28 February » Health and lifestyle, Features »
The ultimate road trip: the benefits of a winter cycling holiday
This post has been moved. You can find it archived on the ‘road’ side of The Biking Hub.
This post has been moved. You can find it archived on the ‘road’ side of The Biking Hub.
If you’re lucky, you live in an area where you have unfettered access to a wide range of trails and the people — usually volunteers — who keep these trails running have the support of the local mountain biking community. Since this situation is an ideal one and all too many towns and cities don’t recognize the benefits of having such great recreational cycling spots inside their boundaries, a disorganized mountain biking community could find itself without a place to ride when an access or liability issue comes up.
In this article, I’m going to describe some of the initial steps taken by the founding members of our local mountain biking organization — the Fraser Valley Mountain Biker’s Association — when we were first getting started. While the FVMBA isn’t perfect, in only a few years, the group has gone from an idea to a recognized representative for area mountain bikers. It’s my hope that some of you can learn from our good ideas (and our bad ones) and work towards creating something that is a lasting legacy for cyclists in your area.
Keep in mind that the land I write about it in this article is located in Canada, and our ability to access land for recreational purposes is a little different from places in other parts of the world. Read the rest of this entry »
In my last article, I mentioned how important proper bicycle fit is to me, and how I compare the geometries of bikes with different frame geometry when I start looking for a decent ride. Of course, some of you may have asked how I got to the ‘proper bicycle fit’ part — this article outlines my experiences with a couple of professional bike fits and discusses the effects these fitting sessions had on my riding.
Up until fairly recently, professional bicycle fits have been the domain of elite racers. These racers seek out the ‘gurus of bike fit’ who help them eke every bit of power out of their cycling and gain every aerodynamic advantage they can.
Most people give credit for bringing pro bike fits to the masses to Ben Serotta. Serotta’s fit classes have helped hundreds of fitters to become certified from locations all around the United States. This certification process has made quality fittings become more commonplace over the last few years, so much so that fits are now within the reach of amateur racers.
There are several different fit philosophies out there, and each approaches bike fit from a different angle. One thing that sets each of these philosophies apart is the way they deal with body measurements; some rely on a more traditional ‘body measurement’ fit while others emphasize ‘dynamic fittiing’. Dynamic fitting takes a rider’s flexibility into account when they are measured, and the rider is fitted while actually riding their bicycle (or a specialized fitting bicycle). More traditional fits (for custom-made bikes) use static body measurements, such as inseam, torso length, and arm length, that are plugged into formulae for frame sizing and stem lengths.
Regardless of the exact fitting philosophy, the goal among good fitters is the same: to provide riders with the most power efficient cycling position that works with their unique biomechanics, injury history, and cycling discipline. Read the rest of this entry »
So, you’re a budding cross country superstar and you’ve just inherited some cash from a rich uncle.
The question is, what’s your next move?
Clearly it’s time to go on a Bikes-R-Us shopping spree, but what to chose? Trek, Giant, Specialized, Cannondale, Norco, all the big players have some great options in the top tax bracket of cross country bikes, but you can’t forget some of the amazing offerings from smaller companies like Devinci, Titus, Scott, Gary Fisher, Turner and others.
You may not have unlimited funds to spend on a cross country bike, but just in case you suddenly get a job offer from a certain Mr. Trump this list should help you. Consider this your guide to the best of the best – like flipping through the pages of a Dupont Registry.
Here’s a look at five of our favorite cross country full-suspension cross country options when money is no object. Read the rest of this entry »
A couple of days ago, Feed The Habit published an article about their 2005 mountain bike Gear of the Year which featured products by Dakine, Maxxis, SRAM, and Titec. I’m not out to debate the merits of the list — every item would be a welcome addition to my “collection” of gear — but it did get me thinking a bit about mountain biking in my neck of the woods.
Mountain biking in my area leans less towards cross country than it does towards freeride and all-mountain riding so my bias will be towards the arena with which I’m familiar. So without further adieu, I offer my take on what’s going to be In for mountain biking in 2006:
For me, “all mountain” means riding all of the trails on a mountain, jumps and drops included. Currently, choosing a great all-round, all-mountain bike is all about give and take; for many of the all mountain bikes currently on the market, you need to choose between an efficient cross-country style climber like the Giant Reign and a more capable descender. Solid examples of this type of bike are the Specialized Enduro, the Rocky Mountain Slayer, the Norco Fluid, and the Turner Five Spot.
And while bikes like the Santa Cruz Nomad and the soon to be available Intense 6.6 push the travel envelope while remaining capable climbers, they do bump overall build weight up to about 33-35lbs (depending on the burliness of the build), which is likely a touch too heavy for people looking to abandon their cross country racing pretensions and move into something more “comfortable”.
