2010 Inaugural Transylvania Stage Race
written by: Karen Potter

First off I want to send out a big thank you to Mike Kuhn and Ray Adams for putting on a wonderful stage race. It was very well organized and everything ran smoothly as far as I could tell. The volunteers were great. Even Mike and Ray’s parents were instrumental in seeing this stage race come together. Their parents even made some of the prizes – like the very cool and unique handmade TSE coaster – I love it!

The photographer, A.E. Landes Photography was great too. Abe put together a slide show each evening of the day’s stage. Mike and Ray had some great schwag for prizes for everyone who finished as well as for daily stage winners. I hope they can continue to secure good sponsorship for this race, which I imagine they will be able too since it seemed to be a big hit this inaugural year.

The TSE was a great first stage race for me to enter into this new format of racing. Granted, half way through, I was thinking I wasn’t going to survive, but that had nothing to do with how the race was put on. It was tough but doable and with some really fun stages to boot.

There are some wonderful trail systems in PA. We got to ride lots of them in this race and hopefully even more of them next year. I won’t lie – it is rocky, but mostly it’s just purely true mountain biking in my book. And my competition was pretty tough but I was pleased to hang in there in 2nd place with some really experienced endurance racers, and make lots of new riding friends.

Hey all,

People have been asking about clothing and rather than putting together a huge order and try to make sense of everyone’s sizing.. etc, I have installed a shopping cart system on the web site that runs payment through PayPal or via check. We can order as little as one piece however we need to meet a $300 minimum order each time we order to avoid fees.

To order, please visit the store at www.mtbmind.com/store and simply drag what you want into the shopping bag (you can literally drag and drop) and buy it. I’ll print out the order and get it processed for print. Unfortunately I do not have pictures of all of the clothing, specifically the women’s since I do not have any to take pictures of,
but you all know what it looks like. I’ll get pics up for these soon.. perhaps some of you ladies want to send me a pic??

Thanks everyone. Let’s make this happen soon.

Chris

Hey gang,

It’s been a few weeks since I have been able to start really getting a go at the design structure of the site, however the basics of the software for both the web site and forum are working flawlessly without any spam/hacker threats.

Some things I will be working on in order of first priority:
- Fixing the alignment of the login/registration buttons on the forum page as it’s masked by the background and hard to read until logged in.
- Linking the forum back over to the main web site
- Changing the layout of the actual web site to reflect more of a personal look rather than a generic blog. (The blog system works great and is the backbone of the site. All I have to do now is create new php files and assign pages to a respected file… not so easy).

Again any comments or suggestions are always welcome to better help me and everyone else who visits the site. I’ll be bringing back some of the old school web site pages as well.

Chris

As some of you may have heard, James (Willow) Williamson died at 6:47am local time while participating in the Absa Cape Epic in South Africa.  James was taken to the hospital the morning after the second stage when his teammate couldn’t arouse him. I had the pleasure of riding the first 5 minutes of the 2008 World Solo Championships with him and was there to see him take the win and hang out with him at the after party.

At 26 years of age, James was the editor of Enduro magazine and had a positive outlook on life and the sport of mountain biking. Many of us spend years or an entire lifetime trying to find a single moment of accomplishment, however James had no doubt filled a book of accomplishments and died doing something he loved the most.

Like many racers, James kept a blog for you to follow up on his adventures.

For those of you who do not know about Rudy Project, they have been around for quite a few years and are known for high quality shades made in Italy, however they have added quite a few lines of helmets to their product list in recent years and this year is no exception.  The Sterling (as shown below with the Magster Yellow Fluo shade) is a new model fit for racers and serious riders complete with internal sunglass holders within the side vents.  It’s a great fit right out of the box and feels great out on the road and trail.  Some helmets are bulky and sort of feel like you have an alien head while the Sterling fits like a glove, and looks cool too.

Check out the pictures below to see how it fits my bald head and pick one up at www.e-rudy.com today!

Attention riders!  It looks like mountain bike racers have been building trails in the Green mountains and the rumor is they do not get mud bogged like many other spots. For those of you interested in participating in some difficult to extreme endurance races, check out the events by Peak Races at www.peakraces.com.  All of these events take place on their trails which is just north of Kilington.

My eyes are set for the solo version of the 30 Mile MTB Endurance relay set to take place the week after Great Glen on August 22nd.  I highly suggest signing up for this race, especially if you plan on doing the VT 50 in September.  They are looking for 150 competitors this year.

$40 entry fee and big cash payouts for everyone:

Expert/Pro
1st place male and female – $375.00 Each

Sport
1st place male and female – $75.00 Each

Beginner
1st Place male and female – $75.00 Each

Single Speed
1st Place male and female – $75.00 Each

King of the Hill
1st place male and female – $150.00 Each

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

The Pittsfield Bike Club helps maintain multi use trails on Public(National Forest) and private land in Pittsfield, Stockbridge, and Chittenden Vermont.

We will be adding maps for the trails on National Forest land and will be updating the existing map as we get everything GPS’d.

Come on out for a ride or a hike or run!

www.greenmountaintrails.com

Adam Glick, Greater Boston NEMBA sent a letter to the DCR and is asking everyone to do the same.

It was clear that DCR needs more comments submitted. This is important to DCR. They are counting them all up – they had nice bar charts summarizing emails.

Action Item: We need everyone who hasn’t sent comments to send them in. Keep them short and to the point. Here’s the original DCR source page:http://www.mass.gov/dcr/news/publicmeetings/greenwaysfellsusersurvey.htm

Some suggestions:

Simply state that you:

1. Support increased mountain biking opportunities.
2. Support a change to the winter closure policy.
3. Support increased NEMBA volunteerism
4. Support after dark riding.
5. Support separating loop trail overlaps
6. Support providing access to the reservoir trail systems
7. Support improved signage

You don’t need to answer all the questions — just the ones that are important to you.

There are some basic principles we hope riders will support:

1. Fair and equitable access policy
2. Access to singletrack
3. More marked loops
4. Positive use to replace illegitimate use

It’s even better if the comments are in your own voice and express your own concerns. We’re not trying to control the message — it’s the getting a message out to DCR that is really important.

If you are looking for other ideas, here’s some stuff that Greater Boston NEMBA has come up with (look at the bottom of the webpage):http://www.gbnemba.org/fells-action.html

Email your comments to: Paul.jahnige@state.ma.us

When you send them please also cc: fells@gbnemba.org