Leadville, CO – August 14, 2010 – Rebecca Rusch, the 2009 Leadville Trail 100 Women’s Champ and three-time 24 Hour Solo Mountain Biking World Champion, has scored another high-profile victory – taking top female honors at the 2010 Life Time Fitness Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race for the second year in a row. Finishing the grueling 100-mile race with a time of 7:47:35, Rusch beat her 2009 time by almost 30 minutes, and broke the course record set in 1997 by 11 minutes.

After a chilly early morning start, Rusch says the blue bird skies and temperatures in the high 60s to low 70s were a stark change over last year’s freezing conditions.

She spent most of the first half of the race trying to shake second place finisher Amanda Carey.  Rusch finally gained a sizeable gap at the Columbine climb.

“I just said it’s now or never,” said Rusch.  “I just knew it had to happen then.  And I just put the screws to her and it worked.”

Rusch battled through leg cramps during the last stretch of the race to cross the finish line 25 minutes before Carey and an hour before the 3^rd & 4^th place female finishers.

“Another win at Leadville is a huge. This race is just unreal,” said Rusch. “I’ve been training with this being my main goal all year. Still, I surprised myself.  I wanted the course record, but I didn’t expect to beat it by 11 minutes. This was the most painful day I had on a bike, but it was worth it.”

The Life Time Fitness Leadville Trail 100 is one of the most high-profile mountain bike races in the sport, as well as one of the most punishing, with steep climbs and harrowing descents totaling approximately 14,000 feet in elevation gain.  This year the race had more than 1,500 riders from 48 states and 21 countries.  The race covers 100 miles of peaks and valleys all above 9,000 feet in elevation in Leadville, CO.  It draws some of the top names in the sport, and at least 20,000 spectators.  The race is an out-and-back course; 50 miles to the highest point on the course, the Columbine Mine Aid Station at 12,600’.  90-percent of the race is on back-country dirt roads, with some short sections of paved road.

Since becoming a pro adventure racer and endurance athlete  in 2001, Rebecca Rusch, residing in Ketchum, ID, has proven to the world she has what it takes to execute any of the above even after going beyond her limits in far flung places like Kyrgyzstan and Tibet. She added 24 Hour Solo Mountain Bike racing to her résumé five years ago and proceeded to dominate the sport.  She is currently the three-time 24 hr Solo World Champion, two-time Leadville Trail 100 Champion. Rusch’s blog about her adventures and training can be found at www.rebeccarusch.com. www.twitter.com/thequeenofpain

Please explain.

Before he appropriated my bike, I had thrown on a pair of Fyxation Session 700 tires. These whitewalls on my yellow bike earned it the nickname “Scrambled eggs”. They’re 700×28c tires, with 120 TPI construction, a Kevlar belt, and a diamond tread pattern. While I’m not into either tricks or skidding, (riding single speed, not fixed) I certainly appreciate both the cushion a wider tire offers on our crappy streets, and the massive traction these tires provide. It could just be in my head, but it seems like the wrap-around tread has saved me more than once when cooking through a corner with more speed than I have any business going. And they hardly look worn, even though they’ve got a couple hundred miles on them already. My guess is that they should hold up well for quite some time.

Based on my time riding them, here are some observations.

Pros: They look good, handle great, and seem to be built well. Wide color choices, including solid colors, or colored whitewalls. Since the Fyxation guys are less than an hour from me, I can count on next day shipping. If you can’t find them locally, you can probably get them shipped within a few days.

Cons: Price may be a factor for some. While $50 is hardly expensive in the world of bicycle tires, that may be steep if you do a lot of skidding and go through a back tire every month. Weight may also be an issue, but since they seem to wear well and resist punctures, that too may not be a deal-breaker for everyone.

And let’s face it. Some guys (and girls) and going to get them just so they can coordinate them with the Fyxation BMX and Track grips. As long as you’re riding, it’s all good.

A small crash in the mud at Champéry, Switzerland has left Maxxis-Rocky Mountain team rider Cameron Cole, 22,with a broken scaphoid in his right hand, derailing his UCI World Cup downhill campaign for 2010. But the laconic Kiwi says there is a chance he could be back in time for the World Championships, which will be held at Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec at the end of August.

Follow Cam Cole at: www.cameroncole.blogspot.com

The current UCI World Cup downhill 

The muddy conditions made the track very challenging and forced Jonnier to change her strategy.

“It was so hard to race today – it rained all Friday, Friday night and until 10am on Saturday. It was really steep with big mud and it was really tough,” the Maxxis-Rocky Mountain rider explains.

