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Pan-American Championships ongoing
John Vandenberg2024-05-10T13:02:27-05:00May 10, 2024|News|
Right now in Utah, Soldier Hollow to be precise, riders from all over the Americas are going head to head for a Championship medal. This race gets little fanfare, and to be fair, I’m not sure why we have such a championship race. We have country champions, do we need another for a group of certain countries? From the looks of the earlier events from Wednesday through yesterday, by far the majority of riders are from the U.S. With just a handful from other countries. Nothing wrong with that, [...]
Zwift over for me for now…more mtb needed!
John Vandenberg2024-05-08T11:43:06-05:00May 8, 2024|News|
Well, just when I start using Zwift again after 6 months using myWhoosh, they raise the price a lot, and make me quit again. I’m not going to complain about another $5 a month, and it’s not even Zwift season anyway. But, due to horribly wet weather in April, I actually went back to indoor riding 3 or 4 nights a week when I should have been outdoors. MyWhoosh for those who don’t know, is a service similar to Zwift, based out of the middle east, Abu Dhabi I [...]
Racing on Trek Factory Trails is amazing!
John Vandenberg2024-05-05T21:38:47-05:00May 5, 2024|News|
For the third year in a row, and only for those three years, Trek again graciously lent their personal testing trails for 3 full days of racing. A full report is forthcoming, but to say they did an incredible job would be an understatement. Dual Slalom? Short Track? Free e-bikes to ride, and I’m guessing a thousand cross country racers. Oh, and perfect early May weather…literally perfect. Man, even though I’m woefully out of shape and nowhere near race ready, I still had an amazing time, and it [...]
Did Specialized really get bought by the Mart?
John Vandenberg2024-05-03T11:16:52-05:00May 3, 2024|News|
I hate to spread rumors…I do like to read them and discuss them though. And there’s one already rolling that says Walmart, or at least the VC firm ran by the two Walton brothers, have bought a controlling interest of Specialized. Huh? Why? Well, it’s certainly not hard to imagine some VC company with major bucks to spend, and who clearly loves biking and high end biking companies, wanting a piece of one of the biggest pieces of the pie in the world. We all know Mike Sinyard [...]
The Video Magazine has launched – FINALLY!
John Vandenberg2024-05-01T16:21:02-05:00May 1, 2024|News|
Almost 5 years in the making, the first of many Short Travel Magazine videos has been launched. This first video is nothing but a very quick hello, and what to expect, but it's up and live! At least once a week a full STM video will be released, with all the most interesting news, product reviews, new releases, race reports, everything that will make fellow XC MTB enthusiasts smile. I hope. It's always a work in progress, but we have to start somewhere!
2024 Schedules have been updated
John Vandenberg2024-01-23T11:06:45-06:00January 23, 2024|News|
With the exception of the "Norba" series in the US, or PRO XCT, all the race dates have been etched in stone for 2024. This being an Olympic year, things are kind of weird. Not in a bad way though. While some places are already set for certain countries, many are not and these early races are extremely important. While the giants of the sport, Switzerland, France, etc., all have a fight on their hands, most of the other countries will be happy with one male and female [...]
CABDA Midwest report coming in February!
John Vandenberg2024-01-11T12:20:07-06:00January 11, 2024|News|
Many of you who work at bike shops have attended, or at least heard of the CABDA shows. What I believe started in Chicagoland, my home turf, has spread into three, West, Midwest and East. I have some great memories of working at the Yeti/Straight Up Cyclery booth at the Chicago show, sometime in the mid to late 90's. At the time, this was the only bike trade show in the midwest, and consisted mainly of fairly local bike shops, and some midwest manufacturers such as Saris (under [...]
Team Changes? What Team Changes?
John Vandenberg2024-01-11T12:07:26-06:00January 11, 2024|News|
Well, usually by this time of a new year you start seeing numerous press releases, social media posts, articles, all touting how happy so and so is to be joining their new team. The usual rounds of thanks for all the great times messages are spewed forth so as not to burn any bridges with the old teams. Nothing new at all for a new race season. But in case you haven't noticed, in the XC world of racing, there have been virtually no team changes. There's a [...]
