There was no rest for the weary today. Coming on the back end of the Mt. Guyot loop, today’s Keystone loop featured climb after climb. I managed to take a digger on a high speed, pee gravel descent. The crash did nothing more than destroy a pair of shorts and cause me to be a little sore this afternoon. The racing today was tight as a group of us were together until Aid 2. After the never ending climb out of Aid 2 racers were blessed with yet another perfect …

Team Jamis Holidays

Oh man, some good stories from today’s stage, DRAMA, good legs and BANANA BOAT and yes the first and last should most definitely be all caps. Today’s stage was essentially straight up an active volcano and straight down a sonofagun, never ending, ball busting, arm numbing, brain scrambling descent. The day however started with drama, then more drama, and maybe some more. You see today’s start required us to laod up in mini buses so that we could be transfered to the start. These buses hold 10 passengers, however as …

For at least a decade, I’ve heard of this race in northern Wisconsin. Never too sure what it was about, but constantly aware of its mention and odd mystique.

You know packet pickup is off the chain when the band fires up an encore set.

Now, Wisconsin is an island unto its own, unless you live up there, of course. But, I don’t, so I never quite found myself in the neighborhood, and the race would pass without me each year, clearly not suffering in any way from my lack of participation. …

Blake checks in from the Manatoc Challenge in Ohio.

The trip out to Ohio for Manatoc was full of surprises. Starting the trip off with with the airline losing my bike and myself losing my own bag….DOH!… was not the best of starts but Jamis rep Matt Majka hooked me up and soon I was on a 650b cruisin the course.
Saturday was Manatoc demo day and Jamis was out letting people shred a fleet of 650b’s on the race course and its adjacent trail network. Ohio isn’t a place where …

First things first – Congrats to Robbie and Rotem for putting in big efforts at the World Championships this past weekend at Mt. Ste. Anne in Canada.
Being in the big show is a career highlight and one that I never was able to achieve. To see them participating, giving their all, and challenging themselves on the world platform is exciting to see and inspirational. Its been awhile since Jamis had 2 riders on their bikes in World’s XC in a long time, too.
Big ups, guys!
(here’s Rotem, #60, in the Elite …

We have guys all over the place this week – Blake is in Ohio at Manatoc’s Big Valley Race, Sager is at the Maplelag stage race in Minnesota, but the big news is Rob and Rotem at Worlds, eh!
Robbie raced the U23 race on Friday….it was a day in the trenches, a battle of which only he can describe:
I’ve certainly had better days on the bike- like, you know, every other day of my life! Today was one of those days where I couldn’t get out of my own …

Boom…..my second Breck Epic is in the books.
With the up’s and down’s this race has dolled out, and because today was the last day,   I decided to leave it all out there on the course. Today’s stage was a bit more suited for roadies and trackies than the pure single track shredders, so I decided to roadie on the guys and ride my D29 hardtail (compared to the XCR I’ve ridden in every stage of every stage race this year). I’m on a new 2011 version of the d29 …

Troopers, these guys are. This stage took them to 12,000′ via a long hike-a-bike that was followed up by a fast mountain side descent. I can’t really tell you much about that section of the course or how hard it was except that to relay the guys said it was a rough climb followed up by an unpleasant walk to the summit…
You see, while Blake was pushing his XCR through scree and gravel, I was riding a bike path backwards along the course to meet the guys on the DH.

The …

Blake checks from Summit County:
Breck Epic Day 4 is in the books and it was the longest stage of the race thus far and pretty tough.
However, since having back to back days of SUFFERING I decided to ride easy early on and try to actually enjoy my riding. In this process one would think you would end up going slower, since you’re riding at an easier pace.
Up the high country however there seems to be a paradox: go slower to go faster. I had a great day today …