“I decided to stay on my bike – once you crash on this track it’s pretty much over. If you get mud on your gloves you won’t be able to hold onto the bars anymore and if you lose your bike at the wrong place it can disappear into the bush – there would be no way to get back to where you should start from – it’s so steep in places. So I decided to go for a safe run – I went really slow – it was not fun at all. I would even say it was the worse run of my life.”

Jonnier finished in a time of 5:32.12 – 4.87 seconds behind current Downhill World Champion Emmeline Ragot, but second was enough for her to be able to extend her lead in the series.

“My qualifier went okay – I just tried to stay on my bike and I got second, but I was pretty far back behind Myriam Nicole – she had an amazing qualifier. I was a bit pissed off, but it was good to get some points for the overall.”

Jonnier crashed on a run on Saturday and hit her leg on “the one rock on the ground” so was glad the course did not have too much pedalling in it.

“I had a dead leg for a few days, so I couldn’t really pedal,” she laughs.

Taking the safe option in the final is out of character for Jonnier, but she admits the series win is on her mind.

“It is frustrating to go for a safe run and not try to go faster in the mud,” Jonnier offers.

Ragot, the current World Champion, became only the second rider (after Rachel Atherton won the opening round) to knock Jonnier from the top spot so far this World Cup season.

“I guess she had nothing to lose. She just went wild and she put everything together and it was good enough to be the fastest today. At the first split she was about 10 seconds ahead of me, but I must have made less mistakes after that point,” Jonnier explains.

“It was hard to stay on – I didn’t have any crashes today, but I had a few moments,” she laughs.

Jonnier said the team at Champéry had worked very hard to prepare an awesome track.

“At Thursday’s practice it was dry and it was fast and a lot of fun, it is a shame the rain came. Hopefully it will be dry for next year’s World Championships as it will be awesome to watch – it can be a real fast track,” she states.

Champéry is the first World Cup round that also features cross-country racing and so the Maxxis-Rocky Mountain team swells in size.

“Since the start of the season it had just been Cam [Cole] and I, and now we have the full team together. I will be up there tomorrow to support the cross-country riders.”

Jonnier was not sure how her rival Rachel Atherton, of Great Britain, was recovering, but expected to meet with her again at the final World Cup round at Windham, USA and then the World Championships at Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada.

“Hopefully she recovers well – I am sure she will be back and even stronger again,” she offers.

The World Cup DH1 season moves to Val di Sole, Italy on Sunday, August 1 and Jonnier jokes that people are already talking about more rain.

Sabrina’s 2010 Race Schedule

2010 UCI World Cup DH1 Events (6)
May 15/16: Maribor, Slovenia [Second]
June 05/06: Fort Wiliam, Scotland [First]
June 19/20: Leogang, Austria [First]
July 24/25: Champéry, Switzerland [Second]
July 31/August 1: Val di Sole, Italy
August 28/29: Windham, USA

2010 Enduro de Nations
June 25-27: Val d’Allos, France [First Women]

2010 Mega Avalanche
July 10-11: Alpe d’Huez, France [Eighth]

2010 UCI World Championships
August 31-September 05: Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada

Which brings me to TwoSpoke.com. I was approached by the admin of that site when I was wrapping up my contract with another forum. He was interested in trading links, and I offered to help out with his new forum any way I could. (Best advice? Don’t hire me to do anything. ) So I put up a link, joined the site, and offered my two cents when I had something of value to suggest. Nearly a year later, they’re still going strong, and have perpetuated that sense of community that none of the larger sites have been able to hold on to. And the owner (an actual cyclist) has been extremely proactive in maintaining the quality of the site, both on the server side, and the user end. While the site has been growing at a steady pace, it’s still held onto that sense of familiarity, where all the regulars not only know each other, but treat each other with respect, and welcome new members in a gracious manner.

If you haven’t already checked out the site, go have a look. You might even stay for a while.

HORS CATEGORIE, FRANCE (CFEpr+) July 21, 2010 - - Dave Mayer, founder of Clean Bottle, a revolutionary sports bottle that unscrews at both ends for easy cleaning, didn’t have a lot of money to launch his business. So he got creative. Mayer put together a five-foot-tall replica costume of his product, booked a flight to France and has been running alongside the riders at the tops of the climbs of the Tour de France.

In the process he’s become a minor celebrity.

“From what I hear I’ve gotten some good television time” said Mayer “my inbox is flooded with people telling me what a kick they get out of “Bottle Boy” running along with the cyclists.”

