A few mountain bike news items to peruse this morning:
Mountain biker wins Xterra off-road triathlon World Championship: 24-year-old Spanish mountain biker Ruben Ruzafa won the Xterra World Championship off road triathlon in Maui this weekend besting the second place finisher by just 34 seconds. Ruzafa was relatively unknown amongst the field of competitors and he’s one of the youngest winners in the history of the event. The off-road triathlon covers 0.9 miles of swimming, 19.1 miles of mountain biking, and 6.9 miles of trail running. Sounds like a fun race to me – I hate swimming on the road anyway 😉
Tahoe Rim Trail Rerouted: A steep, narrow, and rocky section of the Tahoe Rim mountain bike trail has been rerouted and it seems the locals are pretty stoked about the change. The section is known as “Tahoe City to Brockway Summit” and the new 4.5 mile stretch of trail will help minimize erosion while avoiding sensitive wildlife habitats. Sounds like a win-win to me!
Huge Mountain Bike Race in South Africa Nov 15: Get your plane tickets now – the Pick n Pay 94.7 Mountain Bike Challenge is on and more than 4,000 competitors are expected at the race (though you’ll have to be a spectator – race entries are now closed). The race is being held at the soon-to-be-developed Waterfall Country Estate and the course should be pretty rad. A South African Cycling News article talks with one of the developers, Mark Corbett, who helped organize the race course and it turns out this mountain biker is also a rally car racer.
You may remember our Olympic MTB preview this summer where we mentioned US Olympic rider Adam Craig and his rally car hobby. Apparently there are plenty of parallels between mountain biking and rally car racing and more and more mountain bikers (with lots of money) are getting into the sport. Corbett says “Mountain-biking keeps you on the edge because it tests your reactions and hand eye co-ordination all the time. You have to read the route the whole time while pedalling and making instant decisions.” I’m a pretty decent mountain biker myself, I wonder if Corbett would let me get behind the wheel of one his cars?
