Scott Morris over at TopoFusion posted up a cool video visualizing thousands of mountain bike rides he’s taken starting from his Tucson, AZ home. For those who don’t know, Scott is a self-described “bikepacker, GPSer, and desert dwelling MTBer” and a driving force behind the Arizona Trail 300 race we mentioned in our post about multi-day MTB races last week. Anyway, on to the video:

Note the timer at the bottom of the screen showing the length of the rides - some of the longer sessions break the 12 hour mark handily. A few of the dots seem to get stuck in various locations (mechanical problems?) while others simply vanish from the map (shuttle ride?).

Mountain bikers like Scott are fortunate to have access to singletrack (and mountains!) within riding distance of their homes and in fact some of us have been discussing the idea of “riding to the ride” on the forums lately. Hopefully this video will help motivate all of us to explore the rides right outside our front doors!

3D Arizona Trail image created in TopoFusion (from TopoFusion.com)

The Arizona Trail 300 Race starts today at 9am Arizona Time (MDT/PST) as riders race unsupported 300 miles following the Arizona Trail north from a spot near the Mexican border to Superior, AZ. The trail is mostly singletrack, there is no support, no prizes, and no entry fee. Winner takes all bragging rites until next year’s race.

Last year’s race actually ended in a tie between Scott Morris, creator of the super-gnarly TopoFusion mapping software, and Fred Wilkinson, both with a time of 3 days, 15 hours, and 8 minutes.

Since Scott is a high tech guy the race is infused with GPS tech from the route map (riders are encouraged to follow the route with a GPS) to real-time tracking of the racers. That’s right - many of the guys will be wearing GPS tracking devices from SPOT and you can view their progress on a Google Map at the TopoFusion website.

This race kinda reminds me of the classic mountain bike race format - no entry fee, no prizes, and definitely no sag stops along the way. Find out more about the Arizona Trail race to see how you can get involved next year!

There’s an interesting article on Forbes.com about sales of high-end mountain bikes from Scott in southern California and Arizona. Apparently sales are picking up after dropping last quarter and many retailers are reporting sales at or above year-ago levels. The author surmises this may be an indicator of an improving economy…

I don’t know about you but one thing the economy will never affect is my riding. Once you’ve made the initial investment in MTB gear it’s practically free to get out and ride the local trails. Here’s to hoping that mountain bikers with fat wallets and an itch for new bikes can get this economy back on track!