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.

The tag line sums it up: 3 guys, 1 bike, 100 days, 13,000 miles, 65 cities. From May 13th through August 20th, 2009, three 60+ year old Lutheran pastors will be pedaling a bicycle built for three (triplet) over 13,000 miles across the U.S. to raise awareness (and donations) to help eliminate world hunger and to promote healthy living. Not just any triplet, but a Craig Calfee built bamboo frame adorned with Shimano Ultegra components and custom wheels built to carry the 600lb. payload over the 13,000 miles of the tour.

The Tour de Revs was conceived in 2007 by pastors David Twedt, Ron Schlak, and Fred Soltow who have been colleagues and friends for fifteen years and share a commitment to wellness. The Tour de Revs ride is a spiritual journey in their campaign against world hunger.

The goal of the Tour de Revs is to encourage contributions to support the ELCA’s (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) world hunger activities. They are seeking funds from individuals, congregations, and Synods to support the ELCA in meeting the $25 million annual goal set in 1999. Along the way, the Revs will also encourage folks to set personal health and wellness goals.

To donate to the ELCA world hunger fund via the Tour de Revs website click here. For more about the Tour de Rev, including their route/schedule and ride blog, visit www.tourderevs.org.

We’re here at the Sea Otter Classic, the kickoff event for the cycling season – at least the “official” part of the season, the racing and product launch part. Many of you probably never stopped riding in the winter, nor did we. But hey, this event is interesting and a lot of fun, with something for pretty much everyone on two (or one, or three) wheels.

This year, the weather has been unusually nice – no rain, no gale force winds. (Well, at least the wind died down after Wednesday’s debacle of trying to set up camp with everything blowing away.) The expo area was already drawing a decent crowd on Thursday, a nice mix of local enthusiasts, international pros, and groms cruising around popping little jumps on 20” bikes. This event is sort of like Interbike for the masses with a full complement of exhibition booths and demo bikes that anyone can try.

Wandering from our home base at the Dirt Rag booth, we first encountered Chris Sugai of Niner Bikes showing off an impressively colorful display of the new Niner rigid carbon forks. A year and four months of development have yielded a uniquely-shaped fork that is almost stupid-light at 550g, yet has passed lengthy stress tests at both Niner and RockShox’s labs with flying… er, colors. It’s made completely of carbon except for a steel “sandwich” of plates to protect the dropout. Despite it’s almost aero appearance, it seems like something that would be right at home on a 29er singlespeed for a wicked-light and fast ride.

The question of where the fork is made (China) led to a discussion of the state of global parts manufacturing. The fact is that facilities to make quality carbon parts just don’t exist here in the States. To mitigate one big problem with overseas manufacturing – industrial pollution, Chris and Co. have done what they can to work with a factory that uses more environmentally friendly practices, such as water reclamation and solvent-reducing painting methods. Of course bike-making is not dead here in the U.S., although Cannondale’s imminent factory closing strikes a blow; instead it has shifted back to the small-scale and individual builders, as testified by the NAHBS and the explosion of regional handmade bicycle shows.

Next we wandered to the WTB booth. We’ve got some stuff from them on tap to test. But I also spotted a guy that looked familiar… turns out it was Bobby McMullen, the WTB-sponsored rider who happens to be legally blind. (See issue #122 for an interview with him.) He was at Sea Otter to race, of course, but also to meet folks and promote an independently-made film about him from Poison Oak Productions, called The Way Bobby Sees It. It was a pleasure to meet him, and hopefully we’ll get to catch him out on the course later.

Further on down the row of booths, we spotted Pittsburgh ex-pat Mike Rainey at the Commencal booth. He was there to show off prototypes of the carbon-fiber version of the Meta 5.5. The frame looked pretty sweet, offering the same 140mm of travel as the aluminum version but weighing under 5lbs. Mike also told us about the Absolut SX slopestyle bike, developed in part with help from their “Young Guns,” two teenage Commencal riders who had been “crushing” the regular dual slalom bikes and needed something beefier. The Absolut’s rear end pivots around the bottom bracket, and thus can work with either a deraileur or as a sisinglespeed, and it will come complete with both types of dropouts.

