Outdoors

I have just released an updated version of my popular Mountains of Colorado Screensaver, a downloadable screensaver application featuring 130 of my favorite photos from the Colorado Rockies. The new version provides added support for newer operating systems like OSX Mountain Lion and Windows 8. While I was at it I also added about 20 of my newer Colorado photos! You can purchase and download the screensaver here. If you are already a customer and would like to get the newest version, please email me with the email address you originally used to purchase the screensaver, and I’ll send you fresh download links.

This Memorial day, as we remember all who sacrificed for us, let us cyclists also remember the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps at Fort Missoula, Montana, back in 1896. Those are the Buffalo Soldiers you see up there, at Yellowstone. This infantry was established to see if bikes could work for military purposes in mountainous terrain. Seeing as bikes were getting popular and the Europeans had already been using them for both recreation and military use, we decided to give it a look. General Nelson A. Miles started all this. He’d seen a six-day race in Madison Square Garden and got the bug. He thought that, unlike a horse, a bike didn’t need to be watered, rested, and fed. There’s also the stealth qualities of a bike, compared to a snorting, neighing horse – an asset in battle. So the Bike Corps was formed. Spalding bikes loaned the soldiers some single-speed bikes and they set out on their first jaunt – a four-day, 126-mile trip. Each bike plus gear weighed over a hundred pounds. Not bad considering their rations: “…1 jar Armour’s extract of beef, 7 cans beans, 2 lbs. salt, 5 lbs. prunes, 6 lbs. sugar, 5 lbs. rice, 2 lbs. baking powder, 1 can condensed milk, 20 lbs. bacon, 3 cans deviled ham, 2 ounces pepper, 2 lbs. coffee, 35 lbs. flour, 3 cans corn, 1 can syrup, 3 lbs. lard.” The roads were muddy and steep, creek crossings meant tires had to be re-cemented to the wooden rims, but despite this, longer and tougher journeys were planned to test the men’s mettle. Journeys of 790 miles in 16 days and, the biggie, a 1,900-mile, 34-day journey from Missoula to St. Louis. In the end, they realized that an Army Bicycle Corps could travel twice as fast as a typical cavalry or infantry and at one-third the cost and effort. A large part of those tremendous stats and conclusions can be attributed to the spirit and toughness of those buffalo soldiers. Thanks, guys. And thanks to everyone who’s made the ultimate sacrifice. 18 Miles Per Hour is Brian Miller and Rhys Newman. Illustration by Rhys. See more at 18milesperhour.com.

It’s hardly the end of the contentious issue that has divided the Boy Scouts of America, but it’s a start at least. Yesterday the organization of more than 2.6 million kids, guided by some one million adult volunteers, held a vote via secret ballot of more than 1,400 volunteer leaders from scouting’s 270 councils. Allowing openly gay scouts won with more than 60 percent approving the measure that said no youth may be denied membership “on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” The shift is symbolically profound, especially considering that a major organizing pillar of the scouts has been both the Mormon and Catholic churches (Mormons make up a disproportionately large sector of the organization vs. their overall portion of the population). But religious leaders in both churches said they would not abandon scouting so long as any new policy applied to youths and not leaders. Evangelical groups were far less progressive. “Allowing openly gay scouts will mean the blunt injection of hypersexuality and gay activism into a youth organization,” said John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, a conservative group. Stemberger, an Eagle Scout who has crusaded against gay marriage and abortion, has sought to mobilize like-minded former scouts with a group called OnMyHonor.Net. Robert Schwarzwalder, a senior vice president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, said, “I think there will be a loss of hundreds of thousands of boys and parents.” But scouting has already seen a 40 percent loss in members since the early 1970s, and several sponsors, including UPS, Merck, the Intel Foundation, and many local United Ways and city agencies had already ended financing for the Scouts because the group’s policies violated their own nondiscrimination guidelines. And even as the the BSA allows openly gay kids, it will not allow scout leaders who are out of the closet, creating a paradoxical situation where an eagle scout, upon turning 18, cannot volunteer to guide a troop, and that’s the very pipeline of renewal that has sustained the scouts for generations. Via New York Times.

This past Saturday saw the team head to Wilmington Delaware for one of the country’s most popular and rapidly growing criteriums, and the continuation of the National Criterium Calendar. With a string of podiums at Speed Week, and Shane Kline’s win at the Dana Point GP, the team has a lot of confidence now and came into the race prepared to execute. Jackie Simes, Shane Kline, and Adam Myerson at the head of the race. As has been the pattern in recent weeks, the race was aggressive, and so were we. We managed to put riders into every significant breakaway attempt, but it wasn’t in the cards, and the race was destined to come down to a field sprint. Given how Shane has been sprinting lately, we were confident that he could win with his best effort and some luck on the last lap. The boys put him right where he needed to be on the leadout train of our rivals at UHC, and he made the brave and smart decision to anticipate the sprint by carrying more speed through the last corner, passing the UHC guys early, and trying to hold his gap to the line. He lead the sprint until the last few seconds, but unfortunately got passed by 2 guys, with Team Smartstop-Mountain Khakis alumni Luke Keough taking the win. Shane Kline set up perfectly with one lap to go. Shane on the podium, yet again. Wins All Over:  The rest of the team was busy this weekend, putting in some great performances at local races all over the eastern seaboard, with the team netting wins in Georgia, North Carolina and New York. Frank Travieso and Thomas Brown raced the Gainesville Grand Prix  in Georgia, which was a three event omnium with a time trial, circuit race, and road race. The boys did a great job with Frank ending up first, and Thomas 2nd overall. On Saturday morning, Frank won the 7 mile time trial and Thomas was third.  Later that afternoon was a circuit race, and a dangerous break got away midway through.  Thomas pulled it back over the climb the last two laps.  Thanks to a friendly push, he did his best to lead out Frank in a downhill sprint where Frank got fourth. Sunday was a 70 mile road race with 7000 feet of climbing.  Steady rain and the constant hills took their toll on the field.  Eventually Thomas and Frank ended up in the final selection of 6 riders.  Frank lead out the sprint where Thomas sprinted to the win with Frank also getting second. Good work guys! Thomas and Frank on the podium in Gainesville. Back near home base in North Carolina, Chris Uberti, Pat Raines, Jon Hamblen, Travis Livermon and Dan Patten contested the Falls Lake Road Race weekend near Raleigh, with a flying Chris Uberti taking out the win in both Saturday’s rainy 62 mile road race, and Sunday’s criterium. Finally, up north in New York, Nathaniel Ward hit up the Tour De Syracuse omnium, a 3 stage event with a time trial, criterium, and hilly 80 mile road race. He won the criterium from a field sprint, and managed 4th place overall in the omnium. Nathaniel Ward on the podium in Syracuse Congrats to all of our riders on so many strong rides this weekend! Next weekend brings us to the classic Tour of Sommerville criterium in New Jersey, We won the race last year, and we’re looking forward to racing to defend our title. Thanks for reading, and a huge thank you, once again, to all of our sponsors, fans and supporters than make all of this possible.

I was going to post about our desert trip today but something else has taken precedence. The bears around here started appearing on my trail cameras in early April. At first, I saw only the big males, Tiny and Milton. More recently, other bears have made appearances. This uniquely marked young bear appeared at a bear-marking tree on May 7. The black "socks" and the black ridge on his spine are

Here's a new ski video from local Jackson Hole skier Matt Philippi. Salvage – Philippi Spring 2013 from Matt Philippi on Vimeo.

The first round of the 2013 Enduro World Series took place in Italy this past weekend and it was pretty epic. Enduro is an evolving format with bits of XC, downhill, and even street riding mashed together. In the first race of the year — formats will all differ — it required more than 4,500 feet of climbing and 40 miles of riding, with four timed sections. Who made the podium says a lot about how attractive the style could become, with downhiller Fabian Barrel winning, enduro specialist Jerome Clementz in second, and former BMXer Jared Graves taking third. The field was extremely broad: Old school downhillers like Steve Peat clashed against pure cross-country riders like Adam Craig, and world champ downhiller Greg Minnaar even risked his collarbones. Maybe this enduro thing is actually tapping into what regular mountain bikers know and most of the establishment seems to have forgotten: that riding lots of different terrain, earning your vertical, and encountering different styles over a few days is really, really fun. Add a stopwatch and suddenly you have racing. Very cool and not too contrived racing…something a lot closer to the soul of the sport. Photo: Matteo Cappe

