Specialized takes over Tamarancho

[Repack Rider]

Tamarancho is the poster child of private trails. It's a Boy Scout campground that encompasses several square miles of rolling hills and forest. It's also where there are miles of privately maintained mountain bike trails, and where I ride every weekend, since I can get there on my bike in about 20 minutes from my house. Users pay a yearly fee for the run of the place, and the trails are world-class.

This week Specialized arrived in a big way, renting the entire area and bringing in journalists from (I am told) 40 mountain bike publications from all over the world to demo new bikes and a reproduction of the 1981 Stumpjumper. They're camped out in dozens of tents, and enjoying spectacular catered food, local beer and ice cream. Last night I joined them for dinner.

It's not like everyone gets an invitation. The only other "local" I saw was Ned Overend, who grew up here although he now lives in Colorado. Bill Savage will be showing "Klunkerz" to the crowd tonight, and tomorrow morning we're headed out to Repack to give these riders a shot at Mecca. I'm bringing the clocks, just in case anyone wants to find out how slow they are.

I suspect you'll be reading about this weekend in whatever MTB magazine you subscribe to. These people are having a once in a lifetime experience.

 

[scant]

I suspect you'll be reading about this weekend in whatever MTB magazine you subscribe to. These people are having a once in a lifetime experience.

please post up pics after the event

 

[cchris2lou]

saw some pics of sauser new Epic from the world champ , looks nice .

 

[cchris2lou]

Looking good :

 

[cchris2lou]

does this still work ?

 

[novekili]

Looking good :

How cool are you boys!!!!!

 

[Repack Rider]

does this still work?

Sure does. I'm holding one of the original Repack timers, which we put into use on July 3.

Here is a version of the little speech I gave at the top of the Repack road:

"This is not a race, and I am not putting it on. I am going to start this timer, and at intervals I will announce the digital reading. At the bottom of the hill Billy Savage will be holding an identical timer running simultaneously, and when you get there he will announce the time on his display. If you do some simple math, you might be able to determine how fast you had gone down the hill, but that is not my concern. I am not writing anything down, and I do not know your name. I'm just here telling you what time it is. Good luck, and watch out for the off camber turns."

Here is a passage from the article I wrote for Dirt Rag:

I got as far as the first dangerous off-camber drop, and found Otis and a couple of others sitting by a bandaged German journalist, waiting for a fire truck to arrive and take him away. You couldn't have made a White Castle burger out of the meager amount of meat he had lost. I would have spit on a scratch like that and rubbed some dirt on it, then finished the ride. Just to help the guy get some perspective for his story when he got around to writing about his adventure on Repack, Otis and I joked about the time during a night ride years ago when I had lain unconscious for ten minutes on the Pine Mountain road before getting back on my damaged bike and riding Repack in the dark, then went into Celoni's bar with the road rash on my face and ordered Jack Daniels.

You do crazy things when you are young, and I would never do anything like that now. After all, why drink bourbon if the bar has single-malt Scotch?

 

[Repack Rider]

Billy Savage sent me some of his photos from the event.

 

[Repack Rider]

A few more of Billy's photos

Do him a favor and click on his website.

 

[messiah]

I feel more than a little green with envy :mrgreen: