This obviously is not Texas bicycle related other than the fact that I am from the town where the championships were held, Zanesville. The terrain around this part of Ohio reminds me of the eastern US MTB race locale. I have been to the Dillon State Park many times but there wasn’t any place even thought of hosting this type of an event. The MTB had not been invented yet when I lived there. This part of Ohio is very rural. Several counties have a population of a few thousand. This is the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Coal, cows and corn reign here.

Jordan Morozowsky of Roseville

So if you are interested in how a small town in Ohio can host the MTB championship take a look at this link and the one below. The stories are carried by the local TV station (WHIZ) and the newspaper, The Zanesville Times Recorder. There are some good pictures.

Excerpt from the WHIZ website:

Dillon State Park Hosts Cycling Race
By: Katie Jeffries
It was off to the races this morning in Dillon State Park. Professional and novice cyclists alike gathered to compete in the Ohio Mountain Bike Championship. The professional cyclists practice almost everyday and were ready for the race to begin.

And from the Times Recorder:

Mountain bikers flock to Dillon State Park
BY JIM BARSTOW • Staff Writer
NASHPORT — Things got a little rocky for Jordan Morozowsky and about 100 of his friends. A resident of Roseville, Morozowsky navigated over and around hundreds of boulders strewn along the wooded hillsides of northern Muskingum County Sunday and captured first place in his class during the Ohio Mountain Bike Championship Series at Dillon State Park.

Greater Houston Off-Road Bicycling Association—Double Lake Trails Expansion (Texas)

A $10,000 grant will go to the Greater Houston Off-Road Bicycling Association (GHORBA) to help expand the trail network at Double Lake Recreation Area. Although Bikes Belong supported this project last year, Hurricane Ike destroyed nearly 2,000 volunteer-hours worth of GHORBA-built singletrack shortly after our grant award was given. This was a huge setback for the group and required that volunteers spend last year rebuilding rather than expanding their trail system. This grant will help provide matching funds for a Recreational Trails Program Grant, enabling GHORBA to proceed with their expansion efforts this year.

A mountain bike trail planned at Sugar Land Memorial Park will honor Justin Petersen Brindley, a local outdoor enthusiast who died last year while rafting on the Colorado River.

During last week’s meeting, the Sugar Land City Council accepted a $55,000 donation from Brindley’s parents for the construction of a two-mile mountain bike trail south of University Boulevard and Commonwealth Boulevard near the Brazos River. This is the area where Brindley, a Clements High School graduate, spend much of his early life riding bikes and enjoying the outdoors.

read more at fortbendnow.com

from www.tylerpaper.com

by Malena Olges

The Tyler Bicycle Club is on the path to completing a proposed 5-mile multi-use mountain biking trail at Faulkner Park to be built almost entirely by volunteers.

In August, the City of Tyler signed a memorandum of agreement to allow the bicycle club to build the trail using Faulkner Park land as well as City of Tyler Water Utilities Department land. Volunteers with the project said it will be similar to the trail system at Tyler State Park, which is used for hiking and mountain biking.

Great mountain biking deep in the heart of Houston? It’s no urban legend. Memorial Park, just west of the city center, has some of the best riding around.

Phil Sandoz is the author of this overivew.

Memorial Park is a gorgeous green escape right in the middle of town–it’s certainly one of the best places to ride in Houston. The park has well-maintained doubletrack gravel the whole family can ride, challenging tree-dodging singletrack, and everything in between. The trails are color-coded and marked throughout the course to help you find your way, but check the map at the trailhead so you know what to look for as you go. Expect off-camber sections, exposed roots, and bridges on yellow routes, and tight turns, sand, exposed roots, and air-inducing whoops on green routes. This route follows some of the yellow (intermediate) and green (advanced) trails on the west side of the park before moving to the Ho Chi Minh Trail’s challenging singletrack on the east end of the route–ride there if you’re experienced and can shift and brake quickly and often. There are tons of quick climbs and descents and tight banked turns here: go fast, because it’s a blast, but watch out for other hikers and bikers traveling in both directions on all of the trails. There’s plenty of parking in the west lot near the baseball fields. To start, follow the doubletrack along the soccer field back to the singletrack, or go east down the bike trail directly to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Memorial Park

link to the full review

by Hugo Martin from the Los Angeles Times

Not the ocotillo. Anything but the ocotillo.

As I flew over the handlebars of my mountain bike on a rocky trail outside of El Paso, I knew my landing would be hard. I just prayed I would not land on those nasty ocotillo plants that bordered the bike trail like roadside land mines.

Even a prickly pear cactus or an agave plant would be a better landing alternative to the ocotillo, whose quills extend like hypodermic needles.

But I lucked out. I landed on a patch of hard gravel — a feather-soft landing, compared with the cactus thorn beds I missed by just a couple of feet.

After two days of mountain biking in the Redd Road mountain trails northeast of El Paso, I understood why folks in the Lone Star State say “Don’t mess with Texas.”

Durango blogs about learning that Texas has some hills to challenge his MTB skills.

An excerpt: When I moved to Texas, I assumed I would be unable to continue with my mountain bike habit, due to Texas being a little short in the mountain department. Well, that erroneous assumption is my favorite of all my erroneous assumptions about Texas.

I was about 2 months into my Texas exile when I was out in the East Texas zone. I drove into Tyler State Park. There was a sign pointing towards the mountain bike trails. How can this be, I wondered?

read his full post at Durango Texas blog

James and Nate did the 2009 Torture Test (official name Excruciation Exam) on January 3, 2009.  This is a mountain bike marathon race that combines approx. 30 miles of single track with 50 miles of rual country roads in a grueling test of endurance.  The race starts out at Bluff Creek ranch in Warda, Texas (about 30 miles south of Austin). You do a loop of the Bluff Creek single track, then hit the back roads for a scenic 30 mile ride to Rocky Hill ranch in Smithville, Texas. Then you do two ten mile loops of the famous Rocky Hill ranch single track, then head back up a big hill for the 20+ mile return to Bluff Creek via a different route.

Read more and see all of the pictures at the Trimble Racing website.

IMBA, headquartered in Boulder, CO, is a non-profit educational association whose mission is to create, enhance and preserve great trail experiences for mountain bikers worldwide. Since 1988, IMBA has been bringing out the best in mountain biking by encouraging low-impact riding, volunteer trailwork participation, cooperation among different trail user groups, grassroots advocacy and innovative trail solutions.

This is the second award made by SRAM’s Cycling Fund, which was created on September 30, 2008. During the next five years, the Fund plans to award $10 million in grants to support cycling advocacy programs around the world that focus on improving bicycling.

from Second Front blog

by Brendan

Cooper Cycling completed the Los Aguantes de Seise winter race put on by the Dallas Off-Road Bicycling Associations (DORBA) As the name translates, this was a six hour endurance race. Kirk and I finished 12th and 21st in the 40+ category. We had a lot of fun. Unlike the Ultracentric race we entered individually so we could get our 6 hours of exercise in one continuous effort.

The 35 mph winds were not a factor because the trail is wooded and temperatures were in the 50′s. I completed about 50 miles and Kirk completed about 60 miles of single track sweetness.

Read Brendan’s full post