Demo

Hey all
I was in Washington Street bicycle and Jody told me that Trek and Gary Fisher will be having a demo ride at Gambrill March 16th. I'm not sure were at Gambrill but I will find out.

ride

Sunday will be at Mont Alto at 9 am.

Baker's Dozen and Off-Road Duathlon

A couple interesting, early-season happenings in Virginia. Don't shoot me, but, I'm hoping there's still snow in Michaux in early April :)

A 13-Hour race not too far south of here (Leesburg, VA)
The sponsor's site here.

CycleFest Duathlon (Fairfax, VA)
I know a few MBM folks have ridden this place (Wakefield Park). And I can certainly vouch for the high grin factor there, especially, with all the new IMBA-built bermed singletrack and rollers. Similar to the Marysville courses.

RIDE

I rode Caledonia Tues afternoon and things were good on blue trail up to Long Pine. Rode Yellow ridge back to the park. South side of mountain all the snow and ice are gone. Sooooooooo this Sunday will be at Caledonia at 9am.....

Epic stage racing anyone?

Call me crazy, but I'm actually considering this race, the Brian Head Epic, in late August. Is there anyone else out there crazy enough to do this with me? It looks like it will be about 280 miles over 4 days with around 70-80 miles of that on singletrack.

Morgan

Annual Meeting & Ride

RIDE

Well with the snow and all we will be at Mont Alto once again. When the weather breaks we will be riding every where but Mont Alto so hang in there .
Time 9am

Pennsylvania Mountain Bike Summit

From our friend Frank Maguire in State College. I guess we ought to send some peeps to this. Anyone interested? I hope it isn't the same weekend as the first Michaux race?? Kinda hard to tell from the RaceMichaux site now.

Pennsylvania Mountain Bike Summit

OK, OK, so it has been tried before, but now more than ever it seems important for mountain bikers in Pennsylvania to get organized. There has been some chatter on PA forum at MTBR.com about this as well. And being organized doesn't need to be a top heavy structure with no fun allowed. What is probably needed is a means of communication and better coordination between clubs and land managers.

Why is this important? For one thing, the PGC is about to roll out their program for allowing mountain bikers back into State Game Lands. The draft proposals for this change would require a local club to "adopt" a game lands trail and agree to maintain the trail using recognized trail maintenance standards. It is important that information on the various points of this can be shared, leading to more successes and more trails to ride.

In addition to the PGC, State Parks are looking at expanding their bike access. Right now, trails in State Parks are closed unless posted open, making it much easier for a land manager to avoid appearing to be the bad guy for not allowing bikes. There is a push going on right now in Harrisburg to expand recreational opportunities, with bike facilities being pretty high on the list.

To this end, we here at the Nittany Mountain Bike Association, in conjunction with IMBA, have reserved a camp in the Rothrock State Forest here in Centre County for the weekend of May 9-11 for a "Pennsylvania Mountain Bike Summit." The purpose of this is to meet in person and discuss our opportunities to work together in improving access throughout the state, and have some fun riding the awesome trails in Rothrock while we're at it. The discussion will be facilitated by Ryan Schutz, IMBA's new grassroots advocacy consultant.

The camp is reserved from Friday through Sunday. The plan is to have our "meeting of the minds" on Saturday evening, but plan to make a ride weekend of it. RSVP to frank@mtnittanywheelworks.com and please use "PA Summit" in the subject line. Questions can be addressed to either Frank or Kevin (mtbiker11@juno.com).

Recap:
What: PA Mountain Bike Summit
Where: Rothrock State Forest,
When: May 9-11
Who: Anyone who wants to improve mountain biking in PA. Mulitple representatives from the same club is not a problem. The 4H camp can has room for 100 people camping, the meeting hall will hold about 50.
Why: Why not?

Michaux race series site hacked!

Anyone try to visit the www.racemichaux.com site lately? It looks like its been hacked and fugged up by some idiot. I assume the guys at G-burg cycles already know it, but I sent them an email anyway. Jackweed hackers.

Ride

Well lets do Mont Alto one more time this Sunday, 9am.