As I’ve mentioned in the past, the bike shop I work at part-time has quite a bit of old mountain bike race memorabilia. One of the owners used to be the mechanic for the now extinct Volvo-Cannondale Mountain Bike Team, so the shop features a ton of stuff from the V/C team as well as some photos, jerseys and what not from other racers of the era.
I’ve long been a sucker for cycling videos, especially ones that call attention to XC and endurance racing and athletes. Even when I know the videos are more part of a marketing and brand machine than a cinematic statement, I still find myself sucked in.
The dictionary dictators amongst others define the word gobsmacked the following way…
1 ˈɡäbˌsmakt/
adjective BRITISH informal
adjective: gobsmacked
utterly astonished; astounded.
With reference to being shocked by a blow to the mouth, or to clapping a hand to one’s mouth in astonishment.
Not me, while I have no doubt that is the correct definition, I would amend it to include a second:
My planned mountain bike ride with a buddy of mine got rained out by storms this morning. I was not real thrilled with that turn of events, and spent my morning drinking coffee, perusing the interweb-o-sephere and “acting like a caged animal” according to Wifey who was working at home today and apparently none to thrilled to have me pacing around, growling in my coffee about not riding.
I found the video below while fumbling around the web-O-sphere this morning (it’s been a busy morning). Other than getting passed by fat bike riders at races (and cursing at them for doing so) I can’t say I’ve ever seen a fat bike go this fast.
If you haven’t seen Epic TV’s five part series Racing The Untamed, Team Bulls at the ABSA Cape Epic, then you’re missing out on some great coverage on some of the top mountain bike racers in the world at one of the most amazing races in the world– The ABSA Cape Epic.
Team Bulls is a German based UCI mountain bike team made up of Germans Karl Platt, Stefan Sahm, Tim Böhme, Simon Stiebjahn and Martin Frey, as well as Thomas Dietsch of France and Urs Huber of Switzerland. If you are into endurance, marathon and stage racing, I recommend following Team Bulls on Facebook and Twitter, they do some of the coolest races in the world and are not shy about sharing photos, videos and recaps to promote their team and the sport of XC, marathon and endurance mountain bike racing.
The first episode is posted below with subsequent episodes linked after. Really great, well produced stuff. Check it out…
This past weekend was the 2014 European Cross Country Championships in St. Wendel Germany. There was no big surprises in the Men’s race as Julien Absalon (France) just keeps on winning whether it’s for team or for his country, this time taking the victory over Swiss rider Fabian Giger by 15 seconds. The Czech Jan Scarnitzl took third.
Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Liv Pro XC Team) has started two races in the 2014 UCI XCO series and has won them both. She not only won them, she crushed them, winning in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic by 2:50 over Catharine Pendrel (Luna Pro Team) and in Albstadt, Germany by 2:59 over Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå (Multivan Merida Biking Team). To say she has dominated the two races would be an understatement, taking early leads in both and never looking back, leaving all the other women to fight it out for 2nd place or pray for a mechanical.
Jake (the dog) never waits too long at the door before he’s back in the house to do what Jake (the dog) does best: sleep, fart, snore, eat, burp and sleep some more more before going back out to take a dump. And I did’t wait too long after Sunday’s blunderful crash to get back at trying to burn off the fleshy kegs attached to all sides of my torso. However, I did wait longer than I thought I would have to.
We are just two rounds into the 2014 UCI XCO series and the Men’s overall title is looking like it MIGHT be all but wrapped up. The reasons? Julien Absalon and Nino Schurter…