RATTLERS

Just got back from a few days of riding in Downieville. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a little town in the Sierra Gold Country which is home to many fine trails, and the world famous Downieville Downhill.

They use the term ‘downhill’ loosely here, as the race takes 40+ minutes to do and it involves a ton of pedaling. There is an overall elevation loss, but it’s not an easy course.

A bunch of us met up there, including Brian Lopes, and multiple time winner Mark Weir. There was too much snow on top to scout out the entire course, so a lot of our riding focused on the sweet stuff in Downieville a the lower elevations. On Sunday Brian and I were riding along the North Yuba Trail and came across a pretty big rattlesnake coiled in the trail looking for action. We persuaded him to move off the trail and kept on our way. About a half mile later I was following 6′ behind Brian (usually I’m far behind after only a few seconds of trail) on a narrow section of trail next to a cliff…all of a sudden I hear Brain yell and I look up in time to see a rattlesnake jump off the cliff, trying to strike Brian. He missed Brian’s body, but hit his pack, and fell straight to the ground on the trail. I jumped right over the snake before he could get strike again. I next saw BL about 4 miles down the trail after some of the adrenaline started to subside . YIKES! It was a beautiful trail, but kind of scary.

JERSEYS

The other news to report today is that we had some beautiful Ibis jerseys printed by a company in Italy. They did a fine job on them, for the most part. The one thing they did wrong was to print the head badge logo on the left sleeve upside down. Oops. As a result, we’re going to sell these below our cost, and only via the website. They are not coming to a store near you. The next batch of jerseys (which will be made at a different manufacturer) will not come from the same place.

Here’s a direct link to the jersey, and a couple pictures below. They’re quite handsome.

This just in, and making us very very happy…

Outside Magazine-that little monthly out of Santa Fe with a combined circulation of more than all the magazines in the bike industry combined-just awarded us with mountain bike of the year in their Gear of the Year issue. We got a two page spread, linked below for you to see.

Click on that image for a big ol view of our luscious double page spread. We happy!

One of the things I like about Outside is they really test the products, rather than paying lip service to an actual test, they really get out here and whomp on things.

Here’s a note I got from Editor Aaron Gulley about what they did with the bike.

we rode the hell out of that bike. with nary a mechanical or a complaint.

our test trip was to tucson this year, where we probably logged 200-some miles between four riders over the course of a long weekend. all manner of trail: from tight desert single-track to fire roads with banging, rocky descents.

one of our testers rode the bike at the 24 Hours of Old Peublo a month later, just north of tucson. and once again, the bike held up beautifully. that’s saying something, too: lots of racers bring mechanics and or back-up bikes to those events. but with a little lube, the mojo just kept going strong all night.

finally, i rode the bike on a local race/ride, the San Ysidro Dirt Century. it was a 125-mile race outside of Albuquerque, and i love the bike. my partner rode a hardtail (for the weight savings; his bike is 20 pounds). i got five inches of travel on the mojo and still saved the weight. obviously a big factor in staying fresh.

i also rode the mojo tons around our local santa fe trails, too. i bet altogether, we probably put 1,000 miles on the mojo. and like i said, no failures and no problems.

Not bad, PLUS he used the word ‘nary’. Nice.
On newsstands now.