself. I'll post pics.

Moving on, I've promised more World Cup and Sea Otter coverage and here it is. First, my World Cup DH mountain bike prediction that Josh Bryceland would finally get his first FREAKING WIN was a week off. The following weekend, he did it in Leogang. That's in Austria. Austria is really steep and rooty and I've ridden there and I should have had a little bit more insight into course knowledge before that prediction, but by God I'm essentially an 8-day-early prophet. Like Morpheus in The Matrix, my predictions seem to be just slightly off. 

No matter, here Josh is in a pic from 2011. Carefree and talented as all get out with a buddy of mine from Santa Cruz (hey Will, why you never call?). Being "Ratboy." Dirt jumping with his bros all the time, certainly developing skills, but maybe not taking his talent as seriously as he should on an every day basis. He's the understudy of Steve Peat, and like Peaty he was doing it his way. And like the story arch of one Steve Peat, he finally took things seriously and got a win. Lots of wins are on the horizon if he keeps up the ethic. To me, he's Sinatra, but with a really bad accent: 

I could listen to this kid for days, but the point is: World Cup Recap 2014 has different winners in every race so far. This is very exciting, people. Unfortunately, now we have a mere 5 more weeks till the next race. I've been trying to hold my breath but I lack the lung capacity. I think the UCI might need to work on scheduling if we want to keep fans interested. I don't think hockey players take 6 weeks off, ever. Seriously, their off season is like a month...

On to sea Otter part 14 (14 sounds right, correct? I've lost track). 

At Sea Otter, Specialized had on display this Ned Overend fat bike. Of course, 58 year old Nedly is riding it super fast these days. There are a bunch of things to comment on here, #1 being, "hey Bill, you don't sell Specialized, why would you post this pic?" 

Main answer: Ned Overend is amazing and he always will be and I like to see his progression and legend grow. Part of this blog for me is to try to make people fans of the sport of mountain biking, and Ned Overend and John Tomac and Thomas Frischknecht are the pillars of that. "The Human Lung," as he is known, now has a fatbike. If it wasn't real in your mind that this fatbike thing is legit before, it is now. 

Additionally, we sell fatbikes from Surly and a more advanced one from Trek called the "Farley" and they came to market before Specialized. Specialized is one of the big three in terms of large bicycle brands, and they make a good bike. We carry the other two top brands in TREK and Giant, as well as Surly, and they all have a better warranty policy, so I say suck it, Specialized. You do have Ned Overend, but you're late to the show, your business tactics are questionable at best, and I think we have better bikes. All that "The Big S" is really saying here is, "Ned is fast on any bike we put him on... and we put him on this." Cheers, but that doesn't make your fatbike better, or you any more innovative. 

Sand, snow, or just another cool bike in the quiver...fat bikes are here to stay for a bit. I think, however, that fatbikes are not at all about speed and every bit about the experience. That's the draw. Winning a race on a fat bike, even if you're Ned Overend, misses the whole point, and I think maybe other companies don't get that. 

XOXOX

BC

P.S. I have a story about Ned and I one crazy night in Hollywood when I was working for Mountain Bike magazine that I won't tell out of respect for him, not that he did anything wrong. What I can say is, I almost went fisticuffs with a 'roided up Filip Meirhaeghe. This guy:

I would have died that night had Ned not told the Specialized handlers to take him away to let us enjoy the evening. Respect. 

Updated 6/25: Event Tonight; This One's for the Ladies

UPDATE: We have another one - tonight 6/25 at our downtown location!

This isn't really Bill's Blog material so much as I just want to get the word out there for our Women's Bike Maintenance and Fit Clinic tonight at our downtown Boise location. Am I losing you? Here you go, a little Bernhard Eisel eye candy for ya.

The clinic is free, it's from 7:00-9:00 and get this, it'll be taught by our esteemed owner Chris Hizzownself Haunold. He will be going over safety checks, basic day-to-day maintenance and really whatever else you want to know. He's cool, will answer all of your questions/concerns candidly, and it'll be very relaxed (read: wine will be served). It's perfect for all of you out there getting ready for the upcoming Goldilocks ride http://www.goldilocksride.com/gid


Oh, and there will be refreshments and a raffle of 2 free event registrations (worth $75 each). 

1310 W. Main St. Boise 208/336-3854

It's not about the chickens.

Alright, some semi-minor stuff has happened to me recently and it has me a bit out of sorts. This is a long story, but a good one that I think you'll enjoy. You're here to enjoy the things that I write down on a virtual piece of paper, right? For enjoyment? Then lets go, and I'll try to ham fisted-ly rope it back into cycling at the end.

