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XC NEWS & VIEWS

Nova Mesto was predictable, in a good way

May 28, 2024|News|

Wow, while kind of boring, PFP and Pidcock wiping up for yet more wins was amazing. I’m more in awe of Pidcock’s ability to just show up, and win a world cup with literally, the entire elite field raring to go. So many things to smile about. Nino Shurter looked like his old self. When Pidcock took off, Nino actually followed, and in the past, he’d simply have let Tom go. To finish 30 seconds down, and a minute or more to everyone else, Nino quite probably would [...]

Where were you Vlad?

May 23, 2024|News|

Say it ain’t so! A modern day XC pro sanctioned for whereabouts? Didn’t see that one coming. The more you learn the exact rules for random drug testing, the more I feel for these athletes – on the other hand, I don’t. Those are the rules, everyone knows them, and they all must comply to be a pro bike racer. So it was pretty shocking to read that Trek Factory Racing’s Romanian speedster missed 3 tests and is now suspended for essentially 2 seasons. He can appeal, and who knows, [...]

Kona version 3.0

May 20, 2024|News|

I’ve always had a soft spot for Kona bikes, even though I never owned one. They seemed to abandon the XC race bike market years ago. They used to have a great XC team and I thought they were pretty cool looking bikes. I even remember a year where they teamed up with Ford motors, and if you bought a Ford Kona car, you got a free mountain bike with it. A friend who owned a bike shop ordered a custom titanium hardtail with USA painting and graphics on [...]

Replacement cages for Sram AXS Transmission?

May 17, 2024|News|

There’s certainly no end to small companies continuing to make bike parts. One of the best (and some would say worst) parts of the 90’s was the sheer number of cool practically hand made components and parts being spit out by everyone. You could get just about every part of your bike from one of these places, and they were rarely cheap, and probably very colorful.So here we are 30+ years later, and every week there’s yet another company that I had not heard of making custom parts. [...]

New Karoo computer comes with a groupset?

May 16, 2024|News|

Now this is an interesting, albeit non-mtb development. Most people don’t even realize Sram bought a bike gps/computer company a while back. Karoo had been around and was generally well liked from what I can tell. Since Sram has a habit of buying companies and not changing their name to Sram, I think many people just kind of ignored Karoo and went with a Garmin or Wahoo computer and that was that. But what if you got a “free” $500 computer with your next XX Transmission equipped mountain [...]

You can buy tickets to the world champs today!

May 14, 2024|News|

That’s right, you only need $108.00, and you get access to all 7 days of racing, or around $20 for a day. That is a literal bargain. Oh, and you need a round trip plane ticket and lodging to Andorra of course. That’s probably only another $5K or so.Why bring this up? Well, because I was thinking about how much I paid for me, my two young daughters and wife to get in to the Snowshoe world cup in West Virginia a few years back. The cost was [...]

PanAm Games were great for the USA

May 13, 2024|News|

Well, the suspected winners showed up, Riley Amos, Haley Batten, Kate Courtney, all had a great weekend of racing for our Championships.This was a great in between race for the US as the World Cup resumes soon, and this gives the racers a chance to get some racing in before leaving for the summer.Check out the results and great photos here: https://utahmtbpanam.com/results/The European continental championships also concluded this weekend, and the contrast in weather is about as wide as you could get. Truly amazing conditions. PFP was most likely [...]

Pan-American Championships ongoing

May 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!

May 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!

May 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?

May 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!

May 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

January 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!

January 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?

January 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 [...]