Moots Trail Builder

If you know me, you know I love to build trail, ride bikes, run a chainsaw and drink beer.  Moots out of Steamboat built this one-off titanium 29er designed for just that.  

If you want more details, better pictures and close-ups, click HERE

Just got off the most epic Stringdusters Ski Tour ever.  We had shows outdoors in the snow, a mess of new people coming out, we met the cats at TGR (the greatest film company on the planet), scored some ill Icelantic skis and ripped at a bunch of world class resorts including a 15+ inch pow day at Jackson Hole.  Home now, chainsaw today, solo show tonight...  On and On and On and On!!

Ski Tour 2013

Ski Tour this year is proving to be absolutely epic.  Record shows in Durango, Aspen, and Boulder and an unprecidented outdoor festival show at night in a blizzard with 0 degree windchill.  So far three great days on snow, new friends at Icelantic skis, plans hatching for Summer River Tour and 2014 Ski Tour (expect big things)..  Here's the photographic evidence:

My daughter Ruby is absolutely gorgeous.

The Crew at Purgatory, opening day of Ski Tour.

This was the view from the audience at WinterWondergrass.  It was storming onstage too.

These are the actual three bottles of Stranahans we downed at WinterWondergrass.

Here's our skis from Icelantic (Pilgrim), and pow at Vail.

Tomorrow we ride Park City, then rock Park City Live.  Another day of skiing follows, hopefully at Powder Mountain with the Icelantic Crew, possibly here at Park City if it's snowing...  Then two days/nights in Jackson Hole and I'll be headed back across country to resume The March of the Chainsaw on the property.  Looking like we're gonna need more trail...

Cross Country Course Design

It starts with a short section of singletrack.  Just a few turns through some cool terrain.  Then everyone agrees a trail run would be fun, so you build a course with a hand clipper, a weedeater and a chainsaw.  The few sections you've built aren't enough so you take what you've learned and you build more.  Then the parents and the kids and their dogs show up and every nasty thorn, every bit of fossil fuel you burned is worth it.

One thing leads to another and one day you realize you have an opportunity to host a High School Cross Country Meet on the trails you've built.  Having never technically run Cross Country, competed in a Cross Country event, or even seen a Cross Country course, the first thing you do it take to the internet seeking information.  The Race Course itself is a racing events greatest and most crucial asset and as designer you have a certain obligation to the entire past, present, and future of the sport, to create a distinctive, unique, demanding course as well as one that is up to regulation.

In my search for information, I came across this 150 page Masters Thesis on Cross Country Course Design by Audrey B. Lancaster of Utah State.  A very interesting read for Course Designers of any off-road genre'.

In the 2010-2011 manual written by the IAAF, the supreme world-wide governing body for cross country, it states, “There are extreme variations in conditions in which Cross-Country is practiced throughout the world and it is difficult to legislate international standardization of this sport.  It must be accepted that the difference between very successful and unsuccessful events often lies in the natural characteristics of the venue and the abilities of the course designer.”  Indeed.