Bike For Bender - Big Bear Single Track Epic

Our first Ride for Bender is scheduled Sept 25th and is called the Big Bear Single Track Epic. It's a fundraising event and it's free for everyone to sign-up. You can RSVP on Facebook or just show up. The format isn't any different than other group rides we've put on in the past e.g. SART Hell Ride, except all proceeds from the party/raffle afterwards will go to Rob and his family.

See full details here.

The Ride: We've spent a lot of time stitching the course together so I guarantee you it will be fun. I've basically ridden over 50 miles of best single tracks in the area and put together a nice continuous (but challenging) day of riding. There are definitely some hard sections and there are a number of bailout options, but my goal is to have everyone finish the whole ride. There will be a 25 and ~40 mile option.

My wife will be leading a group as well so all women riders are welcome to join in!

Here's a sneak peak of the course and "NO" you can't have the track!

So I would like to extend this invitation to the entire Socal community to come out and show our support for a fellow rider. Plus, you'll get a chance to ride some of the best single track trails that Big Bear has to offer! You can't go wrong.

Spread the word.

See you there!
AL

PS - Feel free to hit me with any questions.

Bike For Bender

If you haven't heard the news, our team has recently put together a campaign to help raise money for our teammate Rob Bender.

Rob was recently diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and he has been undergoing treatment for the past several months. As you can imagine, this treatment is very intensive and costly.

In order to help support Rob and his family, we have come up with a number of ways that we can all contribute. This includes everything from donating online to signing up for local group rides and races.

Here's the short list:

• Donate Online


• Donate at Bike Shops - make a $5 donation and received a wristband.


• Beer For Bender - a fund raising gathering at Jersey's in Redlands.


• Ride For Bender - a series of fund raising rides and races that anyone can attend.

You may have also noticed some people wearing Bike For Bender wristbands. This is our way of showing our support for Rob and his fight against cancer. If you donate or participate in any of our events, you will receive a wristband.

Lastly, we have to extend a huge thanks out to everyone that has helped get the campaign going:

Jason Ranoa - 12hrs of Temecula
Doug Andrews - Geoladders
Don's Bikes of Rialto

Redlands Cyclery USA

Bear Valley Bikes

Cycopath

Rock n' Road Cyclery

Thanks so much for everyone that has participated so far and although we are off to a great start, we still have a long way to go.

To learn more about Bike For Bender, please visit our website and stay tuned on Facebook as we announce more details about the up and coming events.

Once again, thanks for your support.
AL

Don's Bikes Team

Leadville 100

Good luck to Don's Team rider Gerry Cody at Leadville. The Leadville 100 is a 100 mile mountain bike race in Leadville, CO. It starts at an elevation of 10,000 feet and reaches a high point of over 12,000 feet. Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, and Dave Weins are notable racers who have been at Leadville in the past.

This year Weins returns looking for his 7th win. Also scheduled to compete are top pros Tinker Juarez, Manny Prado, Todd Wells, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski, Jeremiah Bishop, and Levi Leipheimer. The ageless legend Ned Overend is also entered as are many of the other top finishers from last year.

Gerry returns for his 2nd Leadville after finishing 25th overall last year (out of over 1200 riders). You can follow Gerry's blog for more in-depth coverage of how he's doing.

http://bikeblood.com/

Fontana Backwards

It was a Wednesday in early March and we went out for our weekly night ride. This particular day was a little longer than usual and I ended up going 30 miles and about 3 hours. Well, at 4am the next morning I woke up with a shortness of breath. I get in with the doctor that afternoon and have some tests done and get an inhaler and some medicine. A few hours later the doctor calls me and says I need to go to the Emergency Room right away. My white blood cell count was more than twice the normal rate. Fast Forward 7 weeks (another ER trip, dozen other doctor trips, and more tests than I've had in my lifetime before now) and it turns out I am allergic to nearly every weed and grass out there and I have some kind of allergy induced asthma.
The last 2 weeks I've finally started to feel much better and have been able to breath almost normally. I started riding 2-3 times a week, but kept things pretty easy. This weekend I thought I'd challenge myself and race at Fontana. The May race typically has a very small turnout so I figured it be a good low-key race. I also decided, just to do something different, I'd race my singlespeed.

So I show up Saturday morning. Everything is setup like it always is and I'm ready for a typical Southridge race (they host a lot of races). Then at registration they announce they're running the course backwards. Backwards??? It took a little while to wrap my head around the idea. I've done well over 10 races there of 3 to 4 laps each, and the course has always gone in the same direction.

Things started off easy enough. Going backwards there's no real climb until you get around to the backside. Things got pretty difficult at this point. Riding up some of that singletrack that is always downhill was a major challenge, especially on a SS. But I have to say that coming down some of the sections we usually have to climb was a nice treat. Here I was racing at Fontana for the 5th time this year and it was like a whole new experience.

