Chi Reporting : 2008 IMBA Conference

DAY 1

Ahhh... This sucks....

UA lost my bike between SFO and SLC!!!

I've used up my whole load of expletives already.

Anyway, the kind lady from IMBA here, Patti, says that she'll set me up with a bike for the trail rides. Choices are either a Trek or Cannondale.

Decisions decisions.

I can see the big Trek demo van outside and the weather here in Park City is really nice. It's turning out to be very hot though, up to 37 deg C in Moab.

The riding vibe is fantastic as the whole town has been invaded by MTBers.

I'm hoping they find my bike bag.

Chi

DAY 2

Ok, some good news is that they found my bike bag and it's on its way to me as I type this. It's about midnight here now and will arrive by 2am. Hope nothing is broken.

Today, while the rest were busy with the IMBA conference, I went for a walk around town hitting all the bike shops. Trek got me set up with a Fuel Ex 9.5 full carbon rig for today's ride. I found it a little twitchy but I'm not complaining.

Hui Min did the Intermediate advance, while Max, Ling and myself did the Intermediate. After our NZ experience, we thought we'd better start off easy. Good thing we did coz we are at 2800 masl, and whatever short climbs we did, we were breathless.

It was nearly all singletrack and the bits that go down were fantastic. All swoopy and curved. Nothing very technical at all. Our ride leader was a guuuurrrrrl. And man, was she fit but a little crazy. She went riding when she was almost 9 months pregnant (2 days before the baby was due) and her water broke on the trail!

We spent about 2 hours riding before returning to base. I had to return the demo bike but I get to collect a different one tomorrow. He did ask if I wanted the Trek Session. I think that bike is more up Wayne's alley.

So to top it off, we gathered at the local library after showering and indulged in free beer (as many bottles as you can take) from the microbrewery that supports IMBA and is situated around the corner. This was followed by a screening of several short films done by bikers and chosen by IMBA to showcase IMBA work as well as riders who ride really remote places in Canada and one guy who rode a fixie along the Great Divide, which is only about oh 2500 miles long (soul riders).

One of the short films (which was screened in High Def here) was this one :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT0YyN8oLQs

Then they threw lots of schwag into the audience (stuff like gloves, socks) and there was a raffle with stuff like forks and a full sus frame being given away.

After that, they screened Seasons by the Collective. http://www.thecollectivefilm.com/

And then it was off to buffalo burgers for dinner.

Ling has all the pics.

Chi

DAY 3

Day two was much better.

Collected rental car from the airport (Dodge Grand Caravan - mahal man!).

Fixed up my Blur which finally arrived. Found that they warped the front disc and also bent a bit of my big chain ring (kinda like what happened to Nik's in NZ).

Brought it to the SRAM tent and they fixed me up. Straightened my disc brakes (Avid belongs to them), tuned my Revelation (Rockshox also belongs to them), found a loose pivot, and gave the bike a free tune up.

Couldn't do anything about the big chain ring though. I would have to go buy one here but looking at the terrain, I don't think I'll be doing much pedalling in the big ring.

When I told them that my brake pads were Koolstops, they immediately gave me 2 sets of Avid metallic brake pads. How cool is that??!! Then they showed me their new Ultimates in blue (Nik's previous Volvo's blue) and in white and told us they will be out soon. When Max saw these, he had a gleam in his eye.

I ended up buying them beers for all the free work they did.

After an IMBA sponsored lunch and group photo of all the IMBA participants, we split into 3 groups and went for the rides. Max, Ling and I did the intermediate again, but today, there was a lot of climbing. The reward was of course the downhills that followed.

Hui Min went off with the Advanced Group (check out the guurrrls.jpg) and did dirt jumping.

3 hours, only 24 km, and we're so dead but all with big happy grins. We started at 5pm and ended at 8. Long summer days. Heaven.

There were all sorts of bikes on the rides - full sus, hard tail, full rigid, full rigid single speed, full rigid fixie, full rigid fixie hand built in Montana with a waiting list of 10 years, etc etc...

Tonight, the main street in town is closed to traffic and they have a Jazz and food festival!!!

They also have a night ride, which HM is participating in right now at 10pm.

Brave soul.

The rest of us will pack and sleep. Tomorrow at 7.30am, they have arranged for us to shuttle to the trail head where they will serve us breakfast. Then at 9am, we head out for the Kona epic ride. It's only 20 or 28 miles BUT there are lots of climbs. Somewhere in the middle, I heard that they also arranged for some bbqed sausages. Must be a rumour. At least that will keep me going.

Gdnight.

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