So I work at a bike shop. Maybe you know and maybe you don't, but dudes that work at bike shops typically don't own their own house. I get paid very well for what I do, IMT treats me and all other employees amazingly in that regard, but I'm not a stock broker in NYC and as such I rent a room in a house. The owners of said house recently went out of town for a lovely wedding in Hawaii, and I've been dog and chicken sitting. Mind you, my only duties are to make sure the dogs don't die, the chickens don't die, and the garden is green.

Cut to the chase, I get home the other night and let the dogs out (answering the age old Bow Wow Men question, "Who Let The Dogs Out?" I did. That was me). The chickens are in their coop, so no big deal. Apparently it was irrigation day because the back yard is flooded. Irrigation day is a bit hectic here

so I was glad that that responsibility was left to someone else. I later found out his title was The Water Master, which made me laugh because I've seen The Little Mermaid. Is he King Triton?

So my lady friend, whom I adore, comes over and we start watching some forgettable movie when one of the dogs comes and lays a dead chicken at my feet. Jen (lady friend) kind of loses her mind in the process of telling me that the dog just laid a dead chicken at my feet. The dog was proud, she was presenting it to me. This is what dogs do, but I'm not a dog and it wasn't cute. On the way to the backyard to investigate, there's blood all over tarnation and a dead rooster in the other dog's bed. Get to the backyard, it's a pond of blood and feathers. Like a flashback in The Shining. I know, a tougher man wouldn't even flinch, but these aren't goldfish. I eat chicken all the time but I don't get off on seeing them torn up and floating in my backyard. All 7 chickens were demolished. Dead. They were going to die eventually, sure, but now they are dead in front of me and I have to clean it up.

So I do, and that wasn't fun except that Jen is blind as a bat and kept throwing away dog toys thinking they were chicken parts. I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise.

The next morning is trash day, and I want nothing more than to get these rotting bodies out of my life, so I take them out to the street where this old man...I'm not 100% sure that this guy wasn't a ghost...tells me that I'd have better luck throwing them away in the trash can across the street??? Then he says, "Hey, once those dogs get the bloodlust you have to put 'em down." Of course I told him that I have 7 dead chickens and I'm not about to put down two additional dogs, but I was really beside myself. What world am I living in at this point?

So how do I rope this back into something you care about? I don't. But I had a lot on my mind when I went for a ride this morning, and when I got back I felt better about the world.

World Cup MTB Racing - because not everyone cares, but it's still cool

A brief departure from re-living Sea Otter through my iCloud pics.

This weekend, the World Cup Mountain Bike series goes to Fort William. In Scotland. Never heard of it? Well if you don't follow mountain bike racing, I can't say I blame you. It's a storied, hallowed place in

Downhill mountain biking, and like it or not World Cup Mountain Bike racing is super cool. But odds are you probably aren't following it. For a reason.

I meet a lot of people that are mountain bikers, but don't care about racing or what's going on in the competition aspect of our sport. Great, you do it for you and you don't have to...but when riding a difficult section on your bike, how do you visualize what you want to execute? Put it this way, say you've shot a basketball before and you're an old timer. You don't play "the basketball," but you find yourself with a ball at the 3 point line one day when you were just trying to walk through a gym. Haven't shot a ball in years, and you'll probably miss and look bad doing it, but what's going through your head just before your release? My bet is that it's a video reel of Larry Bird in short-shorts nailin' a buzzer beater, or something similar. He showed you how that s#$t is done.

I'm a huge fan of the sport of mountain biking and have been most of my life. For European World Cups I'm up at 5am to get a clear stream on some site, and when I do, there isn't a single person in my life that wants to be in the room with me for the next few hours of scrutiny, elation, and sometime-disappointment. I can certainly understand why: I'm hyper-into it, and cycling doesn't make it easy to be a fan of cycling.

I'm not going to be able to turn you into a super fan, nor do I think you need to be that unless you want to. But if you like riding your mountain bike, you might want to see what's going on at the highest level. You don't have to pay attention like me. Lebron fans don't have to watch every Heat game to know what he is capable of. If you're curious, though, what I can do is give you an overview of the World Cup Downhill series to date. If anything, it'll make tomorrow an even more sports-centric Saturday. Seriously, Belmont Stakes, Miguel Cotto vs Sergio Martinez (boxing, folks), a ride, and then wake up early on Sunday and watch some World Cup DH. Weekends like this are made to be taken advantage of. Go here to see who's who.

http://www.vitalmtb.com/features/Vital-Power-Rankings-Fort-William-Scotland-World-Cup-The-15-Fastest-Racers-Going-In,723

and if you want to stream World Cup DH, go here on Sunday morning at about 7:30am
http://live.redbull.tv/events/356/2014-uci-mtb-world-cup-5-fort-william-dhi/

I'm out of time, but we can follow up more later. Enjoy your weekend, and for the record, I'm rooting for Ratboy (Josh Bryceland) for the win, Gwin to place, and Gee Atherton to show. Giant rider (we sell Giant!) Danny Hart might podium, in 5th, so I guess that leaves 4th to Minnaar. I never, ever, bet against a Minnaar podium (top image). Best current racer and a damn good guy to boot. Best racer of all time? That would be John Tomac (bottom image). Yes, that bike has drop bars which is absolutely so insane that it blows my feeble little mind.

