Didn’t have your bike quote selected as the winner? Not to worry, we’ve got another chance for a little bit of fame and fortune here on the Osprey bike blog. For all of October we’ll be 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!
Submitting is easy. 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.
During our launch week of the Osprey Bike Blog, we asked you to submit your favorite bike quotes. Out of dozens of excellent submissions we could only choose two, so we went for the words of a revolutionary as well as those of just a regular bystander. A big congrats go out to our winners who are each scoring their choice of one of the new Spring ’11 bike bags!
Our first winner, Chad Dean:
”Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels” – Leon Trotsky
Out second winner, Becky Phillips:
”You have studded snow tires for your bike? Wow, you are kind of outdoorsy…” – Becky’s boss
Since all the quotes submitted were so good, we’ll feature some of them every now and again on the blog… so be sure to check back for more.
Every Wednesday on Ditch Your Car we’ll be bringing you just another reason to spend more time on two wheels. Be it a photo, a statistic or an inspirational video, we want to keep reminding you about why riding is great!
Props to Malmö, Sweden for this great campaign — simply titled No Ridiculous Car Trips — which is attempting to get people to switch their cars for bikes for all trips under 5 kilometers.
How many trips a week could you make by bike instead of car?
We just had to post this photo, taken by Shannon Galpin of Mountain 2 Mountain.
Founded in 2006 by Shannon, M2M is a non-profit that creates education and opportunity for women and girls in conflict regions. Today, M2M is a burgeoning nonprofit that has touched the lives of hundreds of men, women and children in Afghanistan. Not only has Shannon managed to launch projects across the war-torn country, but in 2009, she also became the first woman to ride a mountain bike in Afghanistan.
According to her, “apparently even dodgy Afghan boiled water tastes better coming through your hydration packs!” Thanks Shannon!
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.
Don’t just take your bike on your next vacation – take your next vacation on your bike!
In July 2009, after getting rid of all of our stuff and saying goodbye to our friends, we left our steady lives to cycle around the US. The goal was simple: to see hidden corners of the country, meet amazing people, live as fully as possible. Almost 14 months and 9,000 miles later, we’re still pedaling – and we’re pretty much convinced that traveling on a bike is the best way to explore (and experience) the world.
