I m probably doing the smokey/ bandit this saturday in sport cat. Anybody knows the parcours?

@Floris According to Bikereg, this is a "new venue" so unfortunately I don't think anyone (unless they've helped design the course or live nearby) will be able to tell you about it.  Good luck and please do let us know how it goes and what it's like.

Rode Beacon with some DH pros last week, whooped their asses on the way up and across, had to walk on the way down haha. Plunked the money down on a new dual Scott 29er.

neilx said:

@Floris According to Bikereg, this is a "new venue" so unfortunately I don't think anyone (unless they've helped design the course or live nearby) will be able to tell you about it.  Good luck and please do let us know how it goes and what it's like.

One on my regular customers (who won last weeks short track race fwiw) said it's a flowy, almost all single track course, not too technical, about 1.5 mi circuit. 

@Mattie-Cool on both counts.

A friend just got into Leadville.  What's the scoop on Mtn bike pedals for endurance events?  Is there a "most float" speedplay equivalent?

@Jules Speedplay actually makes a mountain pedal with a lot of non centering float called the Frog.  You don't see them that that often nowadays but they are quite good. My wife uses them and is a big fan.
http://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.frog

Registration just opened for the Lewis Morris Challenge (#4 of the local H2H series) on June 23rd. It's in nearby Morristown, New Jersey and is a fun and not-at-all-technical course.  There's a new "fat bike" class this year for those riding bikes with tires wider than 3.5"

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/18610

neilx said:

Registration just opened for the Lewis Morris Challenge (#4 of the local H2H series) on June 23rd. It's in nearby Morristown, New Jersey and is a fun and not-at-all-technical course.  There's a new "fat bike" class this year for those riding bikes with tires wider than 3.5"

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/18610

Is there a Skinny Bike/Fat Ass category? I could compete there.

I was staying in Park City, Utah over the last week.  The trails in the high mountains were too snowy and messy to ride without trail damage, so I spent three days riding in a place called Antelope Island, which is a state park that sits in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. The  riding is not technical, but the surroundings, sitting in the middle of the Great Salt Lake, and teeming with bison, antelope and coyote, are amazing. Despite the small quantity of technical stuff, there is significant climbing and descending.  I rode close by scores of bison and watched coyote loping across the open spaces. 

(As an interesting aside, some idiot spectator at a foot race there last weekend tried to rouse a buffalo by tossing rocks at it and succeeded in getting the poor beast to ram him up against a chain link fence.  The local paper described it as a "love tap."  The guy survived with little injury.)

If any of you ever head out that way, I have the gps file for some really cool riding there.

I registered for the first Campmor H2H mtb race next weekend.  4/21 at Blue Mountain.  If anyone else wants a ride up there, let me know.  I've got a minivan.

I'm headed up for a group ride/tour at Stewart State Forest this Sunday morning (6/2/13).  I probably have room for one, maybe two riders and bikes.  Let me know if you're interested.

If any of you have been looking for a good "local" MTB race to do, the one coming up at Stewart Forest, near Newburgh (about 1-1/2 hour drive) is really great.  If i wasn't going to be away with the family this weekend, I would race it (despite not having raced all year) just to be on those trails.

https://www.bikereg.com/NET/19173/SOS-MT-BIKE-CHALLENGE-New-Windsor-NY

neilx said:

If any of you have been looking for a good "local" MTB race to do, the one coming up at Stewart Forest, near Newburgh (about 1-1/2 hour drive) is really great.  If i wasn't going to be away with the family this weekend, I would race it (despite not having raced all year) just to be on those trails.

https://www.bikereg.com/NET/19173/SOS-MT-BIKE-CHALLENGE-New-Windsor-NY

Thanks for the reminder! I plan to put my newly re-acquired MTB to some use before cross season. This looks like a good one to test out Mattie D's theory that all old mountain bikes suck. NOT. I'm going to crush. Or something.

@Marc

If you're going to prove that old mountain bike technology is still competitve, this would be one of three local places to prove it.  It is decidedly non-tecnical, non-rocky etc. compared to most of the local spots. Still a lot of fun though.

People race there occasionally on fully rigid single speeds so you might find yourself in the technolog vanguard. 

Go 'Ol John Henry! Go!

I'm signed up for this.  Does anyone have any thoughts on what the trail looks like?