Off to go stream some racing.
BC

Sea Otter - Round 2 - some wrenches

I've made mention that I'm a mechanic around here some of the time and mechanics like to geek out on cool tools now and again. so you can imagine my joy when I saw these displays in the Lezyne booth. 

Sure, that's a chain whip and pedal wrench and a chain breaker...some other crap. Below are some water bottle cages and a pump. But this is like eating ramen noodles in Japan, it's not the same stuff we're used to. Simple products done really well are always welcome in my book, and the finish quality on these tools is near-Shimano level. The water bottle cages made me want to actually drink out of water bottles again, and that pump has a super accurate digital gauge (+/_3psi is pretty good). They say you can use it on suspension forks and shocks, but I'm going to call BS on that until I see it. I hope it's true, and I have no reason to distrust the Lezyne guys, but I've been lied to before. 

Since I just mentioned suspension, I have to go off on a little rant here that might be interesting to you. Here it is: if you have a full suspension bicycle, you have a suspension fork on the front and a shock on the rear. No one has a "front shock." A "front shock" does not exist. Even if you try to get smart with me and bring up special cases like a Girvin linkage-style fork, it's still a suspension fork that utilizes a shock. Even the Cannondale Lefty, which by definition isn't even a fork, is still a front suspension fork. It just is.

Some background: I used to work in the suspension industry, and it was ingrained in me (and others) that if we slipped and said "front shock" just once, we'd be deemed idiots. Don't do it. Most people don't know, but now you do, so save yourself some humiliation and just use the correct terminology.

Also, I just got one of these new dropper posts from my buddies at X-Fusion. There are a lot of choices in the dropper post world these days and I know X-Fusion isn't the first brand that comes to mind when people are choosing the one they want, but maybe it should be. This is their latest version and has stealth remote routing, it's light as all get out, the finish quality is tip top, and it now uses a cartridge system so the outer wiper shouldn't blow up on the upper stanchion. I'll keep you informed as to how it works out, but so far, it's impressive. 

All for today, though here are some more Lezyne images to keep you happy until next time. Oh, and in case you're wondering how much all of this costs...it's expensive. Is it available now? Maybe. Are we going to stock it? We'll see. Am I being a jerk? Seemingly so, but no. We gotta try this stuff out first to see if we even like it, and I don't do the purchasing around here even if we do. These are just bits that I'm excited about. What I can guarantee is that if you think you need something (this stuff or otherwise) we'll do everything in our power to track it down for you.

Holla back if you like and more to come.
BC

What we saw at Sea Otter, Round One

Two events bookend the American (and arguably worldwide) cycling scene: The Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, CA kicks things off in the spring, and the Interbike trade show in Vegas ends it in the fall. There are bigger races and better trade shows and other worthwhile events happening outside of that window, but for the most part, this is what we're twerkin' with when it comes to premiere racing and new product introduction. 

We stopped by The Otter about a month and a half ago and I made some snappies of fun and interesting items that I wanted to share, knowing this whole blog thing might be happening. "But Bill, why wait so long to get us all of this information. That was so long ago?" you say. To that, I have this: time-sensitive cycling journalism is all but dead these days. If you wanted to know about every new trinket showcased at Sea Otter you would have either gone, or already tuned into websites like Pinkbike, where 14 year olds see something shiny and immediately tweet their ever-insightful opinion about it. The immediacy of misinformation is staggering, and I'm not really willing to be a part of it. Plus, I'm lazy. 

Additionally, I've been to Sea Otter I believe 16 times now, so I'm over most of the stuff you'll read about in the mags and online. There is no more glitz and glamour for me. Monterey is a beautiful area, and I am a fan of racing so I camp at Laguna Seca and watch a lot of the events, but to be honest the racing is a joke except for the dual slalom MTB course, and there is no other DS racing really going on anywhere else, so the guys and gals that win that are anomalies that may not even be see 'till next year. The DH course is so lame most are racing on some sort of an enduro bike, and it's so early in the season that the winner of the XC race straight up peaked too early. Good job, buddy. That juice really seems to have worked for ya in the off-season. 

Point being, I'm a jaded bike industry journo hack sales guy/mechanic. A multi-installment look through that filtered lens beckons if you care to follow. Round two is already up, so have a look.