A rainbow of Osprey packs waiting to go for demo rides at Dirtfest
Being fortunate enough to live in the Four Corners region of Colorado, where the towering San Juan Mountains merge with the wide open high deserts and canyon lands of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, I am often tempted to believe that we are the center of the mountain biking universe.
With so many world famous trail destinations available in our backyard, it seems there is no need to pack up the gear and head for distant singletracks. After all, our summers are filled with day long epics along the alpine trails in Durango and Telluride; winter days are passed riding the roller coaster slick rock around Moab or searching for vortexes in Sedona; spring finds us celebrating the cycling lifestyle in Fruita or Grand Junction and riding Crested Butte in the fall is to die for. Sometimes a catalyst must arise forcing us to escape our “bubble” and seek out new riding areas. Dirt Rag’s DirtFest event in central Pennsylvania was just that catalyst for me.
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Adventure, Bikes Around the World, Events, Osprey Life, Photos
Allegrippis, Dirtfest, mountain biking, Osprey events
Since it’s National Bike Month, we’re celebrating all month long with our Where’s Your Adventure? Photo Contest. Congrats to this week’s winner, Bill Church, who submitted this shot from Sundance, Utah. He not only scores a yearlong membership to Adventure Cycling Association, but also a brand spaning new Raptor 6 hydration pack!
Want to enter the contest too? Give us your most adventurous cycling photo; it can be from a gnarly section of single track or bombing down an urban hill on your single speed. Just upload your photo to our Flickr pool and tag it with “adventurecycling.” Every week during the month of May we’ll be picking our favorite to win an ACA membership and a Raptor 6. At the end of the month we’ll leave picking the winner up to you, getting our fans to vote and choose our People’s Choice Winner.
Note: Osprey will retain the right to images for future use in blog posts. And please note that we can ship to U.S. addresses only.
Adventure, Contest, Photos
Adventure Cycling Association, contest, photo, photo contest, What's Your Adventure
If you love bikes, then the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California was the place to be April 14th -17th. Sea Otter, as it is most commonly called, is a celebration of all things bike and acts as a kick start for the spring cycling season. Besides the jam packed competitive schedule that includes road, short track, cross country, downhill, and dual slalom racing, Sea Otter is an amazing bicycle festival with something fantastic for bicycle lovers of all disciplines.
Companies from around the globe exhibit at the Sea Otter Expo, often introducing new or upcoming products and mingling with the 50,000+ attendees. Non-profits and bicycle advocacy groups are in attendance to promote their cause and raise awareness for cycling related issues. Top name professional athletes use the Sea Otter as an early season test of fitness and shakedown of the new seasons equipment. The entire vibe surrounding the Sea Otter Classic leaves you wanting to hop on a bike and ride, whether it be for a joy ride down the coastal bike route or a top speed flight around the grueling race course.
Here is a pictorial journey showing a few of my favorite Sea Otter memories.
Daily stunt shows provided entertainment for all
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Advocacy, Events, Non-profits, Photos
California, Monterey, Osprey events, Sea Otter
Saw this over on Copenhagenize and couldn’t help but post it. We’ll take one of these any day! Although you could always pop a bottle of wine into your Osprey pack now couldn’t you? Anyone have any experience?
Bikes Around the World, Photos
wine, wine rack
Your daily ride might involve a lot of things, but how often do you come across this? “You never know what you might run into during a seemingly normal ride around Banff, Alberta,” as Justin of Venture There says. We figured it was a fitting photo to end our Ride of the Week contest with.
Thanks to everyone that submitted! We’ll be announcing our grand prize winner next week. And even if your photo wasn’t selected, keep your eyes on the Osprey Bike Blog, because we’ll be featuring more contests soon.
Contest, Photos
Alberta, Banff, Canada
Fridays are the best!! There is the entire weekend to look forward to and if you live near Cortez, CO you can join in the weekly bike polo match!
Bike polo in its simplest form is two teams of four people competing head to head with the objective of scoring more goals than the opponent. Goals are scored by hitting the polo ball into the net using a polo mallet while riding a bicycle. A standard bike polo field is 100 yards long by 60 yards wide but any open area will suffice. A playing field of grass is recommended but not required. Our games take place in a wide open asphalt parking lot which makes for a much faster (and much more dangerous) game. Evidently there are some rules to the game which can be found at the U.S. Bicycle Polo Association website. However, our games are simple with only 2 primary rules; you have to hold the mallet with your right hand and if your foot touches the ground you are “out of play” until you ride one complete 360 degree circle.
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Osprey Life, Photos, The Cycling Buzz
bike polo
How could we not choose to feature this photo today?
Not only is this ride pretty out of the ordinary, we like that it’s even got a Talon in it. Thanks to Joe for submitting it, and we should add that it was taken during a recent self-supported mountain bike trek around the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. If that doesn’t give you some inspiration to get out on a good ride this weekend, we don’t know what will.
For all of October we’re running our Ride of the Week photo contest. You send us your best shots your “ride” — be that your bike all covered in mud, a shot from your morning commute or your favorite section of singletrack — we’ll feature a weekly photo here on the blog, and at the end of the month we’ll pick a grand prize winner who will score a brand new Osprey hydration pack: the Viper or the Verve depending on your choice! Just upload your photo to our Flickr pool and tag it with “Ride of the Week,” or email us your photo to blog[at]ospreypacks[dot]com.
Contest, Photos
annapurna, mountain bike, nepal, ride of the week, Talon
For this week’s Ride of the Week, we had to go with this creative shot by dan1racing on Flickr. You can easily imagine the driver downing an early morning cup of coffee in anticipation of the day’s glorious ride ahead of them. Wonder where they’re off to?
For all of October we’re running our Ride of the Week photo contest. You send us your best shots your “ride” — be that your bike all covered in mud, a shot from your morning commute or your favorite section of singletrack — we’ll feature a weekly photo here on the blog, and at the end of the month we’ll pick a grand prize winner who will score a brand new Osprey hydration pack: the Viper or the Verve depending on your choice! Just upload your photo to our Flickr pool and tag it with “Ride of the Week,” or email us your photo to blog[at]ospreypacks[dot]com.
Contest, Photos
Moab, Utah has arguably been considered the mountain bike capital of the US for many years. Of course, there are many that will dispute this claim stating that their location has better trails, more singletrack, or better weather. I even catch myself telling people that Moab is overrated and suggesting they ride in Fruita or Crested Butte or Park City instead. So when the 1st annual Outerbike event was scheduled to be in Moab this year, I rejoiced in the fact that the event was only 100 miles from Osprey’s Packs corporate headquarters, but scoffed at the lack of really cool trails to truly test the demo bikes. Turns out I was wrong.
Moab truly is an awesome place for anything bike related. New (legal) trails are popping up everywhere, providing opportunities to ride sweet singletrack, slickrock expanses, or freshly paved bike paths in addition to the expansive array of 4WD roads left over from the Uranium mining boom. Fall scenery is absolutely spectacular ranging from bright yellow aspens on the high peaks of the LaSal mountains to the red rock canyons carved by the Colorado river.
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Adventure, Osprey Life, Photos
Moab, Osprey Packs, Outerbike
Love this photo that we found over on Drunk Cyclist. Got a good caption anyone?
Photos
