A press release earlier today announced that well-known downhill racer Steve Peat would be lending his name to the world’s first DH mountain bike racing game for the iPhone family of gadgets. The game is reported to feature real life racers and courses from around the world. According to the UK developer, Apposing, the game will launch in early June, conveniently around the time of the 2010 UCI DH World Cup in Scotland, which takes place June 5th and 6th.

Steve Peat commented on the game saying that “we are confident that this game will raise the bar within the extreme sports genre.” Based on my experience, there’s not much of a bar to be raised. The last decent mountain biking video game was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2003, so currently there’s not a lot of competition in the market. I get the feeling that this game will be a hit.

Most “nice” iPhone games cost about five bucks. At that rate, would any of you consider buying this?

For less details and possibly a video, check out apposing.co.uk.

Steve Peat. Photograph: Kathy Sessler / Santa Cruz Syndicate via Guardian.co.uk.

The LA Times just ran a two part article profiling mountain biker turned Tour de France dominator Levi Leipheimer. As you may recall there was some trash talk between Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong before the Leadville 100 this year but Levi crashed during the Tour de France and wasn’t able to compete. Here’s what Levi had to say to the LA Times about Lance and the Leadville 100:

“(The Leadville 100 is) basically a road race. It’s long and not that technical and it’s all above 10,000 feet. I think I need to challenge him (Lance Armstrong) to something more technical.”

That sounds like a throw down. Maybe these two should enter La Ruta to settle things once and for all

The Guardian published a profile of downhiller Steve Peat that’s a good read if you have some time. It seems Peat wants to dispel the myth that downhill mountain bikers are lazy because they rarely climb. Here’s what he had to say:

“You need to be fit to be a downhiller even though it looks as if you don’t do much work. You’re pedalling out of corners, pedalling into your line, the terrain is rough, the bikes are heavy so you need to train and be fit definitely. My bike comes in at around 37lbs and that’s on the lighter side.”

Finally, IMBA needs our help on several trail issues in Colorado including proposed changes at Apex Park in Golden (see this forum thread). There are also changes being proposed to wilderness and roadless areas in Colorado that could impact mountain bikers. Hit IMBA.com to see how you can help!