One small change.....when we hit the pavement, we quickly turned off and did the big National Climb backwards as well. All classes did this section. This climb was a great addition to the course. It was a very technically challenging. The only disappointment there was coming down the steep fireroad (ordinarily the climb). There was quite a bit of elevation gained there to be wasted on a steep fireroad.

This is a little downhill section of the National Hill

The bottom line - this definitely felt like a tougher course, but with a few possible changes/additions, it could be just as good or even better than running the course the regular way.

The GPS of my first lap - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/33408204

Super D
I didn't do any of the Winter Series Super D races, but I decided to give this one a try. They started at about the highest point on the hill above the DH start, and then mostly followed the backwards XC course. I somehow got entered as a beginner instead of an expert so I was stuck starting towards the end. I was told they'd just put me in the right class after I finished. Wouldn't have been a problem but I was starting behind the beginning women. With only a 30 second gap I caught both of them pretty quick. One was able to let me right by, but I caught the other in a bad section and there was no easy way for me to get around so I had to ride behind her for a bit. My best guess is that cost me 10-15 seconds and I ended up losing the race by only .36 of a second. Oh well.

My SD run - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/33408197


Other Things I heard

Mammoth - Last year the Golden State Final was in Mammoth. So far the schedule this year has said location tbd. They said they're looking to have it at Mammoth again this year, but there's so much snow up there they don't know if it'll all be melted by August!

New Course - Last week there was a fire that burned right up to the backside of the cross country course. Donny said that due to all the clearing of the brush from the fire he plans to cut a new section of trail.

Night Race - I also heard there are plans to possibly have a night race sometime in the fall. I wasn't sure if this was DH and XC or just one and not the other. But it could make for some fun times.

Sea Otter 2010

2010 Sea Otter Results

Gerry Cody
1st - road race, cat 4
1st - crit, cat 4
1st - circuit race, cat 4
3rd - Super D, open 30-39
10th - XC, cat 1 30-34

Lisa Crowe
1st - Super D, open 30+
3rd - XC, cat 1 30-39

US Cup #2 - Bonelli Park

by AL Laframboise

Last weekend was the 2nd round of the US Cup series. Bonelli always offers something for everyone. It's a great venue with lots of grass and a big pit area for vendors, and the course is always awesome. This year the course included relatively short hill climbs, bridge crossings, all-out paved sections and some fast rocky single track decents. It was good fun, even on the single speed.

This year the race attracted some of the best riders in the nation. On Saturday, Max Plaxton (from B.C.) won the Men's Pro XC, and Kelly Emmitt won the Women's Pro XC. See results here...

As for the team, we all had a successful weekend as well. Here's the stats:

Lisa - 2nd XC
Jeff - 2nd SuperD, 14th XC
AL - 2nd XC
Gerry - 4th XC

Team photos here...

See you at Fontana Mar 27!

Sagebrush Safari - US Cup #1

(posted by Jeff Stanners)

This weekend was the opening race of the US Cup West Coast series. Sagebrush Safari, about 45 minutes east of San Diego is one of the best courses around. Only trouble is the course doesn't hold rain real well. And it rained almost non-stop on Saturday, the day before the race. Race day it was beautiful out though. The dirt wasn't actually too bad, just a little slushy, but with lots and lots of puddles to cross.

We had just 3 riders from Don's out for this one. Gerry, Lisa, and I all made the trip to race.

Full Results - http://teambigbear.com/results.php



Gerry - picture in cyclingnews.com
2nd place, cat 1 30-34
Gerry opened his season up in a strong fashion. Finished 2nd in a very strong field, just a minute and a half behind Ty Kady, who has numerous semipro wins on his resume. For more on Gerry's race check out his blog at http://bikeblood.com.


Jeff
12th place, cat 2 35-39
My race didn't go quite like I had planned. It started off well enough. I got out with the front of the pack on the flat road section, then hung in the top 8 through the climb while a few broke away. I was sitting in 7th when we hit the fast fireroad descent on the back and I flatted. It was my first race with a tubeless setup and the sidewalls on my tires must have been too thin and a sidewall ripped open. I put a tube in and kept the tire pressure real low to try to keep the tube from blowing through the hole in the sidewall. I made up a little ground that I lost but not much. Ended up finishing 12th in a field of 21.



Lisa
1st place, cat 1 30-39
Lisa's first race in her new age group. It's always disappointing when there's only 2 competitors in your class, but Lisa made the most of the situation and got the win.

The next US Cup race will be at Bonelli. It's part of the Pro Triple Crown series so there will be some top talent out for it. Pros race XC on Saturday. Everyone else races Sunday, with the pros also racing short track and super D on Sunday.

For more info: http://uscup.net/