Have you picked up the SINGLE-TRACK yet? I have my pair!

Andy B
outsideallday.com

Photo: Courtesy Mountain Bike Action
SANTA BARBARA – If you’re among the many people wondering about the County’s priorities, try this on for size. They’ve just hired an expensive Orange County law firm to sue a local nonprofit park and shut down a hugely popular, family-friendly mountain bike event that’s been running successfully for five years.

“At a time when the county is strapped for money, what on earth is the point of spending tens of thousands of dollars on a last-minute lawsuit to block an event that promotes healthy living, gets kids outdoors and away from the TV set, brings money into the community and benefits a charitable organization that provides recreational opportunities for local families at no cost whatsoever to the taxpayer?” said Michael Fauver, President of the Board of Directors for Elings Park, where the two-day mountain bike event is to be held on June 5 and 6.

“It just seems unconscionable that on almost the same day that the County released a budget providing for significant program cuts, and at the same time they were asking County employees to agree to salary and benefit cuts, the County hired a large Orange County law firm to come into Santa Barbara and force a local non-profit to shut down one of its most popular programs.”

“The annual Santa Barbara Bicycle Festival has drawn thousands of kids – and their parents – into a healthy, wholesome activity that combats the epidemic of obesity, brings families into an affordable sport, and subsidizes hikers, dog walkers and others who use the same trails. The County has allowed this event for the last five years and now they want to stop it. What has happened? We have done nothing different, but 10 days before our 6th Annual Santa Barbara Bicycle Festival they file a lawsuit? It’s hard to believe there isn’t another agenda here.”

Elings Park believes the lawsuit is a cynical manipulation by some of the park’s wealthy neighbors to use public money to advance their private campaign to end mountain and off-road biking in the park.

“There’s a small, elitist group that wants to keep South Elings Park as their private backyard at a time when we’re trying to expand recreational opportunities for the entire community – that’s what this is really about. We’re using the land exactly the way we’ve always said we would and the same way we’ve been using it for the past five years. Elings Park is a recreational resource for the entire community that relies completely on charitable donations and volunteers to operate its soccer fields, softball fields, picnic areas and mountain trails. If this elitist group succeeds in shutting down the bicycle festival, what’s next?” said Marcia Constance, Chairperson of the Elings Park Board.

Elings Park is asking residents who believe that kids and families should have a safe place to ride and enjoy nature to bring their bikes to a rally at 4pm Thursday May 27th at the corner of Anacapa and Anapamu Streets by the County offices.

“We’d like to hear the County explain why they’re closing down youth programs and then turning around and spending money they say they don’t have to shut down the bicycle festival,” Fauver said. “If you think that’s a bad use of taxpayer funds, if you think our kids need more recreational opportunities instead of less, if you think it’s time for government to stop meddling with programs that are working, then we’d like you to join us on Thursday and send that message to the Supervisors.”

For further information, please contact Elings Park Executive Director Steen Hudson at 805.569.5611.

Steen Hudson

Executive Director, Elings Park

v: 805.569.5611 ext.12

shudson@elingspark.org

www.elingspark.org

As a parent I struggle with what I should and shouldn’t let my kids do.

In the past, I tried to look at each incident as it happened. For example, can they ski that line safely or am I asking for trouble by letting them? Can they climb that route without falling and swinging into a wall or dihedral and getting hurt?

First and foremost my wife and I are climbers. We’ve been at it for a long time and I like to think I have a pretty good handle on it. Even after an accident claimed a lot of my body, a climbing accident I might add, I still feel like it’s a good pursuit and one that really fills a void in my life.

Last season though was a tough one to figure out and a tougher one to look forward from. Several, and by that I mean three, climbing friends died in China. I didn’t know them well, and I felt really off when it all happened. They all had a lot of experience like me, yet, when the time came, they were gone.

Towards the end of summer, I got a call in a hotel room that I never thought I would get. My close friend Craig was killed while climbing in the northwest. Craig was one of the first people I met and climbed with when I moved to CO 16 years ago. He was a kind and gentle guy who could climb almost anything. He taught me a lot and was a great friend. Recently, he had a new girl in his life, his daughter Guila, who he and his wife adored. Craig was a guide and made his living being safe, in fact when he died, he was training for a safety test he needed to take to keep some of his guiding credentials up to date. Again, when its time, you get pimp slapped pretty hard and there is nothing you can do about it.

