To celebrate National Public Lands Day the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA), Continental Divide Trail Alliance (CDTA), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Salida Mountain Trails group are coordinating a massive volunteer effort on the Monarch Crest trail, outside of Salida, CO on Sept. 27th. Anna Laxague and Jason Wells of the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew will be in town to participate in a huge trailwork project that is devoted to maintaining and restoring the trail, which traverses the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains in the San Isabel and Gunnison National Forests.

Saturday’s trailwork day will be followed by an evening festival. Please bring your own lunch. Dinner will be provided.

On Sunday, volunteers will have the opportunity to experience the Monarch Crest trail, which is one of the country’s premier mountain bike rides. IMBA recently designated the Monarch Crest as an Epic. Group camping will be available at Monarch Park USFS Campground on US 50. Water source and restrooms available, please practice Leave No Trace ethics.

IMBA has more information on this event posted here.

This year, for the first time in a while, I find myself actually paying attention to the Olympics. As a youngster I used to be fascinated with the amazing feats of the likes of Nadia Comaneci, Vasiliy Alekseyev and Dorothy Hamill, and was the only one in my family who cared that the U.S. hockey team won gold over the Russians in 1980 (yes, I’m dating myself here), but in recent years the gold didn’t seem to shine as brightly. Not sure why, but maybe it was because the sport I chose to participate in and not just watch, mountain biking, got little real TV coverage during the Olympics, and the outcomes didn’t seem to really reflect who was best at the time or the spirit of the sport. I’m still bitter that Julie Furtado missed out on the gold she so obviously deserved on general merit, just because of an inconvenient medical condition that reared up at the wrong moment. There was also that silly points-chasing and court-scuffling that left my fellow West Virginian, Sue Haywood, home watching the race when she should have been out there with Mary McConneloug. (We invented the sport, goshdarnit, we should get two team spots for women!)

But this year I’ve gotten caught up in the gymnastics, the diving, the beach volleyball, and am looking forward to not one but two chances for bikes on dirt to shine: mountain biking and BMX. I’m especially eager to watch Jill Kintner make good on her yearlong quest to come back to BMX and grab its first gold offering. Jill was an awesome teacher at Dirt Rag’s Womens Weekend at Ray’s MTB earlier this year, taking time out from training to show us pump track skills, and she was fun to hang out with as well. It will be a thrill to cheer on someone I’ve actually met.

For those interested, the semi and final BMX races were postponed yesterday due to rain and will take place Friday morning. The women’s cross country race, originally slated for Friday afternoon, has been postponed due to rain as well, to Saturday morning. The men’s cross country will still take place Saturday afternoon. I’m not quite sure what that means for television coverage, but you can head over to NBC’s site to figure it out. Try to ignore the cheesiness of the major-network proceedings (although Bob Costas is not too bad, really) and check it out – you might see history being made.

Summer may be winding down, but the racing action is heating up. Dirt Rag World Tour stops at SSWC08 and the Shenandoah Mountain 100 highlight the upcoming events on our mega event schedule.

It’s been three years since the circus known as the Singlespeed World Championships touched the shores of the United States. While we here at Dirt Rag aren’t as fortunate as we were in 2005 to basically have SSWC in our back yard, we still plan on running away from home out to Napa, California to join the traveling band of one-geared freaks, animals and tents. If only for a weekend as it’s one of the stops on the Dirt Rag 2008 World Tour.

All racing spots for SSWC08 sold out in mere minutes on New Year’s Eve, so consider yourself very lucky if you got one of them. There’s a whole weekend of various official and unofficial rides and other festivities on tap in San Francisco, Marin and Napa. And then the big day is on Sunday, up at Skyline Wilderness Park in Napa.

Soulcraft and Kish are the big sponsors of SSWC8, but there are more than 50 other sponsoring companies who, along with Soulcraft and Kish, are offering up a pile of prizes big enough and deep enough that it’s likely each and every person racing…or “racing”…will walk away with some very good loot!

Dirt Rag will be on hand the whole weekend to give you on-the-scene reports and photos. But since SSWC is just as much a party as it is bicycle race, the regularity of our reporting might vary from day to day. But fear not. We’ll provide you with a full report and image gallery once the event is over, the hangover wears off, the cramps are worked out of our legs and we return to our normal lives.

