This awesome little video shows the 1993 Cycle Messenger World Championships in Berlin, Germany. It was first ever CMWC. As an ignorant, monolingual American, I hardly understand a word of the video, but the footage is pretty amazing.
Portrait of my grandfather : 80 and still cycling from Florent Piovesan on Vimeo.
Florent Piovesan made this lovely short documentary to mark his grandfather Benjamin Piovesan’s 80th birthday. As he enters his 8th decade, Benjamin is still passionate about cycling and the physical and mental joy it brings.
Things will be real quiet around here for the next seven days. I’m heading out with two friends on a week long, mostly dirt and gravel road bike tour. We’re hopping on the first train from Seattle to Portland Friday morning then making our way east to Bridge of the Gods. Saturday the real ride starts as we head north through Gifford Pinchot National Forest. We’ll wind our way out of the National Forest and all the way up to Snoqualmie Pass where we’ll head west down the Iron Horse Trail and back to Seattle. See you in a week!
Posted in Adventure
Kat Sweet at the I5 Colonnade mountain bike park in Seattle. Photo by Meg Valliant.
Though mountain biking has been a male-dominated sport from the get go, there have always been a small contingent of women along for the ride. Jacquie Phelan, Juli Furtado, Rebecca Rusch, Marla Streb and many others all played pioneering roles in mountain biking’s development. Like them, Kat Sweet‘s mountain bike career has helped break down barriers for women and clear a path for today’s riders, especially in downhill where she was one of just a handful of women racing in those early days.
Sweet’s bike life has spanned nearly three decades of professional racing, freeride competitions, contest promotion, and coaching. These days her focus is on the latter two with her Sugar Showdown contest series for women freeriders and her Sweetlines Coaching business. Specializing in freeride coaching for women and kids, Sweet is working to foster the next generation of mountain biker rippers and grow the “sisterhood of shred.” I spoke with her about her long history in mountain biking, her unexpected foray into coaching, breaking down barriers to entry as a mentor for women riders, and much more.