Mike regaled us with tales of an event Commencal put on late last summer at Angel Fire resort in New Mexico – a 12-hour downhill race. This sounded like a crazy amount of fun. Racers could choose from three courses – easy, medium and hard – and their times were started from the moment they got on the lift. Mike said this made for a tense ride up, but then an explosion of that tension out on the course. Apparently times actually got faster once it got dark and the riders couldn’t see the rocks. The event wasn’t publicized for the first run, but Mike says they hope to do it bigger this year.

After this we went in search of some refreshments, but on the way found some really unusual and cool-looking street bikes. I stood there puzzling over the stylized logo on the bikes’ tubes, trying to figure out what it said, but then the builder handed me a business card – he is Matthew Rodriguez, and his brand is Shortyfatz. This frame had a beautiful raw-plus-clearcoat finish. Also displayed were several long-n-low cruisers (in the background) with many-spoked wheels, and a couple of singlespeed/fixie street bikes, all with “pointy” downtubes resembling those of big ol’ motorcycle frames made to support a giant engine.

On some of these bikes and in this up-close display, Eric’s sharp eye spotted a unique eccentric bottom bracket by Phil Wood with a smaller diameter, which is made for use with a half-link chain, and thus smaller and lighter than its full-link cousin.

Toward the end of the day we wandered to the Control Tech booth and saw this cool new carbon crank for a 2×9 set-up. (I’ve long been a fan of the 2×9.) Its two chainrings are a regular 94mm bolt circle diameter, but its spindle is an elongated triangle shape, which should eliminate the problem of stripping splines on a round spindle. Jason Rico, doing double-booth duty, also showed us some slick wheels from relatively unknown maker A-Class. They are diving right in to the 650B size, and also had a nice-looking high end mountain wheelset, the BXD-1, with scandium-alloy rims and aluminum disc rotors.

For Friday, it looks like I’ll get to do a bit of riding with none other than Cedric Gracia. Whew, maybe I better find a full-face helmet and some pads…  In the next couple of days we’ll hopefully get to demo the new carbon version of the Santa Cruz Blur, and some new bikes from Specialized. We’ve also been speculating about the possibility of actually participating in a race. I’m sure we’d get our doors blown off by all these fit people who live in perpetual sunshine, but it would be nice to experience another main attraction. Oh, how we suffer for you readers!

Here is Maurice (DR’s Big Cheese) with the special inflation forces from Genuine Innovations, Marty Mares (president of the company) and Michael Drabousky (communications director). Bigwigs have fun too in the bike industry.

[Additional Sea Otter reports: Day Two, Day Three. For our Sea Otter photo gallery click here.]

As much as I hate to admit it, I actually had to look at a map to find the Philippines when Karen asked me if I was interested in attending.  Should have known it would be an interesting trip.

The 7,107 islands that make up the Philippines sprawl out over the Pacific Ocean, covering an area roughly the size of Arizona.  With a population of approximately 97 million people, you can imagine just how densely populated the urban areas can be.   Cultural diversity varies greatly island to island, and region to region.  While English is the business and education language of the Philippines, and is widely spoken and understood, locals don’t have to travel far before regional Tagalog dialects make communication in the native tongue difficult.  Like many third world countries, economic diversity is a stark reality.  The slums of Manila are set on a backdrop of new, ritzy high rises, while primitive indigenous villages are not hard to find.  Driving through the countryside, you’ll see thatched roof shacks, splashed with the color from blue tarps, set above small plots of farmland with maybe an ox, or two, dotting the rolling hills.

Eighty-five percent of Filipinos are of the Roman Catholic faith, due to nearly 500 years of Spanish rule.  Magellan landed here in 1521, and was reportedly killed shortly thereafter by a local down south for his crusade to spread Christianity.  Read more about the Philippines here on Wikipedia.