It’s with these thoughts I trudge into the mountains again on Saturday. My wife and kids are ahead of me, and all the parental stuff rolls around my head like a storm front. The pain in my leg and back are all to real reminders of what can go wrong in my life, and they also remind me that I have no control of this life. Its that thought that allows me to hand my 11 year old the sharp end of the rope at the base of our first climb. The sharp end refers to the fact she will be leading up this climb first, so if she falls, she will FALL to her last bolt. The bolts are spaced at about 10 to 15 foot intervals making the falls roughly double that if she were to fall at the blots. She is nervous, and I am more so. I tell her she can do this, and that she has all the skills to hike right up this thing. With that, she casts off into a sea of granite rising above her like a wave frozen in time.

Once she makes the first clip, I feel better. This means she shouldn’t hit the ground if she were to fall, but she is still a long way from the top. She climbs quietly. Her focus is sharp and she cruises bolt to bolt with little or no hesitation. Its over in less than 10 minutes. She clips the anchors and lowers back to the ground where her mom and I high five her. I have a weird mix of fear, joy, and pride that swims inside me as I look at her untying. Could she have gotten hurt?

Yes.

Would I do it again?

Yes, in a heartbeat.

Why? Because in life, I figure we really don’t have any control, that the things that are going to happen, either good or bad, are going to happen. And if I can give them some skills to cope with life and stress in the form of climbing, well, that’s a good thing.

The day passes fast and before I know it we are walking out to the car. They both have climbed today, and well. Will didn’t want to lead yet, and that’s o.k., I think he will be ready next year. Mayah felt great, she climbed a few more routes on top rope, and then read a book in the sun.

Now all I have to worry about is the boys she’ll meet in school. And I Know I’ll struggle with that way more then her climbing.

Craig Demartino
outsideallday.com

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Go Saxo Bank

So, a few weeks back I put together a collection of socks that I felt qualified for the Smart Wool guarantee. True, I had worn them hard and often, but I felt they tore not wore through. So, I sent them off to Smart Wool in Steamboat Springs with a little note.
This PM straight from Smart Wool arrived this.

So stoked. Thank you Smart Wool.
Now I am ready to rock these tomorrow.

Physical Therapy. Those two words suck.

Not that they are bad words on they’re own. Just when put together. I know all about those two words. Back in 2002 I augured into the ground at the base of Whiteman in Rocky Mountain National Park. I hit from a 100 feet, that much room allows you to get going pretty fast, and the resulting impact left me with a fused back, screwed up neck, and the loss of my leg below the knee on the right side.

It also left me to have to deal with therapy.

Let me set the record straight, I LOVE to be active. I do something based around climbing just about every day. Its what I do and love. But when you tell me that my activity that day will be stretching a green band back and forth and then resting, I’m not that excited. In fact, I’m pretty dammed bored.

But that was my life for a long time. It got me back to some shadow of my former self, but not to who I was before the accident.
Climbing did that.

I was told by every doc I worked with that it would be a bad idea to climb again. To much hardware and trauma to risk taking a hit.
At 6 months after the accident and while still wearing a cast, I glued climbing rubber on the cast and went climbing with my family.
Two months after the amputation that came a year after the accident, I designed a climbing foot on a napkin in my prosthetic makers office. We made it a month later and I was out climbing a month after that.

*My Evolv climbing foot.

Climbing is my PT, its what helps me to move again and keep me moving where I feel alive the most. In the mountains. Not moving means, for me, more pain then normal and I already have enough without asking for more.

Now, seven years later, I get the chance to help people going through the same dance I did and to guide them a bit with what works and what doesn’t.

I got the call about Pablo a month ago, Joe, my leg maker, was helping him get his head around cutting off his leg. He had been hurt climbing and the leg never healed. It all sounded very familiar.

We met and went climbing of course, his mobility was really bad, and the skin graft to “fix” his foot was the size of a grapefruit. We talked and climbed, he asked questions and I told him the truth.

A month later he was in Denver for the surgery. It went well, and we kept talking; only I could tell he was getting a bit depressed. One day last week, I saw him at the shop getting some shrinker socks for his new stump. These socks help control swelling in your stump, he was unshaven, and had dark circles under his eyes. He was off pain meds, and on the sad train. We talked and the only thing I could come up with was that he needed to get out and start moving again.

“Pablo, we need to meet tomorrow and go climbing.” “Really???” After a bit of chatting and his understanding that climbing in a gym was totally safe for him and his stump, he agreed to meet me at the gym. I also briefed him on that fact that if we kept this on the lowdown, his PT as it were, would help not only his body, but his mind. Or so I hoped.

