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. Boating with a bike is pretty adventurous if you ask us, so congrats to this week’s winner, Dean McCollom, who submitted this shot from a trip on the Blackfoot River in Montana. 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 pooland 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 adventure, Montana, Where's Your Adventure

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

The NRL Racing Team had a great time at the Sea Otter Classic visiting many of our wonderful sponsors like Osprey Packs. As usual, the venue was hustling and bustling with activity, showing that the bike community is a strong one.

For those of you who didn’t go, yes, you did miss out on a bunch of cool stuff. Here is a sampler.

1. Brian Lopes vs Jared Graves on the Dual Slalom Finals. Both racers are multiple world champs. epic.
2. Sea Otter Road Stage race! This was the first time this was held and it was a huge success.
3. Awesome sneak peeks at the latest and greatest…but you already knew that.

I hope next year they have a pro mountain bike stage race with the following stages. This was an event in the past, but it is not at the current moment.

Thursday = Individual TT of around 20 minutes. gives seeding for STXC Race call ups.

Friday = STXC Race

Saturday = XC Race

Sunday = Super D Race, Individual TT style.

All around, a super fun time! Look forward to it again next year.

Active Lifestyle, Adventure, Osprey Athletes, The Cycling Buzz mountain bike, mountain biking, race, Sea Otter, Sea Otter Classic

What constitutes a great day?

Is it the people you spend it with, or the activities that conspire on that “ultimate day?” Or is perfection attained through carefully laid plans or fortuitous timing and good ol’ luck? The best day ever is the holy grail that we all search for; that little thing that gets you out of bed, wondering if the sun is rising on your best day ever.

But I don’t claim best days. There are too many things I enjoy in life to fit them all into one day. I would rather spread them out over a series of days, weeks, years. Best life ever, maybe.

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It’s the month to celebrate cycling! May is National Bike Month and to get you excited about getting out and riding, we’re partnering up with one of our favorite causes, the Adventure Cycling Association.

Where’s Your Adventure? That’s what we want to know.

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.

Image: notfrancois

Adventure, Advocacy adventure, Adventure Cycling Association, contest, photo contest, Raptor

We’re at Sea Otter this weekeend, and there’s plenty of stuff going on, so we tried to get a picture of every one of yesterday’s events: BMX, mountain biking and road biking.

If you’re in Monterey, come swing by our booth and say hi! We’ve got demos and plenty of schwag!

Adventure, Events, Osprey Life BMX, California, mountain biking, Sea Otter Classic

Adventure, Osprey Athletes

Photo by Dave Roth

Barton Park, the last race in the Cross Crusade series, lived up to expectations and was exactly what cyclocross in Oregon is all about.

Barton is a gravel pit. Piles of gravel line the course, steep run-ups and off-camber descents make it technical and challenging and HARD. Barton is just plain hard. There are a couple of pavement sections, a few gravel straighaways and only one set of barriers, but don’t let that fool you. Barton is hard.

I don’t even know how many laps we rode; and it doesn’t matter. I rode hard and I raced. I held the lead for a while and Wendy went around me, I stuck on her wheel. I held on. SWEET. I am still here. I passed her on the asphalt and led for the next half lap. She took the lead through the mud bog; she is stronger period, but I caught her on the run-up. Together we road down the steep descent; I was still right there.

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Leave it to the crew over at Drunk Cyclist to keep tabs on rides that involve bikes and booze. That’s right everyone, it’s time to register for the 2011 Whiskey Off-Road.

Via Drunk Cyclist:

Registration is now open for the pro category of the 2011 Whiskey Off Road endurance mountain bike event located in Prescott, AZ. The online registration form can be found here.

Registration opened at 9 a.m. Arizona time on Monday, Nov. 1. Event organizer, Epic Rides, expects the pro category to fill up relatively quickly; it is limited to the first 100 entrants and boasts two days of racing and a $20,000+ cash purse attached to the Sunday, May 1st XC race; unique to the mountain biking industry, the cash purse will be split 50/50 between men and women.

Returning 2010 male and female champions Gretchen Reeves (Team Tokyo Joes) and Andy Schultz (Team Kenda-Felt) are confirmed to race. When asked if he planned to return in 2011, Schultz stated, “I had so much fun last year I would be there regardless of the purse size.“

Other pro’s confirmed to toe-the-line on race day include Amanda Carey (Kenda-Felt), Barry Wicks (Kona Bikes), Dara Marks-Marino, Jay Henry (Tokyo Joes), and Tinker Juarez (Siemens-Cannondale). In addition to the above confirmed athletes, there has been an overwhelming amount of interest from other professional level mountain bikers plus non-mountain bike specific professional level athletes.

The 2011 Whiskey Off Road will take place Friday, April 29 through Sunday, May 1. All amateur level athletes will enjoy their choice from the graduated distance options including a 15 Proof, 25 Proof or 50 Proof course (1 proof = 1 mile). The Pro athletes will participate in a two stage weekend. The first stage will be a Fat Tire Criterium held Friday evening, and the second is the 50 Proof endurance XC course on Sunday morning. All events will be based in the center of downtown Prescott on Whiskey Row, which receives an estimated 10,000 visitors each day during tourism season.

Pro registrants will need to attach a race resume to their registration form in order to gain entry into the 2011 Whiskey Off Road. When completing the online registration form, it will prompt the applicant when appropriate to attach their resume.

Amateur registration will open Monday, Jan. 3. The amateur category will be limited to 1,400 participants.

Adventure