Attention, hand bike racers! The Mountain Bike Association of Arizona wants you for a new racing division. From the MBAA Web site:
MBAA will add a hand bike category for the Short Track race at McDowell. Start time will be after the pro race category at 11:30am. The race will be 20 minutes plus one lap in duration. Course will be on dirt, but may be modified for this class if it is needed. We would love to see 5 racers on the line. More would be awesome. I myself broke my back racing downhill at the MBAA race series in 1999 the day after Bradley Smith broke his and was close to being paralyzed myself, but I was extremely lucky. So anything I can do to promote this I will. Bradley Smith, Steve Garro, to just name a few I would love to see at the start line.
Chris Capages AKA “Scooby”
MBAA President
Keep up-to-date at mbaa.net! I think that’s very cool. The course should be awesome since it’s the short track at McDowell Mountain Park.
In other news, don’t forget to become a fan of International Blog My Trail Day so we can get a read on how many people will blog about their home MTB trail on Jan. 8.
December, 2009:
MBAA Seeking Off-Road Hand-Cycle Racers
Boeing’s Dreamliner to Lift Off Today
Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is set to fly this morning at 10 a.m. This is no ordinary airplane: Large-scale use of composites, a more comfortable cabin and super-efficient performance are all combining to let this widebody jet pave the way for the future.
This first flight has been delayed, and the delays have cost Boeing a pretty penny in sales. But when you’re pretty much starting from scratch rather than just replicating the past, you’re bound to have a few bumps. In Boeing’s case, the problems came from strikes and supplier problems.
To me, the bigger windows and higher cabin humidity will make this a comfy ol’ plane. The higher humidity won’t pose a threat to the mostly composite fuselage as it does to a conventional aluminum fuselage. I’m really excited for the 787 to get certified and start hitting the air. Aside from its technical cool factor, it’s also a really, really, ridiculously good-looking airplane.
The Seattle Times, naturally, is not missing this chance to flex its graphics and reporting muscle to cover this. Check out its monster Boeing spread!
Mountain Bike Monday – Testing the Pivot Mach 4
Welcome to Wandering Justin’s ongoing Mountain Bike Monday feature! That’s where I throw down some mountain bike advice, from gear to riding technique. Check out this review … just one thing: I realize some things about my review could be taken out of context. Be cool and don’t do that – if you want to use this review on your own site, use all or nothing. No cherry-picking!
I recently had a chance to test-ride a Pivot Mach 4 XT, which occupies a different address on Planet of the Mountain Bikes than the value-packed Santa Cruz Superlight (a bike I consider the Subaru STI of mountain bikes – huge performance for the money). The Mach 4 is nearly double the price at $4,300, though the same frame with lower-end components goes for about $3,600. In either case, it’s a big step up in price from the Superlight.
My goal was to find out if the Pivot is really worth that extra ding in the bank account. I got a bit more than an hour over the rougher parts of the Desert Classic Trail in Phoenix, Ariz., to find out.
First off, why is it so much more? Pivot uses a rather complicated rear suspension system called the DW Link. Pivot takes it to the nth degree, using CNC machines to carve hunks of aluminum into the right shape. The DW Link’s goal is to prevent you from losing power through pedaling. The long-time goal of rear suspension designers has been to create a design [...]
Arizona Republic Catches ASU in Lie Over Baseball Coach’s “Resignation”
I don’t really care about Arizona State University baseball. Not a bit.
Still, I was surprised when I saw that longtime -and highly successful- coach Pat Murphy was resigning. ASU officials insisted it was his own choice.
Well, Arizona Republic reporter Robert Anglen -who I consider pretty darn good at digging for information- has discovered documents that indicate otherwise: that Murphy received “a hand-delivered letter stating that he had been terminated without cause. As that statement suggests, no specific reason was cited for the university’s wish to force him out. In the letter, Lisa Love, ASU vice president for athletics, told Murphy that he was being immediately relieved of his duties as coach and he must turn in his keys that afternoon,” said the article by Anglen and sportswriter Jeff Metcalfe, who I’d guess handled more of the sports aspect of the article. Either way, good team effort by the two reporters.
Look, ASU might’ve had its reasons – especially since Murphy’s regime has been under some fire (the article mentions an investigation that’s been turned over the NCAA). But it’s absolutely intolerable for a major university to deliver a bald-faced lie to the media and to the public that finances its activities. It will be a travesty if Love has a job by this time next week.
If ASU is lying about baseball coaches, can we trust anything it says? I spent nearly five years in PR, and I never saw anything good come from a straight-up lie. Spin? Sure, spin something in [...]
Jan. 8 Named International Blog My Trail Day
Alright, bike bloggers: I’m making a decision, and I hope you’ll join me in making this happen.
I do hereby proclaim Jan. 8, 2010 to be International Blog My Trail DaySM. Here’s the idea – I want every single mountain bike-loving blogger to post about their favorite local trail. I want to hear about all the go-to trails for all of you – that one that’s closest to your house, where you first learned to ride, where you’re training for an epic race or you see snakes and javelina on every ride.
SO I WANT YOU!
Tell the world all about it. Throw in a map. An elevation profile. Some photos. A short bit of video. Whatever you got. Put it in Twitter. Post about it on Facebook, Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, whatever ya got. If you won’t have a blog, I’ll offer up to three guest posts right here at WanderingJustin.com.