The host town of the festival, Subic Bay, was once home to one of the largest US Navy bases in the south Pacific until the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.  After the eruption, which left feet of ash raining down on the area, and closure of the base, the Subic area spiraled into decay.  Within the last few years, there has been a huge push to reinvent Subic as a tourism destination, and possibly even the cycling destination of the Philippines eventually.  This emphasis on fostering cycling tourism is a definite sign of progress for a country which is far more likely to see purely utilitarian uses of pedal power.

For a little introduction to the Terry Larrazabal Bicycle Festival, check out my blog here. In its eighth year running, most reports indicate this TLBF was the best yet.  The festival kicked off on Thursday with presentations from Hans Ray, Brian Lopes, Jeff Jones, and Jay McNeil from Banshee Bikes.  Hans talked about his non-profit organization Wheels4Life which strives to provide bicycles for those in need of transportation, whether it be kids getting to school, or farmers carrying coffee beans to the market.  Wheels4Life is doing some great things, check out their website and support the cause.  Lopes talked about what it takes to perform on top of the world stage, and gave advice to those who strive to do their best.  Jeff Jones did a quick presentation on his design vision and theories.  Jay McNeil gave a highly informative presentation on rear suspension designs.

The next few days were filled with racing, both on road, and off, ranging from road racing, triathlon, XC, downhill, 4x, BMX, and even trials.  The road cycling scene here in the Philippines is fairly well established, but the mountain bike scene is quite green.  Comparing the off road race courses to those here in the states, and in Europe, simply isn’t fair since we’ve been continually working to refine our trails for decades.  For instance, the XC race course had about 1/8 mile of freshly cut singletrack, while the rest of the course was smooth fire road and paved road.  But, the real story here is simply the fact that this festival is even happening, and is giving the cycling scene here in the Philippines kick start.  Regardless of any scheduling issues–punctuality seemed to be much less important here than us up-tight Americans desire–everyone I talked to was simply happy to have a festival with mountain bike racing.

I’m sure by now you’re wondering whether or not you should entertain attending the TLBF.  The Philippines is an easy place for English speakers to visit, as nearly everyone speaks English, and those who don’t mostly understand the language.  Don’t come here looking for miles and miles of amazing singletrack mountain bike trails, you have to keep in mind the scene is young and there hasn’t been much time for development.  If, however, you’re looking for a good bicycle related excuse to visit the south pacific, this might just be your ticket.  The best part of coming to the Philippines has been taking in the relaxed pace of life here, and meeting some wonderful new people who helped give me a glimpse of life in the Philippines.

The shear excitement and low-key nature of the people at the TLBF was great fun, and a refreshing change from the intense and commercial nature of many of the festivals here in the US.  Overall, I think the TLBF shows a great deal of promise for the burgeoning cycling scene here in the Philippines.  For a visual tour, check out the Dirt Rag gallery for more pictures.

Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Adventures is a mountain bike tour company, offering trips in places like British Columbia, Peru, New Zealand, Utah and other destinations. Sacred Rides invites mountain bikers to show their love of the sport with their new “I Love Mountain Biking” video contest. The winner gets an all-expenses-paid mountain bike trip to Peru worth over $4500. The grand prize includes a spot on one of their trips in Peru, return airfare from North America or select spots in Europe, and the use of a DeVinci bike for the duration of the trip.

Here’s the skinny. Submit a video between 1 to 3 minutes duration that expresses your love of the sport: footage of you riding your home trails, helmetcam from the Himalayas, a song and dance, a music video, whatever. The sooner you enter, the better your chances, so get filming today! For contest details & to enter your video, visit www.sacredrides.com.

A look at upcoming bicycling events, including Dirt Rag / Bicycle Times World Tour stops at the Terry Larrazabal Bike Festival in the Philippines, Dirt Rag’s 20th Anniversary Celebration at Ray’s MTB Park in Ohio and the Sea Otter Classic in California.