I spent the next morning on my home wall coming up with moves that would help him stretch unused muscles. To help break up some scar tissue, and get his brain back in the present. I also put on my newly resoled climbing foot. It’s a foot that was made by a company in Boulder and Evolv climbing shoes in CA. Between the two companies, and myself and a few other like minded, gimps, they made an amazing product that helps us get back to where we were in climbing. I want Pablo to see it in the gym, and hopefully fuel the psych to get back to where HE was.

*Me working out his routine for the session at home.

I rolled in the next day to find him standing among some of my regular climbing friends. I didn’t tell anyone he was coming, but as climbers are, they had welcomed him into the fold quickly. I set him up with a chair to belay from, and started him climbing. At first, his movements were jerky, but after a few feet, he settled into the regular movements of a climber. The gym crew shouted encouragement, and he topped out his first route in style. When I lowered him back to the ground, the smile was there through the sweat on his face.

*Pablo Climbing.

“That was awesome.” He didn’t need to say anything else. We climbed for a few hours together, me teaching what I could about one-legged climbing, and him enjoying just being out. I drove him home in the rain, and as he was getting his crutches out of my truck, I off handed mentioned that I’d be back on Thursday. His eyes lighted again.

*Pablo resting.

“I’m in.”

That’s what I call Physical Therapy.

Craig Demartino
outsideallday.com

I found this story very interesting, especially because my mom’s name is Katie Brazelton.

More On Leadville 100 Felony Charges
By Ultra Rob
May 13th, 2010

The news about Katie Brazelton giving her Leadville 100 entry to Wendy Lyall and both of them being charged with criminal impersonation has spread outside of the mountain bike world. There a good post on the Ex-Pat Ex-Lawyer blog with what lead up to the charges. In a letter to the Lake County Sheriff, Leadville 100 organizer Ken Chlouber asked for prosecution on theft of services for the $250 in race fees, $225 in awards, plus racer services, including aid stations, security, and a pre-race banquet. That would be much less severe than the criminal impersonation felony that DA Hurlbert charged them with. It seems that Katie Brazelton may have already lost her job over the incident.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Andy B
outsideallday.com

I have a mother. We all do, and how we celebrate that day is as different for us as our mom’s are.

My wife is a great mom to our two kids. They both adore her which is how it should be. One of the things I know they lie about her is that she isn’t the typical mom. Yes, she is there every night for homework and dinner, and the plays and sporting events. But it’s the fact that she also loves to get dirty that makes her really stand out.

She’s a climber.

It’s what drew me to her in the beginning and one of the things that bonds us together as we move through life. So on Mother’s Day this year, all she wanted to do was go climb in the Rez and play with the kids.

We hit up a local favorite and worked on problems in the sun. It was hot enough to climb shirtless and tank tops, so she was very much in her element. We’ve climbed together for 16 years now, and I never tire of pebble wresting with her, that’s what we call bouldering. She is always happy when she is climbing even if she is getting worked. The kids ran around and had pine cone wars, a game I had never seen before, but still thought was funny. Her mom was visiting us, and we hauled a chair up to the boulders so she could read her book I the shade while we climbed. It was nice to have two generations of women who love the outdoors.

The hours slipped by, and we joined in with some younger climbers, showing them the problems we knew and helping them work on moves they were trying to learn.

Having bouldered in this area for so long, its always fun to show the climbers who are either learning or visiting, the problems and areas they may not know yet.

Once the pine cone wars ended the kids joined in for some very relaxed climbing, so relaxed, it looked a lot like they were sitting down on the rocks. They have a way of letting us know when they are ready to head out. Cyn was done too, as her tips were raw and hands tired. I also think that since Cold Stone was giving mom’s free ice cream, leaving was not all that bad of an idea?!

It was a great way to celebrate her, the different kind of mom she is, and thank her for all she does for us every day.

Craig Demartino
outsideallday.com

If you have a sweatshirt or fleece from Volcom, Quiksilver, Element, Oakley, DC Shoes, NHS, Monster, Hurley, Fox then chances are it was made by Independent Trading Co. Independent Trading Co. has made custom fleece for the top companies in the apparel industry since 1996 so they know the drill.

Two weeks back our friend Will over at Independent and also of The Surf Gallery fame sent over three products for Outside All Day to review. We are going to do a series of reviews on these to give you a good idea of the product quality of these items but wanted to start you off with some initial comments.