Here’s a Facebook page where you can become a fan to let everyone know you’re joining.
This is a great chance to show the entire world your trail, and to remind trail advocates, planners, decision makers and all sorts of official folks how much you care about your sport – and your trail.
Oh, yeah – another thing. To those who say I can’t just make up an international day of anything … I just did. It worked for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I hope it works a tenth as well for International Blog My Trail Day. Arrrrr.
Networking with Other Bloggers at SMC Phoenix
Last night, I attended a Social Media Club Phoenix event. It as all about blogging and bloggers, with a panel of four bloggers of various stripes. Two were tech bloggers, one was a professional lifestyle blogger and the last was a guy who just posts his thoughts when they occur to him. The last guy, Matthew Petro, was the reason I attended. We have some common friends, and he seems like a mensch (to borrow some Yiddish).
The panel started off with a pretty obvious question, and one I’ve never addressed here: Why do you blog?
I never actually considered having a WordPress blog -or a blog other than my deeply buried Livejournal account- until a few years ago. I was interviewing a teenager for work. He’d visited Australia on a trip through a children’s charity that grants the wishes of kids with life-threatening medical conditions. This was shortly after I’d returned from Australia myself.
His trip was mostly in Sydney, and mine was a pretty far-flung event. So we swapped tales, and he suggested that I send him some photos.
That got me thinking – if one guy was interested in my trip to Australia, maybe a few other people would be. So I started the blog just to have a reminder of my trip. Then I kept coming up with topics that were travel and adventure-related. Now, you have before you this increasingly messy but interesting (I hope) bunch of content. I really need to take the CodeWhacker to some of the [...]
1 Bike Maintenance Tip You MUST Obey!
That’s right, it’s time for another edition of Mountain Bike Monday – that’s when I pass along a bike tip or just give you bike info you need to know. Got a bike question for MTBM? E-mail me at wandering.justins@gmail.com!
I’m pleased that my co-workers regard me as a go-to guy when they need bike knowledge. One of them recently asked me why his bike chain squeaks. He didn’t think it should … because he liberally applies the WD-40.
“There’s you’re problem,” I told him.
Listen up, folks: In the name of everything that is in good and right with the universe, keep WD-40 away from your bike chain. Look, this stuff isn’t a lubricant: It’s a solvent. Inside your bike’s chain, there are all sorts of nooks and crannies filled with a nice greasy substance that keeps stuff rolling smooth. WD-40 pushes that happy grease out. Then, the WD-40 evaporates. That leaves metal-to-metal contact, and the unhappy, joyless noise of a squeaky chain. Soon, you will enjoy bad shifting performance, and smarter cyclists will nudge each other in the ribs while pointing and laughing at you.
The WD-40 Web site claims it’s good for cleaning bike chains and also driving moisture out of them. It also claims to “protect” them, whatever the hell that means. Let’s talk about the other two:
Cleaning Bike Chains: Yes, WD-40 can do this. But there are better ways. Instead of WD-40, remove the chain from your bike. Get an old bike bottle with a 4-1 solution of water and [...]
Bike Review of Pivot Mach 4 Coming Soon
I spent better than an hour today flogging a Pivot Mach 4 on the Desert Classic Trail at South Mountain. It’s really cool that Pivot is giving people the chance to put some meaningful test time on $4,000-plus bikes to see what they can really do.
My 10 miles or so on the bike told me a lot about the bike. Watch for a full review with photos soon!
Thanks also to the crew at South Mountain Cycles – it turns out part of my pedal cleat was broken. They set me up with a new part rather than just selling me a pair of cleats. And they didn’t charge me for it – granted, it’s probably a 25-cent part. But they still could’ve gotten a fiver out of me for it. It’s a cheap part, but absolutely essential if you want your shoes and pedals to work. I picked up a pair of full-finger gloves from them – I needed a pair, and they earned the sale.
How Specialized Can Build its Brand with the Trail Crew
You might remember that, awhile back, I applied to get on the Specialized Trail Crew. I guess Specialized already picked the crew, and now they are trying to figure out how to evolve the Trail Crew for its next incarnation. I have some ideas, some of which might seem bare-knuckled. Check ‘em out.
1. I know this might seem like blasphemy since the chance to ride a $6,000-plus wonder bike was part of the draw. But I think Specialized should equip the Trail Crew with more “everyday rider” sorts of bikes. That’ll cut the cost down, and give a more realistic idea of what their products can do. Also, they need to make the Trail Crew bikes visually different. I’m seeing a special color scheme along with a full Shimano SLX group – I’d suggest a choice between a Stumpjumper HT (29 or 26) and the Epic. Promote the notion that you can have well-maintained, workaday bikes and still enjoy riding to its fullest. It’s the experience, not the bike. I would love to see what Shimano SLX on a quality frame can do.
2. Figure out which members will get the word out. The current Trail Crew has been weak on spreading the word. I’ve searched Google Blogs to see what the lucky few posted about being selected – barely anything. One guy posted about the arrival of his bike. I haven’t seen any substantive posts since. Specialized needs to figure out which bloggers are syndicated, which ones have real readership, which ones hustle for those readers [...]