Slow build, but it’s rolling…
John Vandenberg2024-01-11T11:58:03-06:00December 21, 2023|News|
Just uploaded podcast #11, and I'm starting to get into the swing of things. I've decided to try adding a once-a-week video to go along with the podcasts. I have too many things to show, and review and discuss that are better served with a visual I think. So keep an eye out for that. But there are many, many interesting things happening now and in the future for the "short travel" mountain bike world. Big races, new racers, and the relentless release of new products. And I [...]
Tubolito Tubes? Orangetastic?
John Vandenberg2024-01-11T12:08:15-06:00November 4, 2023|Reviews|
Tubolito Tubes Tubes? In this day and age? Why you ask, would someone take the time and money to develop inner tubes? Well, we're about to find out if it was a worthwhile endeavor or a complete waste of time!
Henrique Avancini retires
John Vandenberg2023-08-22T15:00:58-05:00August 22, 2023|News|
Great goodbye video with english captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shuF_YLMVVk&t=128s He had a great run. Not the longest career in XC, but a good one. Won some great races, was always going for it it seemed. He'd get out front then drift back. You could tell he wanted to hammer it all the way home, just couldn't quite pull it off. That said, he is the newly crowned Marathon XC World Champion, so that's a great way to bow out.
Is Canada the next Switzerland?
John Vandenberg2023-08-11T11:04:41-05:00August 11, 2023|News|
If going by their Junior team results at the World Champs is any indication, they might be! Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, the Swiss will remain at the top for a bit. But, to take Gold, and some Silver home for both men and women Juniors, well, that's pretty cool. Maybe in a few years we'll be watching them come into the Elites like other amazing young talents have. Could it be Catherine Pendrel? She does not get mentioned nearly enough in the discussion [...]
Great new course recon video of XCO world champs!
John Vandenberg2023-08-07T14:06:01-05:00August 7, 2023|News|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYgB-lgxWs&t=166s This is awesome I think. The original course video didn't really show much. This one is awesome. Great Britain riders Max & Corran? Not sure who they are honestly but they look to be FLYING through the one lap of the course. Fearless. Man, if MvDP can get his bad starting position fixed quickly, he has a very real chance at taking the triple golds like PFP did years back. He will probably ride the same exact style of race as the Road. Stay up front with [...]
Marathon Worlds looked awesome!
John Vandenberg2023-08-07T11:14:17-05:00August 7, 2023|News|
While most XCO stars didn't race, Avancini certainly did, and won the thing again. This would be his second Marathon championship. Alan Hatherly gave it a go, and most of the big names in the longer distance world were there. The top racers who show up to Cape Epic, usually race the Marathon Worlds if they can. So Avancini winning is quite the achievement in my mind. He can hang with the best at the short punchy XCC races, but seems to fade quickly in the XCO format. [...]
Official XCO World Champs course preview
John Vandenberg2023-08-03T09:39:03-05:00August 3, 2023|News|
Not sure how I didn't see this sooner, but the UCI had released a video a month ago showcasing the entire XCO course to be used for the World Champs next week. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DN0dmxiu4 It doesn't look like a World Cup course, that's for sure. They always add the crazy man-made features with giant fake rock formations, logs, whatever they can to make a seemingly "easy" course more difficult. The crazy rock formation trend makes little sense to me I must admit. When I was standing [...]
Tom Dumoulin the MTB racer?
John Vandenberg2023-08-02T10:41:20-05:00August 2, 2023|News|
Saw a cool article about ex-road pro Tom Dumoulin. I don't know how many of you follow the road racing world. I'll admit to be a fair weather fan. I watch the TDF, and several of the spring classics. Mainly out of boredom. But Tom Dumoulin was a big gun for a bit there, and certainly seemed to be on the rise to the top. He retired a bit early some would say. So I think it's cool that he's taking to the mountain biking and gravel world [...]