The trade show season will be a little different for us this year. We’re still planning on attending Eurobike with many of our European distributors attending as well. What we’re not doing this year is attending Interbike, at least not indoor. We’ll have our bikes outdoor with some of our vendors and component partners, but we’re not planning the usual full Monty.

What we are going to do is substitute Outerbike for what was going to be Interbike. And this is good news for you. Outerbike is a 4 day extravaganza of bike demos. Pay one fee and all your demo time is free. There are a ton of manufacturers attending, to you can do plenty of comparison shopping.

Outerbike is a consumer event, not a dealer event. It’s in Moab the weekend after Interbike, so we’ll bring all our demo bikes straight from Interbike on up to Moab. So you will get to ride all the new stuff only a week after the dealers get to ride it. No more waiting many months until you get a chance to scope out the new goods.

It’s a fundraiser too, with proceeds going to IMBA and the Moab Trails Alliance.

Here’s the poster, hope to see  you in Moab!

We’re happy to report that Brian Lopes, riding a Mojo HD, won yesterday’s AirDH race on the world famous A-Line Downhill course up in Whistler.

There’s a bit more to the story.

A few years ago our very good mutual friend from Oakley, Steve Blick, played matchmaker and put Brian in touch with us to talk about a possible sponsorship. I knew Brian before this, having fun at Blick’s wedding in Hawaii, running into him on the trail in Laguna Beach (where my brother lives) and seeing him at various shows and bike events.  Honestly though, sponsoring him hadn’t been on my radar. We soon put together a deal and all has been peachy since then. Brian has continued to win a lot of races and helped us tremendously with our product development and keeping our name out there in the spotlight.

Yesterday’s win was a really big deal. The best guys in the world were there. Look at the podium shot below, that’s Gee Atherton (as in the ex downhill world champ Gee Atherton) wondering how that old guy managed to beat him…Yesterday was also the 5th birthday of Tyler Blick, Steve’s first child. A couple of weeks ago Steve and his wife Jen found out that Tyler has Leukemia. Brian wrote Tyler’s name on his number plate and dedicated the race to him, then went on to DOMINATE the race, beating his winning time of last year by 5 seconds! As you can see, it was a day of 5’s. Ty’s 5th birthday. 5th consecutive race. 5 seconds over last years time. And BL’s usual number is 55.

So today we celebrate Tyler’s birthday, we celebrate Brian’s win and we celebrate life in general.

Here is the lowdown on Brian’s A-line race winning rig:

Rider           Brian Lopes
Bike            Ibis HD
Headset         Chris King Taper Head set 44mm top/1.5″ lower cup

Fork            2010 Marzocchi 55 Micro Ti
Rear shock      2010 Marzocchi coil TSTR coil with 350 ti spring

Handlebar       Edge riser 710 Carbon bar
Grips           Odi MTB “O” Grips secured with saftey wire
Saddle          WTB SL55 white Brian Lopes signature edition

Chain Guide     MRP Brian Lopes signature edition “Chain Guarde” chain guide

Crank           Tru Vative Stylo OCT w/Black Box ceramic BB
Gearing         11-26 10s Force Cassete, MRP 38t podium chainring
Rear Der.       Sram Force short cage Road Der. 10s
Shifting                Sram XO 10s rear shifter
Chain           Sram 1091r chain
Brakes          2011 Avid Code with 2 piece XX 185 rotors
Pedals          Crank Bros Mallet 2
Wheels          Edge All Mountain carbon rims laced to Chris King hubs

Tires           Kenda prototype BBG Brian Lopes Signature Series 2.35 front, Kenda prototype Small Block 8 with race tread cut 2.35 rear

Photo by Rob Trna

If you’re not one of the 1.6 million people who have already watched this, here you go and you’re welcome. It’s a time lapse video of a guy walking across the country.

A while ago I drove my ancient Ford pickup out to Utah. Looking for something to do I put my crappy little point and shoot on the dash board and made my own time lapse. The tunnel gives you an idea of speed.

And in the spirit of long journeys across nothingness, here’s a blog by a guy walking across the country.
Click on the image, which just shows Montana. Each placemarker on the image links to a picture.

Clicky click for bigger pic:

I know it’s an advert (as they say in the UK) but I like it.