Category: sea otter
Warming up for Sea Otter short track
I went for a warm up with Todd Wells, Burry Stander and Christoph Sauser along the ocean path in Monterey.
Short Track starts at 3.15. Its a short lap of off road riding- after 25min the bell rings which signals the last lap. This race is all about raw horse power and gallons of lactic acid. Not really an endurance Caveman game. I think the last time I had gallons of battery acid in my veins was…. um, actually the Specialized lunch time ride I did last Wednesday!
Susi and Burry are 29er virgins- today will be their 1st race on the big hoops. Burry’s Specialized 29er Hard Tail is 8.6kg (18.9lbs)
Last year Specialized made a great showing- Todd Wells won the Short Track and Christoph the XC. I was 8th in the XC and hope to blow the cobwebs out for the opening of an exciting season of MTB, XTERRA and 70.3 racing…
The Caveman Cometh (and he’s on a 29er)
So, you are a trail mashing mofo; gnarliest of the gnar. Yes, you are a fit machine and can ride. You have skills. Skills, eh? How about swimming, mountain biking and running — as in consecutively… in one day… at race pace?
Whaddya say? That off-road triathlon stuff — Xterra — isn’t for true mountain bikers? It’s so easy even a caveman could do it?
Straight-up fact: The Caveman does make it look easy. And the Caveman will make it look easy as he smokes you out on some technical singletrack — on a big-wheeled bike, no less.
He isn’t racing Xterra — yet — on a 29er, Conrad Stoltz rides his Specialized Epic 29er the rest of the time. CHECK OUT MORE PHOTOS IN THE SLIDESHOW BELOW Photo by Seth Lightcap
A couple of weeks ago I did an interview and shoot with Singletrack.com editor Jamie Bate (and photoman Seth Lightcap) in Truckee. We talked 29er, kicked some ideas around and I have to say I’m quite stoked with the result. This website has some real meat to it. Informative, technical material for the serious trail rider.
Here is the complete article from SingleTrack.com
Visit Stoltz29.org for my 29er manifesto
The making of a video. For www.i-am-specialized.com
This video was made for the “triathlon” part of the i-am-specialized website.
The a href=”http://www.i-am-specialized.com/triathlon” target=”_blank”>i-am-specialized website is aimed at being the public’s way of following Specialized riders’ racing and stories online. It is a new site and will mostly aim at internet video content. Internet video is the new TV.
I am honoured to be the 1st triathlete to have a video on the site.
Terrenzo and Macca will have videos soon…
The shoot started with swimming.
Bobby Behan – our Marketing Manager (and a few other things) used to be a pro triathlete himself, (we lived and trained together in Stellenbosch in 2000) so he knew exactly what needed to go into this movie. He sat in the director chair for 2 days.
Aaron Vogel just realized his dream job by becoming Specialized’s first in-house videographer. He says it wasnt really his dream job- he couldnt dream of a job where he could ride bikes and make movies AND get paid for it!
Anyway, Bobby decided we’ll kick off with swimming. And posing. Lots and lots of posing. I hate posing, but it was one of the many things I learnt about acting that fateful day….
Posing to da max. Oh yes, on the speedo issue- I’m old school (ie started racing tri in the late 80s) so I wear a speedo. End of story. At least its not lime green or pink. Like it was in
this picture from 1992!
Sea Otter Cycling Classic. I finished 8th in the pro Cross Country.
Loved the Specialized 29er Epic. Andy pimped my ride between thrashings. Note my new race kit for 2009. Made by Luma.- more later.
Christoph won comfortably. Todd had a flat, I gave him my CO2 and he finished 6th- which allowed him to win the Omnium-(Short Track and XC combined) Great for Todd, Specialized and the 29er. Lene finished 2nd in the XC and won the ladies’ Omnium. A great start for the season. Burry had a head cold from the previous day and saved it for this coming weeks World Cup in Germany.
I had a close sprint finish with Jeremiah Bishop for 7th. A lot of fun. Quite surprised at my results. (16th in short track and 8th in XC)
I was stoked to be “randomly selected” for UCI drug testing. (Photos below) The 180bs triathlete tearing it up at XC? Of course he needs testing!
More stories shortly.
Looking forward to a good XTERRA season.
Here are some slides: Go to flickr.com to see the pictures titles.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