Creates “Bottle Boy” Costume for National Product Launch

Buoyed by his initial success, Mayer decided he needed to do a national product launch. But, he didn’t have the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes for this kind of effort.

Instead, he came up with “Bottle Boy” and launched a plan to run along the tops of the climbs of 12 stages of the Tour de France.

“The Tour de France is the Super Bowl of cycling.  By running with the riders I’d essentially get free commercial time focused on my exact target audience. I’d do it in a creative, funny way that hopefully would get people’s attention.”

Sales are Climbing Through the Roof!

So far, Mayer’s plan is working. “I’ve gone from $4,000 a month in sales to $4,000 a day.  And people are constantly emailing me about the bottle and what a great idea it is. Driving all night to get to the next stage and then hauling the costume some times as much as 20 kilometers to the top of every climb is a lot of work, but it’s definitely been worth it.”

Click Here to see Clean Bottle Coverage on Versus…

Look for Clean Bottle on Thursday’s Tourmalet Climb!

Clean Bottle’s Tour de France concludes with Thursday’s 19 kilometer climb up the Tourmalet, one of cycling’s toughest climbs. Look for Bottle Boy near the top, cheering on the riders and bringing smiles to the faces of cycling fans worldwide.

You can also see Clean Bottle’s ’stage reports’ at the Clean Bottle blog, http://cleanbottle.wordpress.com and its Facebook page www.facebook.com/cleanbottle

About Clean Bottle:

Clean Bottle was founded and is run by David Mayer, a road and mountain cyclist. Dave’s dream is to create phenomenal products that customers love and raise money for good causes.

Clean Bottle supports charities including Engineers Without Borders, Nature Conservancy, Yield to Life, Water1st, the California Bicycle Coalition and more.

Call Clean Bottle at 650.281.7681 and email info@cleanbottle.com to get on board the Clean Bottle Revolution!
cleanbottle.com

After two years of derailed national championship campaigns, Downhill World Cup Champion Sabrina Jonnier regained the French title on a dusty course at Val d’Isère, France, at the weekend. The current UCI World Cup downhill women’s leader, Sabrina Jonnier, of Hyères, France, said it was not an easy task on the dusty, rocky and changeable course.

“It felt more like a small World Cup race with five of the top girls from the World Cups competing for the title,” she said.

Jonnier, of the Maxxis-Rocky Mountain team, won the title with a time of 3:12 – Florian Pugin finished second with a time of 3:14 and World Champion Emmeline Ragot took third.

Also vying for the title was defending French champion Céline Gros and Myriam Nicole.

“I am very happy because this wasn’t my kind of track and I had to work very hard. It wasn’t technically challenging, but the track kept changing with the dust and the rocks were coming up and every run was different,” she explains.

The track featured high-speed sections that terminated in flat square turns, which Jonnier found difficult to hold speed through.

“I had a terrible qualifier as usual,” she explains. “I don’t know what is wrong with me – I messed it up. I qualified third and was three seconds behind Florian Pugin, so I was pissed off,” she laughs.

When asked whether qualifying first was better or not strategically, Jonnier laughed and said she didn’t like waiting at the top or the bottom of the hill.

While Jonnier took some time to find her speed on the track at Val d’Isère, it came together for her race run, despite strong sidewind conditons in the jumps at the top of the course.

“I could finally find some speed, but it was still not the way I normally ride. I was missing something – I wasn’t feeling comfy on the track. I was very worried at the finish because I had done a 3:12 and I wanted to do a 3:08 – that was the time that I thought would be the winning time. So when I crossed the line and saw my time I thought it would be hard to win. I knew the two girls behind me were pretty fast as well,” she smiles.

The French National Championship title has been an elusive one for Jonnier even though she has been performing well in World Cups and World Championships.

“I won the national championship in 2007, but in 2008 and 2009 I didn’t do very well, so I really wanted to win it this year – if you are one of the best at the World Cups then you should be at the top of the national champs as well,” she explains.

“It was a challenge to myself. It’s weird because I get tuned into the World Cups and then when I come to a race like this I don’t have my team with me and I am more relaxed and maybe a bit too much,” she laughs.

“I am very happy to win this race – last night I had to put my cat, Spy, down because he was sick. It was very sad – he was eight years old and so I wasn’t really focused much last night or this morning and so an hour before the start I said, ‘right I am going to get it all out and just go out and forget about everyting and have some fun on my bike’.”

Even with the work that has been done on the Champèry track in Switzerland for next weekend’s World Cup round, Jonnier anticipates the toughest race of the season.

