The all new Tomac Vanish, 160mm of travel and it is amazing.


Tomac Carbide SL at the Fox booth.



The Five Ten sponsored shuttle loaded up with folks ready to beat the daylights out of a bunch of bikes.



Steve Peat playing playing darts with a shop owner for a new Carbon D3.



Phat's new Aloha Mahola



The Phat Phixie rolls out the shop door at $399



Greg Minaar with his new Five Ten SPD signature shoe



World Cup Champion Sam Hill

Tara Llanes

Tara Llanes is an incredible person and she is back riding downhill after nearly two years. You can check out her website to read about her story or donate to her Recovery Fund.

At Crankworx Tara was out ripping A-Line with TLD rider Chris VanDine. The photos say a lot more than I can.

Catching Up

With Outdoor Retailer in town I didn't get a chance to post a congratulations to all the Tomac/Kenda racers. The team had a great weekend and it was topped off by Colin Cares winning the U23 race. The other big news was that Heather Holmes was selected to the U.S. National Marathon Team at the UCI Marathon World Championships next month in Stattegg, Austria. Make sure to check out the Tomac Fan Blog for all the team updates and pictures of the 29r prototype.

Outdoor Retailer is a bit of a warm up for InterBike for me since 5.10 is the only company that I represent that attends. The rumors about a SPD compatible shoe are true but it still is going to be a while before it is ready. Meanwhile they did release the new Zebra Blue version of the Freerider which for those of you skated in the eighties it's reminiscent of the Christian Hosoi skateboards.


Last but not least is that the long awaited Troy Lee Designs D3 made it's first public appearance this past weekend at the Mount Saint Anne World Cup. Of course it's a great intro to take 1st and 2nd in the men's field on the heads of Sam Hill and Steve Peat.

Nationals

I made it back from the Dominican Republic in one piece and am ready to get back to business. Unfortunetly I won't be at Nationals this week as I know there will be some incredible racing to be seen.

Best of luck to all the local racers going down to Sol Vista and I know you are going to rip it up. Good luck to all the Tomac, Troy Lee Designs, Squirt, Staats and Five Ten riders that will be there.

Park City Point 2 Point

http://thepcpp.com/

Yesterday I was lucky enough to ride about 2/3 of the proposed course with a few other Cutthroaters and friends. If you are on the fence at all about lining up for this race you better jump in head first and sign up. It's definitely going to be a arse kicker but it is sure is going to be worth it. So get on up to P.C., enjoy the trails while they are in great shape and get ready to rumble on September 5th.

Rain & Races

Race #8 of the Intermountain Cup, Peddle Fest @ Deer Valley, was in jeopardy with the potential of too much rain. But the Deer Valley soil and a little warm air after the start of the race made the trails nice and tacky. The turnout was great and racers were treated with some great weather. Of course you have to work through the opening climb a few times but it sorts things out nicely before you dive into the single track.


On the downhill side of things, last weekend's races were held at Wolf Creek Ski Resort. More rain made for fun riding and the Super D did not disappoint. That is unless your climbing legs weren't feeling too good. A new trail with an uphill start got the blood flowing for the first 1/3 of the course. The middle section rolled through some nice sections including a now deep creek crossing with a sharp up afterwards. The bottom 1/3 was incredibly built, fast downhill with some great berms in the corners.

Again the Snyper 1 is incredible and just keeps getting better every time you ride it. The Type X is a thoroughbred and just wants to go fast. If you haven't seen these two amazing bikes please let me know and I would be more than happy to visit your shop.

Tomac Press Release

Joel Smith at Tomac sent out this great press release to Bicycle Retailer last week. On Friday I already recieved my first inquiry about additional lines so again thanks to Joel and crew at Tomac.

http://www.bicycleretailer.com/news/newsDetail/2813.html

Utah Downhill Series Race #2

Saturday was practice for the Bountiful Bomber and what a great day. Partly cloudy, 75 degrees and dry trails. I had heard that their would be a shuttle but little did I know it would be a 23' box truck. Imagine throwing 8-15 people with bikes in the back of a truck, driving for 20 minutes up a rough road and then getting on a downhill course. While the shuttle was an adventure, the Trail Bike course more than made up for it. Scott and Kris from Go-Ride helped add a great section to the normal downhill course for their new "Trail Bike" division.

The Trail Bike division is great and it was good to see people out racing who probably wouldn't race a downhill if this division did not exist. I am sure this division is going to grow a lot once people find out about it.

The Snyper 140 worked incredibly well on this course and everytime I ride the bike it just gets better. It was great to be out at the race letting people know what is going on at Tomac. Lots of great feedback and excitement about the line. Of course their were plenty of questions about the Primer.

Sunday was race day and what a complete change in weather. It rained, rained some more and then continued to rain. Of course I missed the start but bounced my way up in the truck only a few minutes late and the great folks with Salamander let me in. Making a run in full rain gear wasn't what I planned on but who cares, it was a blast.

Thanks to Salamander Promotions for putting on a great race even with crazy weather, Go-Ride and all the other great sponsors. Next stop is the Wolf Creek Mayhem.

Go-Ride Race

Make sure you get to Bountiful this weekend for stop #2 of the 2009 Utah Race Series. Check back for updates, pictures and race results.

Chile Challenge

After 1300 miles of driving, close to 24 hours on the road and 2 days of working at the event I am officially beat. It was definetly worth it though and it was great to get the word out about all the great lines we represent. Even though the weather didn't always cooperate things went really well for our first big event.

With the expo area being a little removed from the racing I didn't get a chance to see all the action but what I did see great. Tomac was well represented with Andy Schultz and Colin Cares taking 3rd & 4th in shortrack while Heather Holmes finished hard to take 3rd. In cross country Colin and Andy lined up with a Pro Men's field of over 40 racers and took the top 2 spots.

On the gravity side their were rumors of well over 100 Pro Men on hand and that the field would be cut down after qualifying. As predicted Kain Leonard showed up fit and ready to rumble, finishing 3rd after a lightning delayed race. Shaving off some serious seconds from his qualifying run, Ryan Sutton moved himself up into 5th. Stephanie Leonard also worked off time from her qualifying run and finished in 6th for the day.





A big thanks to everyone who made this weekend a success, especially to those of you who made all the fast shipments of samples/banners.

Wagons East

That's right folks, we are hitting the road and Desert Velo is about to debut at our first big event. The next Mountain State Cup race is the Chile Challenge in Angel Fire New Mexico. With UCI points up for grabs, amazing courses and 3 solid days of racing it should be a great time. Look for us in the Expo area and hopefully out sneaking in an early morning ride.

Of course this guy is going to be there throwing down some great runs.

Bike Month

May has been designated as Bike Month in Utah and their are a lot of ways to get involved. Last Friday was the UTA Bike Fair and the Cycle Fashion Show. The downhill, freeride, dirtjump, bmx and cyclocross scenes were sorely missed so we will have to make sure to get in next year. Aside from the official activities, their was a tall bike joust later on in the evening and we are awaiting non-official details of what took place.

Chet from Skippers was there representing Phat Cycles. I missed out on a photo op with Chet but will do my best not to miss out on anymore publicity for our shops.

There are plenty of events left in the month so make sure to get out there and get involved in the fun.

New Beginnings

Desert Velo was started to provide companies in the bicycle industry with the best outside representation possible. We are proud to represent some of the best companies in the business and we also feel honored to be working working with some of the best shops around. This blog will be a work in progress and we hope to keep the public, clients and anyone else who will listen constantly informed of what is happening in Utah/Intermountain West.