This one’s sort of a hold over from this year, but I think that people, particularly out here in BC, are just starting to realize that they don’t actually need that Monster T on their bike. Forks like the RockShox Pike, the Fox 36, and the Marzocchi Z1 are changing the way many riders approach “freeride”. And for the record I own a Monster T, and while I love it on many of the steep, gnarly trails in my area, I rarely use it these days.
Even though they’ve been around for a couple of years, the benefits of X-Type cranksets are just now trickling down into product lines like Shimano’s LX group. Aside from the fact that they look great and are reasonably inexpensive, these things are so much easier to install and maintain than ISIS or square-taper systems that it’s not even funny. Kind of like:
I’ve ridden Shimano for years and, until the last couple of years, they’ve been far and above the competition. Now I can go to my local shops and see a superior alternative spec’d on a bunch of bikes without being concerned about their long term durability or performance.
Update (9 September 2005): Jonathan Maus has started a similar topic on his site, Just Riding Along. Check it out for another take on industry trends from someone more in the know than me.
The North Shore News has published a series of excellent articles that discuss trail access in North Vancouver. Below is a list of links to the stories. Let me know if you end up with a dead link (the site’s server seems to be a bit dodgy) and I’ll do my best to track down another source.
For the past few years freeride has been one of those activities that has garnered a lot of attention — the Red Bull Rampages, Crankworx, the Monster Park Slopestyle — have provided manufacturers with great marketing vehicles to sell their product to the public.
Unfortunately, when it comes down to finding places to ride their big bikes, unless a person lives in a freeride friendly area, the spots accessible for riding are severely limited. In places where access is difficult, riders often go ahead and ride where they can; frequently this means illegal trails on private or public land, a situation that puts bikes in direct conflict with land managers, landowners, and other user groups.
Part of the solution is for individuals to form an activist group that represents riders in their area. In my area, volunteer groups like the North Shore Mountain Biking Association and the Fraser Valley Mountain Bikers Association do their best to act as intermediaries between riders and land managers, politicians, and bureaucrats. The membership numbers of these groups lend authority to the biking community’s commitment to their sport and show those in the know that the group has the backing of a large number of people. Affiliation with international cycling organizations like IMBA furthers the credibility of such organizations and provides them with a great support network.
Once established, local cycling organizations can become advocates within the community at large for their activity. In some cases, this means that the cycling group can push for stewardship of local trails while in others it means that the group can work with local officials to create a designated place for mountain biking.
In Greensboro, North Carolina, cyclists, together with the city have worked to create the Freeride Zone. While it’s undoubtedly no Whister Bike Park, it IS a place where local riders can go for a rip without fear of angering any other members of the community. What’s especially interesting to me is that the cost involved in creating the facility are relatively low: aside from the land costs, the two acre bike park cost between $5000 and $6000 (along with lots of volunteer labour) to put together.
So, why aren’t more communities stepping up and creating places for people to ride? The short answer to this question is liability. Due to the general perception of ‘freeriding’ as being an excessively dangerous activity, most towns and cities are hesitant or unable to procure liability insurance. This is where the cyclist organizations need to step up; they need to educate the general populace (or at least the bureaucrats and politicians) that mountain biking is no more dangerous than other ‘extreme’ sports like skiing or snowboarding. Cyclist advocate groups need to make their presence felt at the political level and do PR work to make things like the Freeride Zone possible.
IMBA has just announced that it has reached an agreement with the National Park Service to open certain areas in the national park system to the mountain biking public.
While this announcement doesn’t smash down the walls that have kept cyclists from the singletrack in the parks — it makes it possible for people to ride on the access roads in the parks — it does open the door for future partnerships between local cycling organizations and the parks around them.
Under the terms of the agreement, IMBA will provide technical support for interested ‘National Park units’ to improve their understanding of the demands made by mountain bikes. Additionally, the agreement calls for the creation of two pilot projects (to be announced later in 2005) that undoubtedly will lay the groundwork for future plans in US National Parks.
The Georgia Straight recently published an article about mountain biking on Vancouver’s Mt. Fromme.
For those of you who aren’t in the know, the trail network on Mt. Fromme is considered by many to be the birthplace of the ‘Shore’-style biking that really pushed the ‘freeride’ envelope in the industry. Fromme trails like Upper Oilcan, Seventh Secret, Espresso, and Ladies Only are renowned for their difficulty and quality of construction and bring riders from all over the world to Vancouver for holidays. Additionally, local riders bring significant dollars into the local economy.
The article also talks about the political mobilization of mountain bikers in the face of political threats made by councillor Ernie Crist who, quite frankly, seems to have made some effort to look like a tree-hugging crackpot without a lot of support from the groups that make use of the land; Crist frequently quotes studies and cites support from groups while failing to produce said documents or organizations.