On August 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. the women’s cross country mountain bike race in the XXIX Olympic Games will take place in Laoshan of the Shijingshan District in Beijing. The men’s competition is the following day, August 23rd on the same course and time. Thirty women and fifty men will compete for the three medals in each category, but only about thirteen individual athletes that are sponsored by RockShox will be riding on a RockShox SID with special decals commemorating the 2008 Olympic Games.

The SID’s white fork lowers and red decals look a lot like the Team SID, but looking a little closer you’ll notice the Chinese script and dragon intertwined on the right lower. The left lower simply reads Beijing 2008, which I was also told is what the Chinese script reads.

The 4.6-kilometer (2.85 mile) course was created for the games and includes two competition service buildings with room for 15,000 spectators. 2000 temporary seats were also installed. The course’s construction is said to have maintained and included the original landscape and vegetation of the hilly, forested countryside, without the use of concrete or steel. Woven bags with soil in them were used instead.

The course was purposefully built short and more difficult to increase the competitiveness of the riders. If a rider is lapped he/she will be pulled from the course upon completing the lap.

How can the non-Olympiad rider get their hands on a sweet commemorative RockShox SID? You can’t. I was told at a SRAM press camp that only enough were made for the thirteen sponsored riders plus a few extra for other important folks. –Shannon Mominee

Truvativ has just released details of HammerSchmidt, their planetary gear front transmission mechanism. Using just one chainring, the mechanism produces two gear ratios: a standard 1:1 and a 1:1.6 Overdrive. In the standard gear everything is locked and spinning together—turn the pedal once and the chainring goes around once. In Overdrive, turn the pedal once, and the mechanism’s planetary gearing results in the chainring turning about 1.6 times.

HammerSchmidt is equivalent to running 22/36 or 24/38 front rings, with a single ring. The single chainring results in improved ground clearance compared to a dual-ring, and an integrated chainguide keeps the chain on track. HammerSchmidt is offered in all-mountain (Stylo cranks) and a freeride versions (Holzfeller cranks).

Shifting is accomplished by special cable-actuated HammerSchmidt triggers (X.0 and X.9 versions available). The system allow shifting either while pedaling or while coasting. Truvativ says that HammerSchmidt shifts under any amount of load.

HammerSchmidt’s BB features a new proprietary BB/crankset interface—based on the Howitzer BB and compatible with 68, 73, or 83mm bottom bracket shell widths. HammerSchmidt involves a Collar Assembly which locks and unlocks the sun gear (of the planetary gear mechanism), allowing rotation and stop-rotation of the sun relative to the bike. The Collar Assembly is designed to mount to frames with ISCG 03 or ISCG 05 chain-guide mounting tabs. HammerSchmidt’s frame compatibility checker tool is available through dealers (to verify that your frame is compatible).

Truvativ reports that the weight of the HammerSchmidt all-mountain drivetrain has a a slight (172gm) weight penalty compared to a traditional dual-ring drivetrain. The freeride HammerSchmidt model is a mere 11gm heavier than a comparable, traditional drivetrain.

SRAM has created a mini-site with videos covering how Truvativ HammerSchmidt was made, how it works, and product details and specifications.

HammerSchmidt Manufacturer Suggested Retail Prices (USD):

• Shifter HammerSchmidt X.0 2-speed front with clamp $114
• Shifter HammerSchmidt X.9 2-speed front with clamp $57
• Crankset HammerSchmidt All Mountain 170 24T ISCG 05 (22T & ICSG 03 included) $595
• Crankset HammerSchmidt All Mountain 175 24T ISCG 05 (22T & ICSG 03 included) $595
• Crankset HammerSchmidt Freeride 165 24T ISCG 05 (22T & ICSG 03 included) $650
• Crankset HammerSchmidt Freeride 170 24T ISCG 05 (22T & ICSG 03 included) $650
• Crankset HammerSchmidt Freeride 175 24T ISCG 05 (22T & ICSG 03 included) $650
• Bottom Bracket HammerSchmidt All Mountain 68/73 $55
• Bottom Bracket HammerSchmidt All Mountain 83 $55
• Bottom Bracket HammerSchmidt Freeride 68/73 $55
• Bottom Bracket HammerSchmidt Freeride 83 $55