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Rupert Grey is making a good run at the world’s most interesting man. After graduating Wellington College in the UK in 1965, he moved to Canada and worked as a lumberjack, cowboy, and roughneck. He came home, got a law degree, then became a paratrooper. Between 1969 and 1972 he prospected for copper in the South Pacific, hunted oil in Australia’s Great Sandy Desert, dredged oysters in the Tasman Sea, and dug fence-post holes in the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand. He came home to work as a lawyer, found it dull, accepted a job as a photographer, ended up in Fiji helping build schools, acted in a Hollywood feature film, and navigated a river in Papua New Guinea “in a dugout canoe counting saltwater crocodiles with an Alaskan smokejumper, three lance corporals and a radio presenter.” You could just stop right there, but this incredible life goes on. In 1977, he married his sweetheart, Jan, and they traveled through Asia. His photographs of the Himalaya ended up in National Geographic. And now? He and Jan have been traveling across India in a 1936 Rolls Royce. In his first post from the road, last November, he wrote, “The Rolls, being made of English ash, shrank as we crossed the Gujerat Plains. So did Jan and I. It was quite hot. Further north, in Rajasthan, the rough rural roads of the Thar desert rattled the screws out of their sockets and the nuts off their bolts. Parts fell off. Staying here, in a fort from the battlements of which we look down on the Thar desert through the haze characteristic of northern India, both we and the Rolls have recuperated.” If you’re feeling like you’ve stumbled upon an inveterate, unflappable, and eminently British traveler from days of yore, you aren’t alone. Filmmaker Oliver McGarvey has just wrapped the shooting of Grey’s trip and has begun piecing together Grand Trunk Road. AJ caught up with him for a few quick questions: How did you come upon Rupert? Rup and I have known each other for years. He has been sort of a mentor to me. The Yoda of how to live in big cities. Why make this film? Before this “film” existed the journey was being planned and mapped out. The original plan was to drive from Dhaka, Bangladesh, back to London via Iran and Turkey. When Rup first told me about the trip he had already been approached by the BBC to shoot a mini series. He declined because he felt they would mess with his style and was adament about making a radio log/show thing. I visualized him and his car in the most remote places running out of gas in colorful jungles and thought to myself. There is no way you are going to do this trip and NOT film it. In order to make that happen we had to fund the shooting of the film through grants and out-of-pocket. Alas, two years later we returned back from India with 200 hours of footage and some unreal stories. What was shooting like? Shooting the film was the most fun ever. I personally lost close to 30 pounds. Hanging out of old helicopters in the Himalayas within Nepal, hanging on to the camera rig and many a tuk-tuk for dear life, getting the shot in the middle of the night in a jungle and running to catch up to the leaving cars…the stories go on and on and on and the filming of the adventure was about as much fun as the trip itself. Sometimes it was incredibly exhausting, though, as it was a six-month journey. On, say, day 120 you are knackered and just want to have a glass of wine by the beach rather than wait for the DI data transfer of the daily rushes to be done. It was a mammoth undertaking and was the most testing film shoot I have ever worked on hands down. 200 hours of footage to be edited? Oi. When do you anticipate releasing the film? Yes, we have rather a lot of footage (not to mention we just finished shooting a ton in the UK and have some upcoming interviews with some amazing adventurers to come). We are working hard to A) find the right people to work with regarding

Friday night - The Midtown Gran Prix was more or less a warm up for the team.  We were just sitting in, riding into it, and using the opportunity to practice putting together our leadout train.  We were active covering moves early, but in the middle of the race a group of 12 went away and we were not represented in the move.   We practiced putting together our leadout for Shane and Isaac and did it well, with Isaac winning the field sprint for a minor placing. Saturday NCC- Tour De Grove - We went into the race with Shane being the protected rider after his win last week in Dana Point.   The rest of us covered breakaway attempts, with the goal of setting up a field sprint. It was very windy, and was a 4 corner course with long straightaways.  We covered all the moves until about 30 minutes in when we realized it was definitely going to be a field sprint. With 11 laps to go we decided to take the front to keep the sprinters out of trouble, and we rode under the instructions of Shane and Isaac who were piloting us around.  It was hard to maintain control on the long straightaways, and Jelly belly tried to take us over 3 times but we had enough horse power to fend them off.  With 1.5 laps to go UHC took us over, and Shane and Isaac were in perfect position heading into the last corner. Sitting pretty with 400m to go, Shane’s chain came off his front derraileur going into the last corner, taking him about 10 guys back.  He couldn’t get it back on quick enough, even though Isaac gave him a push. In the end he sprinted to 9th place, which was unfortunate and not representative of the level of professionalism we saw from our guys in this race. Luckily, this mishap has no bearing on Shane’s standing in the u25 jersey for the USA Crits series. Sunday-  Dutchtown Classic We went into the race with Isaac being saved for the finish because Shane wanted freedom to go with moves.  Once again we covered all the moves.  Shane rode amazingly well covering the majority of the breakaways himself. With 6 laps to go we took the front and rode super hard to keep Isaac and Shane out of trouble.  Jelly belly helped the leadout by contributing a couple of riders to the effort, as well.  With two corners to go, a couple of riders shot the inside forcing our guys back a bit.  They sprinted well and end up with Shane in 5th in a hectic finish. Team captain Adam Myerson has a nice interview posted over on Cyclingdirt, where you can hear him talking about the races, St. Louis, training and some other things.