Ready to roll at 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo

It is 3:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning and the temperature has dropped into the 30s. The sweat pouring out of me would freeze to my helmet strap if I wasn’t giving off heat like a glass blower’s furnace. I have been pedaling way over my lactic threshold for the past 20 minutes riding like a scared rabbit being chased by a pack of angry coyotes. Our team is fighting hard to maintain that 3rd place position on the podium.

While thoughts should be focused on how to reel in the team in front of us, the doubt is creeping in… can I hang on? How much more will my legs take? Where is that big rut that almost killed me on the last lap? This is lap number 14 at the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo bike race and I am fighting hard for my four-person single speed team.

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Events, Osprey Life 24 hours in the old pueblo, endurance racing

Everybody remembers his or her first bike. Mine was a blue Schwinn — traditional bars and a seat with a metallic blue paint.  In particular, I remember my first ride without training wheels. My father ran alongside me in an empty parking lot pushing and balancing me and then I was free — spinning away from my Dad, pedal, pedal, pedal — already worrying what to do when I came to a stop because the bike would now TIP OVER!! That bike saw many miles and many tip-overs. Over the years, it was shamed by my envy of Schwinn sting-rays only to rise proud again, converted to BMX style.

Osprey was introduced to 88Bikes when we first entered the bike industry with our Osprey Hydraulics™ line of hydration packs. Their model is simple yet incredibly powerful: provide bikes — often the first — to young people living in challenging environments across the planet. In places like Cambodia, Uganda and Peru the addition of a bicycle to a young person’s life almost always is a life-changing event.

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Advocacy, Non-profits, Osprey Life 88bikes, Navajo Nation

On October 4, Adventure Cycling announced the receipt of four new grants totaling $100,000 to support its efforts to create the U.S. Bicycle Route System (USBRS).The grants came from a number of prominent foundations and a leading cycling business: $45,000 from the Tawani Foundation; $30,000 from the SRAM Cycling Fund; $15,000 from the Surdna Foundation; and $10,000 from the Lazar Foundation. The grants from Tawani, Surdna, and Lazar focus on the U.S. Bicycle Route System. The grant from SRAM will support Adventure Cycling’s work on the USBRS, as well as its efforts to help understand and organize the bike-travel industry. Read more.

Louisiana progress is clicking along with the help of the Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets. Resolutions of Support for USBR 90 are steadily being passed by parish governments. Check out their website devoted to the project.

To stay up-to-date on the USBRS, follow the conversation on Facebook or Twitter,@usbicycleroutes.

New to the U.S. Bicycle Route System? Read our U.S. Bicycle Route System 101 blog post to get the basics and follow our weekly blog posts on Building the U.S. Bicycle Route System to stay up-to-date on USBRS developments.

Don’t forget, the USBRS is on Twitter and Facebook — show your support, follow our tweets and become a fan!

Photo via: Adventure Cycling Association

Active Lifestyle, Advocacy, Osprey Life Adventure Cycling Association, Bike Routes, SRAM, U.S. Bicycle Route System

High speed single track

by Sven Brunso

A few weeks back Mother Nature gave those of us in SW Colorado a “glimpse” of what lies ahead. After an unseasonable week of wet, cool weather, the clouds lifted to reveal a healthy dose of white gold above 11,000 feet. Some grabbed their skis and rushed into the alpine in an effort to get their fix, but I opted to wait until the odds of face shots exceed those of core shots.

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Osprey Athletes, Osprey Life mountain biking, singletrack, SW Colorado

A couple of weeks ago, we posted a link to Schwinn’s remake of their classic Sting Ray banana seat bicycle. So many people commented on Facebook with memories of their first banana seat, that it got us thinking about all of our favorite memories on a bike… our first adrenaline rush after the training wheels came off, our first single track and the first time we made the decision to ditch our car and strike out on two wheels. It’s still those memories that bubble up while we’re riding to work or cruising down some trail — breathing the cold, crisp fall air and getting our feet and hearts pumping.

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Ditch Your Car, Osprey Life inspiration, Schwinn Sting Ray, vintage bike

Riding the knife edge ridges of Thunder Mountain

Each year every one that is any one in the bike industry packs up and makes the pilgrimage to Sin City, Nevada (otherwise known as Las Vegas). Our bike team here at Osprey Packs is no exception as we plan for months to join the week long flurry of activity that can make or break next year’s sales numbers. Even though the show is an absolute blast and a bike lover’s paradise, it can be very stressful with all of the business appointments, late night dinners and endless hours standing on a concrete floor. Our team of trade show warriors is experienced enough to know that the best way to survive the chaos of Interbike is to step onto that floor still reveling in the endorphins from an outstanding ride.

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Adventure, Events, Osprey Life Interbike, Osprey, Osprey Bike, Thunder Mountain Trail

via Michael Henderson in Paris:

[The race] turned into an epic, which I shall detail in the next day or two. It started perfectly with the first day going as planned. What was not in the plan was getting no sleep the first night and catching cold at the same time… I thought I had recovered on the morning of day 3. That was not the case, it caught back up to me that evening. I stayed an extra unplanned night at the last control point before riding in [yesterday] morning in 78 hours and some change.

I’m a little upset at not riding the fastest I could, but I’m very excited to have finished despite the obstacles. Finding ways to overcome the problems along the way is what randonneuring is all about, and I did that in spades. Hope to have some time to begin recounting the details tomorrow…

Congratulations Michael!

Michael Henderson is the CFO at Osprey Packs HQ in Cortez, Colorado. Stay tuned… we’ll be posting updates from his race and recap when he comes home!

Bike Europe, Events, Osprey Life paris-brest-paris 2011

We arrived in Paris at 6 a.m. last Wednesday morning in preparation for Paris-Brest-Paris.  All luggage arrived safely, we found the train, we found the apartment and then immediately went to a patisserie for croissants. Then it was time to get down to work. I assembled my bike on the terrace of our apartment, under the watchful eye of the Cathedral de Notre Dame.

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Active Lifestyle, Bike Europe, International, Osprey Life

View of Hermosa Peak from the saddle

One of the great things about working at an outdoor gear company like Osprey Packs is the necessity to become an expert regarding the product you sell.  One of the ways that Osprey encourages team members to keep their product knowledge sharp while at the same time gaining some important rejuvenation time in the outdoors is through the Osprey Outings Program. Team members receive paid hours to get out in the field and use packs and/or travel gear for real world product testing.  With the explosion in popularity of Osprey’s line of cycling specific packs and new cycling packs on the table for Spring 2012, we decided to put together a bikepacking trip on the Colorado Trail to really spend some quality time with a few of the larger cycling packs.

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Adventure, Osprey Life bikepacking, colorado trail, Osprey Bike

Michael Henderson loves to ride his bicycle… really, really far. Michael left earlier this week for France to compete in his firstParis-Brest-Paris Randonneur. First run in 1891, the 1200-kilometer Paris-Brest-Paris, or “PBP” as it is commonly called, is a grueling test of human endurance and cycling ability. Organized every four years by the host Audax Club Parisien, the Paris-Brest-Paris is the oldest bicycling event still run on a regular basis on the open road.

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Active Lifestyle, Events, International, Osprey Life endurance cycling, paris-brest-paris 2011, randonneur