THE TURNER SULTAN, FULL SQUISH 29ER, 120MM OF TRAVEL, WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

It's time to jump on a Turner today and tomorrow at the Mountain Pedaler in Eagle, Colorado as Thane from Turner Bikes has shown up with a full size run of Flux and Sultans for your stomping pleasure. So he hooks me with a size large Sultan in this killer "acid wash" kind of color frame, raw but way cool. It comes all Deore XT'd up with Stans rims and BIG OL fat Kenda Nevigal big ol nob tires. I have him set it up "super squish" cause I like to feel full suspension when I ride it. Fox 32 Fork with Fox Float RP23 for rear squish.
Thane with the full line up...

Pretty sure this machine could be mistaken for a Lincoln Town Car with handlebars that eats up EVERYTHING in it's path, everything.

DW Linkage, whut obstacles? It aint carbon, and I like that on mountain bikes.. The Sultan is THE RIDE if you are looking to ride and are not worried about being a gram shaving weenie. She weighs in at just under 30lbs. with this build package, but brotha, after riding my hard tail, 80mm travel bike for the last 1.5 years, this thing was SIKK. WARNING, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME LOOKING FOR THE CLEANEST LINE IN "THE SHIT". Just point the Sultan where you want to go (straight down) and ride it, you will eat up everything in your path like Minar. Now that I'm pretty much done ever being concerned with training to race and have concentrated on just having fun, I can't think of a better fit for myself for my trail bike, I just need to find a bag of money to buy one. With 120mm of travel front and back this bike is frighteningly easy to ride and crush on, you will feel like a rockstar upon completion of every ride. The Sultan also climbs and corners like a champ, you gotta ride it to understand what I'm talking about, check it Friday in Eagle and blow yourself away. 29 inch wheels + 120mm of travel + DW link + bomber frame = perfection.

DUSTY BOOT SHORT TRACK RACING RETURNS THIS FRIDAY

The Dusty Boot Short Track series returns to the Eagle County Fairgrounds the next three Fridays and wraps up on July 9th. Thanks to some very appreciative folks who stepped up and made these races possible we've got three more weeks of racing and beer ahead. See you out there Firday at 5:00pm!photos dan davis

THE HARDSCRABBLE HUMPER/FONDO HAS BEEN COMPLETED, HIGHLIGHTS

Start at Third Gulch Top of Third Gulch road to.... Pipeline

Then Wolverton loop....Top of the Firebox Singletrack Short Cut...Across and up Firebox road, the climb that keeps giving...

To Dead Cow entryTHE Dead Cow, second of many stream X'sDozens of shots like this....

Hike a Bike to Mike's Night Out, you will be hurting here, badly. Then the long awesome descent.

Then back towards Catwalk...

Descend Easy Rider, Fast

Climb to and drop Star Wars and the Canyon

Climb and descend The Plunge

And then the ride gets hard, turn right at the bottom of the Plunge and head back up Hockett and Tick Alley, descend Abrams and then back to the start/finish along the rec path. Right at 40 miles, get some.

NBD

HERE'S A BEATER FROM MARK CAVENDISH TODAY AT THE SWISS....

Cavensquish veering left into the rest of the sprint with heads down behind burrying it...you decide who caused it.

Turns out that Cavensquish got fined for veering into the line of Heinrich Haussler, that's pretty much how I saw it....
photo from velonews

HARDSCRABBLE HUMPER, THE DESTROYER OF MEN AND WOMEN MTB'ERS

Just a small portion of a brutal loop....

The Hardscrabble Humper, nobody has a clue what this is but someday they will. This will take place on the morning of August 15th and leave from a spot in Eagle, Colorado the day after the Leadville 100. If you did not get into Leadville, and you want to ride in a true mountain bike event (actually, a pirate race), come and participate. The loop is yet to be completed by any rider for a couple of reasons, but the first 15 miles of the 40 has 4100 feet of climbing, and it's tough vert, trust me. This is a FREE event, just bring your cell phone "in case" you need it. Details will come as we get closer, but this is a MONSTER ride and already has some large names committed to showing. The first "attempt" at the loop was crushed by the mountain due to it being the day after a local race. The next attempt was crushed due to weather. Tomorrow in the AM is attempt #3 for anyone who wants to punish thyself, rollin at 8:30 or so.

Wolverton is the first section of "rest".

We got reconned on the original recon ride, apparently the government is interested in what we have going down....

ENGLAND'S ROBERT GREEN IS AN INSTANT HERO....GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL

Look, most of you know I have no true value for the sport of soccer, but since A2B has such a worldly and loyal following I thought it fit to put up at least one post about the FIFA World Cup. Today was the day American's long awaited, an Englishmen finally tipped, something we thought we would never see in our lifetimes, and he tipped America. England's Robert Green became an instant hero in the good ol USA today when he tipped a soccer ball into his own net giving the USA a tie in their World Cup match today. I'll go out on a limb and say the Oven Mitts he had on had something to do with not being able to control the ball, he'd have been better off with one of those Sumi Wrestling suits on. I did not watch the game (all though I saw the vij highlight of the goal on a "Faces of Death" highlight on the eve news), and I'm pretty sure I will not watch one World Cup game, as I have a strong feeling that the score in every single game will be either 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 or 1-1. You can tell me who wins the game and I'll reply "fantastic!". I fully understand my ignorance of this amazing spectacle of sport, but I can live with that. I do understand why that one announcer dude screems GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL so long when a goal happens to be scored, it's because he only gets to say it about once every three games. In the meantime, I think it's wonderful that Robert Green got the USA off to a grand start in the World Cup today, he will sleep very well tonight indeed...Let me know how the rest of the contests go.

By the way England, perhaps try having your Goalie use these on his hamds, they absorb everything.

In the meantime, pro road cycling has me wanting to stick my finger down my throat and puke, however today's ride at the Dauphine should be noted by Tour fans....how about this Slovak kid?

WATER GONE WIILD...

This is where your Glenwood Canyon road bike experience will currently end, until the great water of 2010 goes away to California and Las Vegas.

Cheers...