Sherpa Fleece Hooded Sweatshirt
Think lambs wool inside a sweatshirt. The fog is up and you are still heading down to check the surf. You are heading out to pack up the car to make it to the trail head before the sun comes up and it is dark and cold. Bingo. The Sherpa Fleece Hooded Sweatshirt is the call. I have a few pet peeves about sweatshirts that go way back to AYSO. One is a cheap string that breaks on first use when sinching up the hoody. Second is a string that needs to be knotted up because the manufacturer didn’t plan for it to ever make it to the washer and drier. The good news is the Sherpa comes ready to be worn. With an outside pocket that has a inner pocket ready to accept your phone or iPod complete with an opening to run the headphone cord up to your ears this sweatshirt rocks. Fit is narrow/slender and has standard issue cuffs. The zipper is metal and slightly vintage. Not plastic and not wimpy so it gets a thumbs up.

French Terry Zip Hooded Sweatshirt
Love this light little sweatshirt. Our house has a raised foundation and has a slight chill in the evening hours. This sweatshirt is perfect. Comfy fit and ready to rock when you want to kick back watch some surf vids or read the newest issue of surfer. This is a standard issue item and everyone should have one of these. Light, perfect and has a iPod player holder and eyelet in front pocket and those super sweet probably fadish thumbholes on the cuffs. Kinda makes your hands look like they have a cast but sure love’em.

Hi-Tech Zip Hooded Sweatshirt
The first two are new takes on the old school sweatshirt the Hi-Tech sweatshirt is all new. Primarily a polyester threaded piece this has a zip-off hood, iPod holder with eyelet and thumbholes on the cuffs. This is for going out. Coffee run into town on Saturday morning. Meeting up for friends for the movies. Catching a plane up to San Francisco to see some shows. This is your go to.

After a few washes and scuffs we will report back.

H2O Overdrive Triple Crown rolls into Colorado

Tokyo’s Jay Henry

Round number two of the H2O Overdrive All Mountain Series presented by Specialized rolls into Nathrop, Colorado this weekend, and joins up with the infamous Mountain State Cups series at the Chalk Creek Stampede.

Coming into the weekend, first round winners Max Plaxton of Team Sho-Air/Specialized and Kelli Emmett of Giant Bicycles hold a slim one point lead over their closest respective competitors.

While Emmett is slated to attend, men’s series leader Plaxton will be attending a Canadian Cup in his home country, leaving the door open for fellow Sho-Air/Specialized teammate Sid Taberlay and other’s to take advantage of the Canadian’s absence.

This revelation leave’s a lot of things up in the air heading into the Nathrop, Colorado round, as the series is very close in the men’s and women’s competition. Local Pro talent will also be a factor in Nathrop, and could mix up the series standings quite a bit.

Schedule:

Saturday opens with the Super D race at 10:30am, followed by the men’s and women’s pro Short Track at 12:30 pm. On Sunday, riders return for the all important cross country race starting at 11:30am. The 7.25 mile cross country course offers riders very little shelter from the wind, and has a total elevation gain of about 550 feet per lap. These two factors should make for a tactical race in both the men and women’s divisions!

Attending riders:

Confirmed riders as of this release are series second place rider, Sid Taberlay of the Sho-Air/Specialized team. He will be joined by current Triple Crown’s women’s series leader, Kelli Emmett of the Giant team. Other notables attending this weekend’s H2O Overdrive Triple Crown event are Colorado local Jeremy-Horgan-Kobelski who brings Subaru/Gary Fisher teammates Heather Irmiger and young Russell Finsterwald to the show.

Cyclocross star and current cross National Champion Katie Compton is schedule to compete at this weekend’s Triple Crown. Compton will be using the Colorado round as her first national mountain bike event of the year.

Colorado also boasts a deep talent pool of Pro riders, and locals like Ross Schnell, Colin Cares, Jay Henry, Sam Jurekovic, Travis Brown and others are among they many talented expected to attend.

Check here for more:
http://uscup.net/index.php?schedule
http://www.racemsc.com/events/chalkcreekstampede.html

Rider Descending at Nathrop

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-DSheek
I love the world of technology especially when it will give me updates of sales or other shop events I might enjoy.

This kid needs to be on some sort of Olympic training/junior development program. The smoothness and body-english she uses to park her bike is pure talent.

After you watch look for the other videos that pop-up at the bottom. You can witness another angle of the video where she actually hit the wall headfirst instead of a smooth park job.

-DSheek
Brazelton’s kids now have competition