Holy Toledo. Stage 1 is in the books and as race promotor Mike McCormack stated, it was a knuckle brawl today.

The race’s”neutral start” would have made any Puerto Rican race proud as the police escort pinned it up the steep switchback climb. Once the race was actually on, I think it might have slowed down for a couple minutes.

“I thought this was neutral” screams Rad Ross.

I spent the entirety of the race in the cave. An hour went by and I was climbing. Two hours went by and I was still climbing. Three hours rolled around and….yup, still climbing. The descents were so fast today that recovering from the climbs was near impossible for me. The stage was raw and unforgiving. I am now in the condition usually referred to as shattered, and it’s only day 1.

Realizing my current state and how we are only 1 day into this journey, I opted to head to the place that I have a love hate relationship with…the creek.

Snowmelt makes for a painful ice bath but I swear by it. On my way back to the condo I almost pooped my pants as this furry thing barked right in my ear as I was riding.

Tomorrow’s stage is the Colorado Trail which will certainly keep us entertained! Hopefully something besides ice road truckers comes on Discovery.

Until tomorrow- Blake

Well, what can I say, I’m back for more Breck Epic this year.

The 2010 edition is….harder. Much, much harder. The field is stronger, the stages are longer and the elevation profile is..you know,around 10,000ft, so that’s the same as always.

Last years race was a prologue complemented by 5 stages. This year, the prologue is out, and in its place is a queen stage. Yup, they throw us out to the wolves on day 1. No “here, go get your feet wet”, or “this will give you a little taste of what to expect“…nope it’s straight on out for 42 miles of flogging.

Today started with a little ride on some of the local trails. Despite feeling like I was riding on the moon at times, the trails here are spectacular.

Of course we are out here in the backcountry where anything can happen. Mountain lions, bears, or rabid raccoons are threats in this neck of the woods, so I decided to bring some muscle for today’s ride. Dad’s got my back.

During my ride I realized two things. The first was more of something I realize every time I do a race in a cool place: When you race, you really do end up missing some of the cool views. No doubt I won’t look over to admire anything like this tomorrow.

Secondly, it really baffles me how..for a lack of a better word, stupid we get when racing. Do we really need three bright yellow arrows AND a confirmation arrow for a single turn? Yes….unfortunately yes. Thank god the Breck Epic crew realize not all cylinders are firing when racing up here.

After the ride is was business time. Registration and …what? dinner?…”no I didn’t get a meal plan”. “I get dinner anyway?”

AWESOME.

Everyone is smiling today. I think things will be a bit different this time tomorrow.

Big Black- OUT

The Millstone Grizind

The #1 reason why I love coming back east is for the races and this race didn’t disappoint. Every aspect of the race was spot on: Sweet race course, Free food/Beer, Good friends, Cliff Jumping and sweet race course (it deserves two mentions). I have never done this race before so I didn’t know what to expect but since it was put on by the awesome people at Root 66 I knew it had to be good.

I was a little worried about what bike to ride. I was torn between the D29 Hard tail 29er and the XCR Dualie 26er. I ended going with the 29er, as I have yet to do a proper race on the bike and I wanted to go all in and see how she ran. Every racer back here races a 29er hard tail so why not try it out, eh? It turned out to be a good decision except for the fact that I hadn’t raced on a hard tail in a long time so my back was feeling it but other than that the thing shredded…Fast.

Ohhh yea before I forget you know you are at a B.A race with cool promoters when you role into town and get the #1 number plate. Proper.

As for the race itself, it went pretty well I didn’t get to pre-ride the whole course because it was a long 8.5 mile lap. So I decided to sit in for the first lap and learn the course and have some fun with my fellow East coasters. I broke away halfway through the second lap and rode solo for the next 2.5 laps. It wasn’t boring by any means. I had a fun trail to shred and a lot of lapped riders to get around to make for an even more challenging race. By the finish I had enough time to practice my one handed wheelie salute which didn’t go as well as planned but everyone got the point.

I think the best part about this race was the post race libations. There was a free BBQ with some tasty brats, salad, some pahsta, and of course some harpoon UFOs mmmm beer.

The “Cliffs” we hit up we were mainly just swimming

and the Podie shot

Like I said before racing in New England and especially in VT you are bound to have a good time. All I need are some tasty trails and a cool buzz

For today’s stage at the Wild Cat we decided to take the Manamit chocolate wafer bar on a ride.

Manamit at the start. Manamit prefers to win the start, but we were stuck on the 3rd row.

Manamit feared the shark attack! (it is shark week), and the were lurking behind briar bushes, which are functionally like coral reefs. Manamit fears no blood.

Manamit rides rail trail. -1% false flat downhill means 45kph. Manamit feel strong when really Manamit had a tail wind.

Manamit dismounts for the road crossing. Its New York state law. Unless no one is looking.

Manamit likes fishing. Slow water run deep.

Manamit likes waterfalls. And soft blankets.

Manamit follows signs. Riding extra mileage in races is overrated.

Manamit goes caving. Austin has lots of bats and bats live in caves. Manamit misses TexMex.

Manamit emerges from caving expedition. Spelunk on.

Manamit loves hike-a-bikes.

Manamit doesn’t miss La Ruta’s Costa Rican bridges with crocodillos lurking underneath.

Manamit says in America, everyone is a winner.

New Paltz, New York.

Sorry for all the  Snyder, but scenery is boring without people in the frame.

Fugitaboutit.

50 miles became 56.8, mostly because of some vague marking towards the end of the day, but who doesn’t want a few extra time to see the carriage pathways of Catskills. Fast, smooth, and scenic, today’s stage was only upstaged by how welcoming the folks were at the race.

Yesterday was spent the day riding 2011 Jamis road bikes, all DI2, of course…I’m ruined now. After the road ride and lunch at the local Thai place, we rode new top secret 2011 mountain bikes on one of the most fun rocky and rooty New England trails I’ve ever had the pleasure of hucking someone else’s bike on. Dozens of perfectly shaped rock launch ramps litter the trail network.

Sunday’s stage is supposed to have more proper trail, which will be nice to do less sight seeing and more hucking, though the d29′er isn’t quite as fun as the new XCTs.

World Cup #4 in Champery, Switzerland

Champery and the area of Portes du Soleil is probably one of Europe’s most beautiful places, year long.

This area stretches itself between France and Switzerland and is a ski heaven in winter and a freeride bike park heaven in summer. Amazing views, mountain peaks, small Euro-style ski resort town and lots of good produce – cheese, meat and, of course, chocolate…

Of course, as a European vacation location it is a given that restaurant dishes are tiny, prices are expensive and road directions are awful… but nothing compares to the sweet mountains and the sounds of cow bells!

Combine this beauty with the Swiss world class level of mountain bike racing and you got one of the best world cup races in the series. It felt more like world championships, so many spectators, teams, riders, promoters… just incredible!

Race course was super technical – sweet forest trails with lots of roots and rocks all over, and all are muddy and slippery as hell. No climbing though, only two very short and steep climbs. It was pretty much riding from one technical spot to the next all race long. Pretty awesome, and the course was a big attraction for amateur riders even after race was over.

After Israel nationals I had to give an easy week for my knee to heal, on top of a total week off before nationals… so I had only had few short easy rides within two weeks prior this world cup. Usually if you add some short hard efforts to that kinda schedule it would be a great taper, but my knee couldn’t handle that.

First lap in world cups is so important for positioning, yet it is so sketchy – people are crashing everywhere trying to gain every spot possible. I guess the first lap is really fun to watch as a spectator – the pack is still all together, lots of elbows, swearing, pushing, wheel touching and such.

After a good first lap that I managed to gain a few spots from my call up position (halfway through the 200 men field) and hanged on to around 70ish position, I started feeling my legs closing in on me, and I was giving away so much time to fatigue in general and especially on the steep climbs. I guess getting back from an injury to a world cup isn’t the best thing, yet I got some precious experience and great muddy training.

One thing though that I learned here is that I became a little bit Americanized… to the matter that I expect everybody to speak my language, I’m not even talking about Hebrew of course, I’m talking about English… getting along here with English is tricky. Most people don’t speak English, some do speak but don’t want to talk in English and few have perfect English. I still need to work my accent here by saying “Bonjour” without sounding like a total tourist, and getting a wired look…

Now…back home to get the legs going again and turn the game on for World Cup finals in Windham before hitting the World Champs the next week!

-Rotem

Usually 6.5 hour mountain bike rides are planned, the route determined, food packed and well you are usually mentally prepared for what lies ahead. However I seem to have fallen into the habit of spontaneously ending up on these long rides, often underprepared. That is how my most recent adventure played out. What started as a normal alpine mountain bike ride in Nederland soon turned into a six and a half hour epic mountain bike ride which included going up and over Rollins Pass twice with a nice lunch in Winter Park. For one reason or another myself and riding partner ended up climbing up towards Rollins Pass after previously hitting up some singletrack. Soon we were both possessed by summit fever and the turnaround was soon miles behind us, or below I should say. Things became a little more exciting as we had to circumnavigate the closed train tunnel.

After a little more climbing we finally made it to the top at an altitude that would force teammate Sager into a fetal possession.

With nasty clouds looming back in Nederland and blue bird weather lingering in Winter Park, the decision (somewhat irresponsible with a touch of stupidity) was made to ride down the back side and grab some lunch in Winter Park hitting up some sweet single track on the way down. Well, the descent was awesome, ripping high speed trails through a collage of different terrains and trail networks. Unfortunately, in the midst of enjoying the trails we ended up “a little off course”, and well we ended up on the far outside edge of Fraser (after some sweet talking our way off of a mans private property).

3,000ft later we were out of water, food and well, not int eh right city. Luckily for us Fraser is only about 5 miles away from where we needed to be and so we made the treck to Winter Park. We opted for burritos and one bottle of coke. As 3pm rolled around we somewhat reluctantly filled our bottles up and headed back up the 3,000ft climb. At the bottom, mean clouds were looming and the race was on to make it to the top before afternoon storms rolled in. As we flogged ourselves up the climb at nearly race pace 5hrs into our ride the clouds dissipated and we were welcomed at the top with sunshine.

The trail that used to host train tracks over the top now has a series of old trestles which are pretty sweet to ride over at nearly 12,000ft.

We descended the trails back down to Nederland putting the bikes back on the roof 6.5 hours later. No bad weather, no mechanicals, good trails, good times and all spontaneous, I’ll take it. Breck Epic is looming around the corner so hopefully these rides will pay off.

Until my next dumb adventure- Big Black

This 2010 Israel national championships will not be forgotten for many years to come…

This past week has been such a storm of emotions and reverse of reality that is almost unthinkable.
except for the lack of luck and disappointment from European champs, that race also left me injured and unable to flex my right knee, not to talk about even riding a bike.

I had a tennis ball sized swollen patella and riding my bike wasn’t possible at all…

Injured, disappointed and haven’t done a recon ride on the new Israeli nat’s course – that’s how I started my week prior Israel nationals. I treated this injury like I deal with most things in life – lots of commitment and good energies. The Israel Olympic committee hooked me up, and I went everyday for physiotherapy. I did all I can to get my knee healthy : icing my knee few times a day, rubbing Arnica cream, sleeping with cabbage on my knee (you can’t believe how it works for swelling), and even drinking some wired-awful tasting juice that is made from mountain rocks in Russia.

I was feeling somewhat better, yet getting my knee to flexed-riding position was killing me. By Wednesday (two days before nationals), I felt like there’s no way I will be fit for race day. The next day I felt better and I went for a meeting with the Olympic orthopedic, and he said that I should give it a go if the race is super-important, knowing that pain will come back from the inflammation. I had no doubt, called my dad at 4pm, a day before the race, and we drove together to do a recon ride on the course.

I had zero expectations on race day, I was just thinking about keeping some precious UCI points for keeping the Israel national ranking for the Olympic criteria. My knee was still bothering me, although not as painfully, and I had a stressful time with technical stuff since I was always protecting my injured knee.

The race was a very close battle throughout the event, as Shlomi Haimy (’09 national champ) and I were riding wheel to wheel from lap one. None of us really had a significant gap until I crashed (again on my injured knee…) on lap 5, out of 6, and lost 40 seconds… I was sure I’m riding for 2nd place by that point, but people started telling me I’m catching up, and I really did get back on his wheel in the last lap. Suddenly, I had a “pause-moment”, I realized where I’m at – last lap, Shlomi and I, only one of us is going for the top of the podium.

At that second I knew that even if I will have to leave my patella shattered on the side of the trail, I’m going for the “big W”, I have to reclaim my jersey back. I waited patiently, closing attacks by Shlomi trying to break away, and gave it all in the last climb to the finish, gapping few seconds to the finish line. when passing the finish line and understanding what I came through this week, I got all excited and just crashed on the ground, to the applause of all spectators…

Like I said last week that reality can go so much different than what we expect it to be, I feel so excited that Israel nationals went so greatly different that what I expected. coming from zero capability due to injury to reclaiming my title back is wonderful…

now, it’s party time

- checking in from the Holy Land,
Rotem

Rotem Ishay is from Israel, lives in Durango, and raced the European mtb championships this past weekend in Israel.