@Phillip - I raced there a couple of times 10+ years ago so my recollection wouldn't be accurate and/or it's probably changed significantly since then anyway.   As you probably know, the venue is primarily a ski and downhill mountain biking place, and more often than not, in those kinds of places, you start at the base with a bunch of fire road climbing and the work you're way onto the single track and then back down the mountain on a mix of single track and fire road.  Just a generalized guess of what you might see.  (One of the ski mountain venues--either Plattekill or Mountain Creek--I can't remember--you took your bike up on the chairlift with you and the entire cross country race took place on trails at the top of the mountain.  Anyway, good luck.  Please let me know what it's actually like and how it goes.  

Thanks @neilx - I'll let you know how it is.  I'm psyched to do something else besides a park road race.

@Phillip - I hear you. 

By the way, even though I don't have a good recollection of the course itself, I do remember arriving late and missing my race at Mt. Creek once because of unexpected traffic.  (There are a few smaller roads on the way there with traffic lights and a bit of congestion from time to time, so perhaps allow a little extra time to get there and get set up.)

@Phillip- How did it go at Mountain Creek?

For anyone interested: There is a race Sunday August 4th (next weekend) at one of the best courses in the H2H series--Taconic 909.
https://www.bikereg.com/Net/18679

I'm in...and this time, I MEAN IT! I'm going to look so flash in my matching bike/helmet.

@Marc- Sweet! Allow 90 minutes to get there, though early on a Sunday morning, leaving from where you live, it ought to be a shorter trip.  Don't speed on the Taconic on the way up (or down)--like I did on the way to WDC's spring soiree.

neilx said:

@Phillip- How did it go at Mountain Creek?

You scared me there for a bit.. but the race isn't until August 18th.  I don't know if I'll be able to go up there beforehand, so I'll report after.

@Phillip- Woops. Sorry. I thought it was this past weekend.

Neil, if you hit the course, any tips would be appreciated. As long as I hadn't been on the track 10+ years, it's been even longer since I've raced a MTB. Maybe 3 times total like 13 years ago. What's the drill? Do you get to the course super early to "pre-ride" it like a cross race?

It looks like I'll be doing 2 laps, but I do know that familiarity with the course is HUGE when it comes to technical courses. But I have no recollection, myself, of ever going out and pre-riding a course.

Neil, you still around at 10am Saturday? Track racing got cancelled, now thinking that I should head up to the trails to "pre-ride."

@Marc- I just saw this.  Sorry, we had left already.  Really nice course.  Flows beautifully.  The guy I rode it with was flying on a single speed fully rigid bike so you should have no issues on your fancy mullti-geared  hardtail.  Good luck.  Please let me know how it goes.

Taconic 909 Race Report. Part I.

90 minutes from NYC, there are 909 acres of wooded land, filled, apparently, with many many great MTB trails. About the only ugly thing seen up there, was my face as I finished up lap 1 of a two lap race, knowing full well, I had one more lap to go before I could stop.

As often happens when trying to get an early start with the family, the exact opposite happened, and not only did I get us moving roughly 30 minutes late, but I insisted, to my wife's protests, I knew exactly where I was going (to the Taconic Parkway) even as I was approaching the exit sign off of the GWB that said THE PALLISADES. Yes folks, I'm an idiot, and it was that kind of morning. At this point Sarah's iPad had us arriving to the race roughly 15 minutes before the start. Crap. Fortunately, Sarah's iPad didn't realize that I would spend most of my time on roads with 50 or 55 mph speed limits going 70. I was never the fastest car on the road though, I was prepared to get pulled over, but made a clean getaway, ticket free.

Bam. Get to the race a full 40 minutes before start time, not ideal, but doable. Cue Benny Hill time-lapse sped up camera b-roll footage as I comically try to reassemble a mountain bike that literally has not been ridden in over 12 years. Fortunately, it was still functioning roughly how I left it long ago.

I'm racing in the "Cat 2" field (or what used to be called "Sport") and we're grouped by ages, sent off in groups, a few minutes between. 40+ is joined with the 50+ group and we are by far the largest group of the day. 30+ guys. The start, on a fire road goes well, I'm fit enough to hold my position about 10 wheels back from the front, but I was soon to be smacked with a rude dose of "OH, NO YOU DIDN'T" (think you could just jump back at the front of a field of mountain bikers who haven't not ridden their MTB in over a decade and stay there for longer than 2 minutes)!