One of the cool things about having done XXC Magazine is that I was on the media mailing lists for a lot of cool races. Hell, I even used to get invites to races all over the country and the world. Of course it was a bitter pill to swallow knowing that my days of racing or at least successfully completing serious endurance races were behind me, and that with a staff of one at the helm of the magazine and little money in the company safe, there was no world traveling in my future.
Having said that, I was and still am a bike racing nerd and like to read about and see races from all around the world. In fact, the more unlikely I will ever have a chance to compete in a race the more interested I seem to be. Not to compare bikes and porn again, but I imagine that’s why many men (not me of course) are drawn to looking at nude photos of exotic women with perfect bodies and not photos of that woman who works at the local grocery store’s deli, sports a mustache, homemade tattoos and looks like she could kick your ass from here to next week (although I almost guarantee you there’s a Tumblr site dedicated to such women).
I dig seeing races (XC, XCO, Marathon and Stage Races) from around the globe. That was one of the main reasons I started XXC Magazine and xxcmag.com in the first place. Of course that was probably also one of the main reasons XXC Magazine failed, for while endurance mountain bike racing and events have grown in the States, and even XC is making a bit of a comeback, the amount of people who want to read, see photos and videos from events– both here in the US and overseas– is about on par with the amount of people who like to build World War II dioramas in their basement.
Oh well, I’ve read in more than a couple of books about the benefits of “embracing your inner nerd,” so even though XXC Mag is behind me and I’m not seeking to actively promote the sport or make money in any way from talking about mountain bike racing, I just can’t shake the part of me that wants to geek out on pro bike racing (see porn analogy above for why I prefer Pros over amateurs… although that sometimes differs when porn is in question, but that’s another blog post). All this is why I A. Continue to write about and take photos from even the most mundane of my rides and occasional races and B. Continue to post about pro racing under the xc.cult:ure category here on the blog. Nerd… Nerd with too much time on his hands… Nerd with too much time on his hands that needs a fucking job.
In the past year, I have opted out of many of the media lists I was on, but there are a few that still sneak through on occasion; like the coverage sent to me from Austria’s Alpentour Trophy. The first stage of the four-day event happened on Thursday and ran for 59km and 2,900m of elevation up to the Hochwurzen Mountain and continued across the snow-covered Giglach Lake plains (see photo above of Women’s Elite racer Yana Belomoina) and back to Schladming.
There are plenty of top racers at this event to peek my interest, including Columbian marathon specialist Leonardo Paez (seen in photo above) and former World XC and XCM Champion (and one time PED user) Roel Paulissen in the Elite Men’s race and everybody’s favorite, knight, RedBull TV XCO announcer and former Olympic Gold Medalist– Sir Bart “yeah, yeah, yeah” Brentjens racing in the Elite Masters category.
Before I could even completed this post, a new update hit my in box from Stage 2, a short 14km time trial that rose 1,100m in just 14km and was won by the Italian Tony Longo (seen below with snot, spit and God knows what else pouring out of his nose and mouth, not to mention the added race “flair” of a Breath Rite strip and some kinesiology tape).
Without a reason (reason = a paycheck) it is doubtful that I will ever go so far as to publish the daily updates from races again, but I will continue to enjoy the coverage, photos and videos from races all over the world and will continue to put up some cool photos, snippets (like some of those in today’s post) and videos from the world of pro mountain bike racing. It’s either I do that or finally get around to getting that Tumblr site going dedicated to nude photos of women who sport a mustaches, homemade tattoos and looks like they could kick your ass from here to next week. It’s all about the inner nerd.
Photos by Sportograf.