Tough to keep up with, I know, but that’s how he rolls. He checks in from the road:

mountain bike racing has never been that big in Israel.
Mountain biking is a big sport in Israel as a hobby, the cycling internet forum is probably the biggest and most active in Israel and the all mountain ~ 5 on 5 inch bikes are a huge sport community, as the trails in Israel are perfect for those extra travel bikes that can climb too. racing in Israel is usually pretty small, yet the 2010 European Championships in Israel was everything but small. the amount of spectators was unbelieveable, reminded me of world cups in belgium – cheering, roaring everywhere… and it definetly takes an extra effort from the crowd to stand long hours at 90-100 degress with 70% humidity… hell, I would rather even ride a trainer indoors instead of cheering outside…

I came prepared to Euro Champs with three words: party, compassion and fighting. Party – pretty obvious when such a big event is in your country, that’s the way to ride. Compassion – for all those stressfull euro on the start line, yet I’m gonna do it my own relaxed way. and Fighting – for keeping the speed over 2 hours of 100 degrees is my joker here.
My elite men race day was a day when expectations don’t go along hand in hand with reality. I felt pretty good right off the gun, I even had a good start – which that rarely happens to me in euro races, and I was so confident in handling skills. I was comfortable in top 20 riding with Ralph Naf until reality started punching me… I crashed and tore my fork’s lockout cable on lap one, yet I kept riding without really noticing my fork is set on lock mode, because I was still high up there in my game mode and trying to catch back up to the front. than a few really wired crashes came, while I’m still not realizing the fact my fork is totally locked… I’m losing time and skin, until I bent my hanger and broke my front brake. A stop at the tech zone cost me additional 5-6 minutes for repairing, I kept my game face on and drilled it as long as I can until I got pulled for 80% rule… you can probably imagine the feeling – European Champs in my country, in “my summer”, with my crowd, I’m feeling great, and something is “writing the reality” today so differently than my desire… I’m gonna a phrase that great athletes always say in their bad days: “that’s sport…”

hours later that evening, with alcohol replacing my lost electrolytes and sunburns from the post-race beach time, I learned that it is important for me to contain that feeling of which reality can go so differently than what we, as humans, always expect it to be. it is so important, because that way we can also experience great success that is far beyond our expectations – and that’s a possibilty that really excites me.

race day was a big K.O. for me, yet I’m ready to get up my feet (literally, with the hole in my right knee) and feed the fighter inside. I got some nationals title to bring back, some world cups and world champs all coming this summer. it’s gonna be great, becaue I believe it will be – and if not, than I’m gonna smile through it.

Rotem

Heaps of photos here http://www.facebook.com/teamjamis

The month of June was all about recharging the batteries – I came back to Durango, took my mid-season breather and then put in a solid block of training before heading for a summer long of international racing, getting the quality by any means.

Durango DEVO wednesday’s ST series, motopacing, road races in New Mexico, and even getting controlled workouts at coach Crawford’s exercise lab. Fitness wise, I feel that I’m heading to the second part of the season much better, yet I’m still dealing with some spaciness/dizziness that has been on and off lately… that really kills my mountain bike skills, and I hope to come to a final diagnose and a solid tratment.

After a long 24 hours+ of traveling, I arrived back home in Israel to prepare for the European Championships that will take place this week in the city of Haifa. That’s the first ever big international cycling event that takes place in Israel – it’s going to be exciting to race big names like Hermida, Ralph Naef, Fontana, Kulhavy and much more in Israel. Temps here have been “summer-comfortable” – meaning it’s around 90’s degrees and about 70% humidity… and for some reason they decided to start the Elite men Friday at noon… expect riders warming up with cooling vests and pantyhose full of ice (patent licenced to Jason Sager…)

I’m the closest to Europe from all other Jamis teammates – geographically and racing attitude. That’s why I got the 2011 Jamis DXC hardtail prototype (over the other guys) – you know, because euro style is hardtail style… I have been riding them for a little over two weeks and I’m really impressed with some of the changes (to include tapered headtube and QR15 up front). Even Dr. Snyder gave ‘em a ride and quoted “it feels so much stiffer up front !” and of course that was a given “that’s-what-she-said”…

Tomorrow is the European Team Relay Champs – every national team sends out 4 riders (one Elite, one Under 23, one Junior and one female) to a total of 4 lap team relay race. Having a race that suddenly require team effort and brings so much team spirit in a moutain bike racing is pretty awesome! I’m gonna race the first lap, which is always so exciting since it is a mass start.

Enjoy some 2011-paparazi pics from Segev forest in Israel, my favorite place to shred miles of singletracks in Israel…

QR15 World Cup Sid…that’s about as Euro as Starbucks in Madrid.

In National Team kit pre-riding the Euro Champs course.

And let’s not forget the silent victory of my teammate Blake Harlan – who not only crushed his fear of bridges at the BC Bike race, but stepped it up a notch and learned to ride teeter totters!