“Champery is definitely going to be one of the hardest races of the season,” she admits.

Jonnier’s mid-season break has been far from restful, but she says she feels it will bode well for Champèry.

“I have done some fun races and it was good to put my mind on something else. Last year I focused on the World Championship for six months and then got a front flat and crashed in the final so after that I decided just to ride my bike for fun whenever I could. The Mega Avalanche definitely made me very tired and I can still feel the affects, but it was a lot of fun so it’s okay.”

But there is not much rest for Jonnier before Champèry.

“I leave at 5am on Monday morning to go on a photo shoot for Bollé and then I get a day and a half rest before the race,” she smiles.

The World Cup season resumes at Champèry, Switzerland on Saturday, July 24.

Sabrina’s 2010 Race Schedule

2010 UCI World Cup DH1 Events (6)
May 15/16: Maribor, Slovenia [Second]
June 05/06: Fort Wiliam, Scotland [First]
June 19/20: Leogang, Austria [First]
July 24/25: Champéry, Switzerland
July 31/August 1: Val di Sole, Italy
August 28/29: Windham, USA

2010 Enduro de Nations
June 25-27: Val d’Allos, France [First Women]

2010 Mega Avalanche
July 10-11: Alpe d’Huez, France [Eighth]

2010 UCI World Championships
August 31-September 05: Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. - July 15, 2010 - Interbike is hosting four lounges on the show floor of its International Bicycle Expo 2010. The indoor portion of the bike industry’s weeklong event will be held September 22-24, 2010 at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, and preceded by the OutDoor Demo September 20-21, 2010.

To provide attendees comfortable, easily accessible networking areas where they can meet and relax, Interbike will host the Women’s Product Showcase, Urban, Networking, and New Product Lounges.

“The new lounges are spacious rest areas in the midst of the Interbike action where attendees can sit down, eat lunch, meet people and soak in what’s going on around them,” said Rich Kelly, Interbike marketing director. “Each lounge dotting the show floor has its own focus and feel, representing a variety of cycling communities and showcasing the industries newest and most innovative products.”

The new Interbike lounges include:

Women’s Product Showcase Lounge
Presented by Outdoor Industry Women’s Coalition (OIWC)
Women-specific designs make their mark on Interbike in OIWC’s Women’s Product Showcase. The lounge is a welcoming and informative area where attendees can view displays of product designed specifically for women, learn about the exhibitors that support them and meet peers vested in the women’s market. Participating exhibitors include Terry, VeloPress and Hoo Hah Ride GlideR. Please contact Andria Klinger at andria.klinger@nielsen.com for information about contributing product to the Women’s Product Showcase Lounge.

Urban Lounge
Presented by Globe Bicycles
Urban Lounge will feel like a hip, day-long happy hour with features like DJ-spun music and a bar where a wide selection of coffee is available for purchase early in the day and beer and cocktails in the afternoon. This lounge is positioned inside the circular bike runway for the fashion show. Complimentary Wi-Fi is available.

Interbike Networking Lounge
Presented by Raleigh
The Interbike Networking Lounge near the Raleigh booth (#1842 and #2036) offers a break from the action of the show, giving attendees a chance to sit, converse, compare notes with their peers and suppliers, or just relax. Complimentary Wi-Fi is available.

New Product Lounge
Presented by Interbike
See the show’s new and most innovative bicycles and accessories in a comfortable place positioned right in the middle of the show floor. Complimentary Wi-Fi is available here, as is sitting space where attendees can eat their lunch from the adjacent concessions stand. Exhibitors interested in submitting their new product to the New Product Lounge should contact Andria Klinger at andria.klinger@nielsen.com or 949.226.5745.

For more information about the many events, seminars and activities surrounding the Interbike 2010 visit interbike.com.

About Interbike
Interbike (a business unit of Nielsen Expositions, the parent company of the Outdoor Retailer (OR), Action Sports Retailer (ASR), and Health+Fitness Business trade shows) is a full-service trade show company that creates, markets and produces high-quality expos and educational conferences. Producers of the OutDoor Demo and Interbike International Bicycle Expo, Interbike is the leading bicycle industry business-to-business event management company, bringing together top manufacturers, retailers, industry advocates and media to conduct the business of cycling. Interbike (www.interbike.com) gathers more than 1,100 cycling-related brands and close to 23,000 total attendees annually.

The Interbike 2010 trade-only events begin with OutDoor Demo (September 20-21, 2010 in Boulder City), followed by the Interbike Expo, September 22-24 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas.