Last weekend was the 12th annual Cirque du Cyclisme in Leesburg, VA. With events planned for Friday through Sunday, we made plans arrive early Friday morning.  The wife and kids decided to make the trip with me, and the four of us loaded up the family sedan very early Friday and drove south to meet up with Maurice and the Dirt Rag/Bicycle Times van.

A few relatively pleasant hours later we arrived and walked into the hotel lobby which was already filling up with vintage bikes.  Friday’s events consisted of registration, the Sheldon Brown Memorial Fixie Ride and a Charity Auction in the evening. A mid-afternoon downpour kept some but not all fixed riders under cover, and about half a dozen intrepid souls set out, all sans fenders to ride and remember a founding father of the modern day fixed movement.

The auction was a busy evening, with everything from toeclips to complete bikes auctioned off, with the proceeds going to Bikes for the World and the US Bicycling Hall of Fame.

Saturday morning was sunny and clear, and some of those classic bikes went out for a spin.

Dave Wages, Jan Heine, and Peter Weigle presented afternoon seminars, which rolled into an evening of meeting the builders and awards reception.

Sunday morning had more riding, followed by a trip down the road to the county fair grounds for the bike swap and vintage bike show.  Quite a few vendors were on hand, selling parts to put the finishing touch on your latest classic restoration, or a bike on which to base your next restoration.

The vintage bikes were grouped together by time period, and awards were presented for each era. There was also a large contingent of modern builders represented with modern interpretations of classic styles. See the list of winners here.

Parked outside the venue was this great traveling museum.

Next year is already in planning stages for an early June event. Those of you with an appreciation for vintage bikes will be pleased with the both the bikes presented and the knowledge of the attendees. Lots more info and pics are linked here.

On the way home we found this pretty incredible coffee shop in a converted church , Beans in the Belfry. A perfect ending to a long weekend of vintage bike goodness.

With over $50,000 in cash and prizes up for grabs, the U.S. Open of Mountain Biking is hard evidence that America’s mountain bike gravity racing scene is alive and well. The event, which takes place at Diablo Freeride Park/Mountain Creek Resort in Vernon, NJ on May 22nd-24th, 2009, offers up-and-coming athletes a unique opportunity to compete against the world’s elite gravity pros.

With improvements including an updated Downhill course, a new Giant Slalom/IndyCross discipline, and a new Junior class racing category, the 2009 edition of the U.S. Open should prove to be the largest to date. The total pro purse is $25,000 in cash, with the pay-out scale being equal for both the men’s and women’s categories.

There will be demo opportunities and an exhibitor expo for those interested in checking out the latest gear. For more information and/or registration visit this link.

Anthony Sloan, Yeti’s demo guy for the Rocky Mountain territory, died suddenly on Thursday, May 7th. He will be missed by family, friends and many who rode and hung out with him, but also by many more riders who were inspired by photos and writings posted on his website and on the Passion forum at MTBR.com.

From Yeti Cycles:

Yeti Cycles and the mountain biking community is holding a memorial service in memory of Anthony Sloan, who passed away on May 7, 2009 in Golden, Colorado.

Anthony was known to many of you as Yeti’s demo guy. We know him as much more. Anthony was erudite, curious and well traveled. He was compassionate and kind. He was a brilliant wordsmith and photographer and was eager to share his experiences in words and images on his website (www.anthonysloan.com). He was an accomplished rider and lived life with zest and purpose.

Friends, family, fellow riders and colleagues will gather on Friday, May 15, 2009 at 11 a.m. at Alderfer / Three Sister’s Park for a memorial ride to the top of Evergreen Mountain. Afterwards we will gather in the Alderfer / Three Sisters Park by the big barn in the Evergreen Rec. District, to pay tribute and celebrate the life of Anthony Sloan. Food and beverage will be provided. A memorial fund will be set up in behalf of Anthony’s family. Any donations will be welcome.

Parking will be limited to 50 vehicles at the parking lot on Buffalo Park Road & Le Masters Road. All other vehicles are welcome to park by the Evergreen Lake and ride up the road to join.

Directions / Map

Park Map

Please RSVP to srawley@yeticycles.com or (303) 278-6909 ext. 1015.

This past Tuesday, the members of the online bike community BikeMojo.com, where Anthony was a member, held a memorial ride and party to celebrate Anthony’s life at his old stomping grounds of Emma Long Park in Austin, Texas. Many other such celebrations are planned around the country.

Anthony’s talent and passion for riding were evident in the piece (and the photos above and below) he submitted  for the Interstate 70 Ride Guide in Dirt Rag issue #136:

Colorado – Always Ride
You learn the tricks pretty quickly. In my job as a demo driver for Yeti, second priority is learning where to go for an easy access ride. (First priority: Keep the beer cooler full.) Easy access, meaning easy to pull the rig in, quick access to the trail from the interstate, a satisfying but not too epic ride…you know…easy. The I-70 corridor has a wealth of options. The obvious choice is the Fruita area, with the plethora of desert trail goodness that lurks just beyond the Mack exit, but when it is rideable, I head for Minturn, Exit 171. The Meadow Mountain Loop.

Last November I was spinning back to the Front Range after a 4-day demo out in Fruita and spent the first stretch debating on whether or not to try for a ride. I was torn between steaming back home in a diligent fashion, or trying for one last high country ride. I drove right by the exit, in fact. Spent the next two exits drumming my fingers on the steering wheel and looking at the mountainside in the rearview mirror. The old adage ran through my head like a stock ticker: “always ride…always ride…” So I dove off the Interstate and turned around. I ended up swiping a ride right out of the clattery beak of winter. I rode the jeep road up and spun the highway out of my system. It was a funny sort of day out there. Quiet, quiet. With occasional groups of wildlife moving around in excited little clusters. A couple of magpies bustled and fussed over me, followed by several crows. The woods had that aimless feel of the last day of school. Up top at the line shack I could tell I had some postholing in front of me. The first section of singletrack had a healthy layer of snow on top of it. The easy had become epic. Well, sort of epic. Semi-hemi-demi-epic. But as always, it paid off. After losing about 700ft. of elevation, the trail cleared out and turned into flowy, loamy Colorado singletrack. One last taste before it all went under for the winter.

Don Walker, the man behind the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, used his Facebook NAHBS group to announce that the 2010 North American Handmade Bicycle Show will take place on February 26–28th at the Richmond Convention Center. Don has promised further details soon, and we’ll be sure to pass  them on.

For a taste of the NAHBS flavor, click here for our trip report from the 2009 show in Indianapolis. To go straight to the eye candy, click on our 2009 NAHBS photo galleries: here, here and here.

For a little perspective on Richmond, we offer the following passage from Wes Cheney’s Richmond Commuter Portraits photo-journal story that he penned and photographed for Dirt Rag #128:

At first glance, Richmond, Virginia might seem an odd town to foster a burgeoning bike scene. It is a typical old American city surrounded by sprawling suburbs. Still carrying the psychological, if not physical, scars of the War of Northern Aggression (as it’s locally known), the mills closed about the same time that the white middle class fled to the suburbs after Massive Resistance failed to halt school integration. But, with the presence of the state government, several banks and several more universities, the downtown has been transformed by the young and hip, as well as the old hippies. There are more bikes than bike lanes, and independent bike shops have sprung up around both uptown and downtown Richmond (and in Richmond, uptown really is up a hill, and downtown is in a river bottom).

[Thanks to Scott House for sending the following report on the fundraiser for injured rider Nick Van Dine].

If you hadn’t already heard, all around good guy and Cannondale factory pilot Nick Van Dine took a nasty fall snowboarding that landed him in the ICU. Nick underwent reconstructive surgery shortly after the crash, and is only a short time away from being back on the bike. Getting rolling on two wheels is the easy part for Nick; it’s the bills that presented the biggest problem.

On Thursday, April 23rd the Mountain Bike community came together to help Nick with some of those bills so he could focus on riding. The NVD Fundraiser kicked off at 7:00pm at the Sidecar Bar in Park City, UT. If you live in a resort town you know this is about as slow of a time as resort towns see, so we had some concerns regarding attendance. By 8:00 o’clock the room was starting to fill up though and the money was rolling in. We had enough raffle prizes to run a Price is Right show, and the silent auction was looking like a Madison Avenue affair. OK, not really but we were set up for success is the point.

