Sorry… I suck at Blogging, OK, I suck at alot of things but… here goes
SInce the OTE wolrd began abck in 1995 in Fruita. So much has happened along the front of Mountain Biking. We work with land managers all over the planet to help duplicate awesome-ness in anyplace that seeks it. My life has become a confusing wonderful world of talking to my stores about leading the charge in Hurricane – Fruita – Sedona – Melrose and boy do they do an awesome job. The MTB trail (Singletrack and please respect it as such) development scene is in full swing in all of these towns. Sedon is getting a slew of user-built-awesome trails into an organized and maintainable system as we speak. Hurricane is building an uphill trail to preserve the directional coolness of the JEM and Goulds Rim and Melrose built it's first machine built trail out at Bartagunya where the OTE Wine comes from. Fruita is on fire with new trail ideas in it's 18th season and shows no signs of giving up the leadership role in the SW USA. BIKE Magazine is decending on Fruita to host the biggest issue of the year "The BIKE Bible" (remeber when I was the Singletrack Messiah?) and should be a fun time of amazing fall riding in the Western Colorado desert all month.
Last month I wandered off to Europe to follow up on some ideas of an OTE adventure in the amazing Alps or there abouts. I rode in Switzelrland with Fabian and spent a day at Eurobike with some awesome folks (Thanks Jasper, Darren, Hans, PK-SAL and Paul) and then drove across Austria at night to ride in the Slovakian Alps with Pavel. He did that awesome article about me in an Eastern European magazine and we had a blast riding in the wonderful Slovakian hills amongst castles and culture that few of us westerners have ever seen. I highly suggest a venture way out east some time; maybe an OTE will becon you to the Slovak – Czech hills someday. Till then; just go. If you need a guide? call me… From there I drove back to Slovenia and an awesome reunion with Andrej (www.mtb.si) and Ziga and one of my favorite people on the planet, Katja. Ljubljana is a must see city in Europe and the people of Slovenia are either your instant friends or there is something you should examine about yourself. What a wonderful place and I only WISH we had an OTE there so I could go back all the time. Singletrack galore from downtown and the Slovenian / Austrian Alps just a few miles north. It has it all! Heading west from there I spent a night lost in some city that sits on the ocean; apparantly there's more than one mainland port leading to Venice; my tip to you is, dont drive into Venice, it's utterly wrong. I didnt; I took the water bus, but my other tip is, note WHICH place you started from because when yo say "I came over from the mainland, how do I ge tback" they just laugh at you for not knowing where you started or where you left your car. I made it back by 3:30 Am Thanks to a kind boat guy and recieved a bonus tour of Venice streets (water) along the way. amuch better way to see that city other than entering next to the McDonalds Via the BS causeway.
Italy has always been a dream of mine to be involved in. I have always wondered why there is so little awesome Singeltrack there and so many people thinking MTB Trails are really old roads. I am glad to see that there is interest in flow Singletrack in the Alps and I am ever so excited that one of my favorite towns on the planet has seen interest in this and has interest in woeking with me. AOSTA Italy, collecotr for the Roman Aquaduct system sitting high in the Aosta Valley and in the shadow of the HIghest peaks in Europe. This place is a GEM and will hopefully be connected with my fitire for years to come. Watch for us and our work there and please come ride with me in theis amazing paradise (Gran Paradiso is the 4600 meter peak over looking town and the National Park that we can actually ride in!). Stay up at Pila at the Hotel La Chance and say hello to Natasha and better yet; let me know when you want to go and maybe we can connect. It's just a 45 minute drive from Turin (see Olympic City extroidanaire) and just one tunnel away from Chamonix France. Thanks to all of you who are excited about Mountain Biking there and about sharing the wonder that is Aosta. I hope to be back there in just a few weeks. I can assure you; this is a place well worht getting to if you like cycling road or mountain or happen to like 15,000' peaks or castles or italian food or life in general. I am telling you… go to Aosta
Just across the border in France I met Drian in Les Gets Franc e. Already a MTB destination for the "berm berm jump… repeat" scene of ski life served parks. I was happy to get to see the other real trails there thanks to Adrian and his immense knowledge of the area and his passion for life that he so graciously shared with me (and with you if you want to join his Alps Trip from there to the Med via the whole Alps! More on that soon…
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So much to tell; but since I sent this newsletter this morning and hadn;t doe this BLOG? I'm gonna hit publish and your going to have to work through my bad typing errors and wait for my next installment to here the rest of my craz stories. Thank You for reading and thank you for your shared passion for life and MTB'ing and I will be back sooner than later (a promise to blog more) and I again THANK YOU for being a part of all that is Over the Edge.
Cheers and Ciao from Fruita CO… come ride with me in Hurricane at the Fest next weekend.
Ciao for now