The Blog Page

News, commentary and humor about bicycling and other topics of the day

 

Race Across the Sky

If you just can't get enough of Lance Armstrong, then go see the documentary "Race Across the Sky," which takes a look at this year's Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race.

Thursday's showing of "Race Across the Sky" is being billed as a one-night event. In addition to the film, panel discussions featuring Armstrong, six-time winner Dave Wiens and other elite and amateur cyclists will be shown before and after the film.

Only four theaters in the St. Louis area were chosen to show "Race Across the Sky" at 7 p.m. CDT. The theaters are:

• Edwardsville Showcase, 6644 Center Grove Road, Edwardsville, Ill.
• AMC Esquire 7, 6707 Clayton Road, St. Louis
• St. Louis Mills 18, 5555 St. Louis Mills Blvd., Hazelwood, Mo.
• AMC Chesterfield 14, 3000 Chestefield Mall, Chesterfield, Mo.

If you don't live in the St. Louis area and want to know where the movie will be shown near you, go to the NCM Fathom site, type in your ZIP code in the box near the top of the page and off you go! The movie starts at 8 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. MDT and will be shown on tape-delay on the West Coast at 8 p.m. PDT.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Leadville Trail 100, here's a brief description from the Fathom site:

At 10,000+ feet, against the misty backdrop of a former mining town, Leadville, Colo., 1400 cyclists line the starting line. For many, it will be the most difficult race of their lives. For some, a bragging right to say they raced alongside the best in the world. Some imagine victory. Most hope only to finish. But everyone will count.

The race that started 25 years ago as a running race to drive tourism in Leadville has now grown to a lottery cap of 1000+ competitors, many of them the world’s most elite cyclists. But the Leadville Trail 100 "Race Across the Sky" Mountain Bike Race is not just a race of man against man:  It’s man vs. man, man vs. self, man vs. elements, man vs. time. A clock set for 12 grueling hours slugs through 100 miles, over 14,000 vertical feet of climbing, some two miles above sea level, through extreme climate changes ranging from heat to hail, from rain to snow.  To the racers, the risks of injury, fatigue and mechanical failure pale next to the chance that they will fall behind the 12-hour cut off mark and be eliminated.

Armstrong won the 2009 Leadville race, knocking more than 15 minutes off of the old record, about a half hour ahead of  Wiens. You can read more about this year's race at VeloNews.

Labels: Lance Armstrong, mountain biking, movies

Roger 0 comments links to this post 12:48 AM

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Trail sabotage

Thanks to the miracle that is The Associated Press, I found about this man who is accused of sabotaging a mountain bike trail in Fullerton, Calif.

Warren John Wilson, 52, faces a single felony count of vandalism, police Sgt. Linda King told the AP.

As many as 50 holes were dug in a popular bike trail, some disguised with branches and brush. Some bikers along the trail reported being thrown over their handlebars when they rode over the deliberately dug holes, although no one was seriously injured.

Police say they caught him leaving the trail that runs parallel to Fullerton's Bud Turner Trail at Laguna Lake Park after fresh holes had been dug, King told the Orange County Register.

When detectives questioned him, Wilson said he had "almost been run over" by a mountain bike rider and began digging the holes and placing obstacles on the trail to retaliate, King told the Register.

There's nothing quite like desecration to exact some vigilante "justice." While it's entirely possible that the cyclist was at fault in not yielding to a walker, Wilson -- if convicted -- may find out the hard way that reporting the incident to a park ranger or police officer would have been a much better way to deal with the problem than digging holes.

Labels: crime, mountain biking, Tour of California, trails

Roger 0 comments links to this post 10:14 AM