At about 9:00pm we really got the night moving along. With the help of the Sidecar bartenders we had adequately lubricated our guest’s wallets, and raffle tickets were going by the 10’s and 20’s. The silent auction was also starting to see some action. Doug Dalton (Cannondale bikes) kicked off the first portion of the raffle and decided after talking to a couple of beautiful young ladies that we needed a live auction as well. Turns out those young ladies really like spa treatments because we raised about an extra $150.00 by letting them bid against each other. What a great show it was!!!

Ledfoot provided the entertainment for the evening. I think a good band is judge by their musical versatility, and Ledfoot had plenty to spare. Our ears were graced with great tunes from the likes of Led Zepplin, the “Nuge”, Rolling Stones, and plenty more. The bar staff kept lubricating wallets and the party kept rolling. At this point the stragglers and fashionably late started to arrive. People like Adrian Montgomery from SCOTT Bikes, and the local freeride crew. Big thanks to Adrian and SCOTT for their donation.

At set break we finished the formalities of the evening, raffling off the rest of the great prizes from sponsors like Troy Lee Designs, Bear Naked, Freeride Foundation, Brothers Bikes, White Pine Touring, and DH Productions just to name a few. It was also time to announce the winners of the silent Auction. Thanks to Thule, Cannondale, Deer Valley Resort, EWR Bikes, Troy Lee Designs, and Camp Chef for donating great items for the Auction. The auction alone raised $2,000.00 and although that is far below the retail value of the items available it was a welcome boost to the night’s funds, and people were stoked on their winnings.

Ledfoot came on for their second set and really got the place hopping. The night ran on with great tunes, cold beer, and great friends. When all was said and done we raised just under $4,000 to help with Nick’s medical costs; a healthy sum by any measure.

It is events like this that remind us what a great bunch of people the mountain bike community is. It’s not about being the coolest, or having the best bike, or being the fastest up or down the hill. It’s about the experiences with your friends. It’s about having fun, and helping each other out for the greater enjoyment of everyone. It’s about self expression, and sharing your vision with all who want to see it. I have never been more stoked to call myself a mountain biker more than I am now. If you’re a mountain biker take a second to reflect on all the great times you have had on and off the trail with your fellow dirt shredders. Think about when you leant a hand to someone you didn’t know on the trail, and when that favor was returned to you by another stranger. That’s the heart and soul of our sport. Not the bike or the trail but the people you meet and the experiences we share. Thanks to all those who attend NVD’s party, and to all the generous sponsors who helped to make this event a success. Shred on!!!!!

[Ed note: If you would like to make a donation to Nick and were not able to attend the fundraiser, White Pine Touring will be collecting donations (Physical: 1790 Bonanza Dr, Park City, UT 84060; Mailing: PO Box 280, Park City, UT 84060). Checks can be made payable to Nick Van Dine.]

Tomac Bikes announced the completion of a limited edition John Tomac print—based off a 1995 photo by Tom Moran, which features Johnny T drifting through a corner at the Kamikaze—which was painted by Tomac graphic artist Randy Rigg.

“The Kamikaze has always been a very special event in US downhill racing history,” says Tomac owner Joel Smith. “And I think Johnny’s style and aggressiveness epitomized the racing at the time. The painting really captures the race’s essence of speed, and for those of you who attended those events, it will surely evoke the majesty of racing back then.”

“My goal was to create a realistic portrayal of Johnny’s racing” says artist Randy Rigg. “The painting is just snapshot of a moment, but there is this inherent movement that I hope was captured in it.”

Tomac will produce a limited run of 20 John Tomac autographed giclee prints on 15 inch by 20 inch canvas, which will also be hand signed by the artist. The prints will cost $250, with $50 of each print going to the Tara Llanes Road to Recovery Fund to help the Tara deal with the expenses related to her September 2007 accident. Interested parties should contact Joel Smith via email.