2012 Cool MTB Results

Results have been posted for last weekend's Cool MTB Race (PDF). For color commentary, check out:

• Ron's race report
• Ryan's race report

Congrats to top finishers, Jim Hewett (Summit Bicycles) and Dawn Infurna-Bean.

Coolest 8/24 and Boggs 8/24 Switch Dates

Directly from JimmyBoy:

The Coolest 24 and the Boggs 8 & 24 have change race dates due to the high amount of sierra snow this year.

The Boggs 8 & 24 is now on June 18-19th, 2011 and the Coolest 8 & 24 race against cancer is now July 16th-17th, 2011.

The dates are now updated on the sidebar. Thanks to JimmyBoy, Kris and Marco for the heads up.

2010 Cool MTB Race Pics

I haven't seen any results yet, but there are some great pictures on MTBR from this weekend's Cool MTB Race (here, here and here).

And yes, they all involve significant mud and water.

UPDATE: Ron from Team MadCat has posted his race report.

NorCal MTB Racing This Weekend: March 13-14, 2010

For those of you making your weekend plans, here is quick rundown of this weekend's MTB racing schedule for NorCal:

1. Cool MTB Race (03/14/10)
2. CCCX XC (03/14/10)

Just the two races on tap, but both are big.

2009 Cool MTB Race Results

Race results for last weekend's Cool MTB Race have been posted.

Photos are posted at several places:

• BadJenny's Photos
• Kirby Photography
• John Mackey Photos

There is also a race report at the Xtreme Outfitters blog.

MTB Racing This Weekend: March 14 & 15, 2009

Another big weekend of racing in NorCal:

• Saturday is the second Sand Hill Spring Gravity race in the East Bay. This weekend it is Dual Slalom instead of Mountaincross.
• Sunday is the annual Cool MTB Race near Auburn, CA. The Cool race is held on the Olmstead Loop, renowned for muddy (if not snowy) conditions.
• Sunday is also the third CCCX XC race near Seaside, CA. Head honcho of the CCCX race, Keith DeFiebre, describe this weekend's race as "The CCCX XC race will be a 5 mile lap featuring a few new sections of trail in Ft Ord never used before for a MTB race. The race route features multiple climbs and lots of fun riding single track that is in perfect condition after last weeks rain. Spring time really is the best time to race Mountain Bikes in this area of Ft Ord as the flowers are starting to bloom, the grass is green, and the trails are smooth and fast, making for some beautiful scenery and fun racing."

Hope everyone takes advantage of the extra daylight to get out and race (or at least ride) this weekend.

2009 "Leave No Trace" Ultra Endurance Series

This is big. Global Biorhythms and Bike Monkey have teamed up to produce a NorCal Endurance series for 2009:

"THE "LEAVE NO TRACE" MTB ULTRA ENDURANCE SERIES
Global Biorhythm Events is presenting the Leave No Trace ultra endurance mountain bike series in Northern California for the 2009 season.

The 2009 LNT Ultra Series:

• Boggs Mountain 8Hr, Cobb CA March 28th (BikeMonkey)
• Coolest 8 & 24 hr race against cancer. Cool CA,May 2-3 (Global Biorhythm Events)
• Lake Sonoma 100, Wine Country May 16th, (Global Biorhythm Events & Bike Monkey)
• Coolest II 8 & 24hr race, Cobb CA, June 20-21st (Global Biorhythm Events)
• This will be a '100'race. Site yet to be decided--Sly Park Placerville CA or Jackson State Park, Fort Bragg CA(Global Biorhythm events)
• Tahoe Sierra 100, Soda Springs CA. Will not be held at French Meadows CA.(Global Biorhythm events)"

Visit Global BioRythm Events for more details.

I am putting my vote in for Sly Park for the '100' race.

2008 Cool MTB Race Results

The 16th Annual Cool Mountain Bike Race is in the books. Race results can be found here (PDF).

2008 Cool MTB Photos

No race results yet, but here are some photos:

• John Mackey Photos
• Brian Yoder photos
• Auburn events

Why is it always nice for Cool when I am out of town ?

Cool MTB Race Open For Registration

The Cool Mountain Bike Race is now open for registration.

2008 Cool MTB Race Scheduled

According to a PDF flyer on the Auburn Bike Works website, the dates have been set for the Cool MTB race: March 9th, 2008.

You can check out the last two years of Cool MTB race reports in the archives.

2007 Cool MTB video

KingGeorgeC posted a video from last weekend's Cool MTB Race.
Other than the overuse of special effects and the complete lack of people stacking through the bog area, it's not bad. You can see the entire video here.

RACE REPORT: 2007 Cool MTB Race

The results from this weekend's 2007 Cool MTB race have been posted ! It looks like an impressive turnout to the nicest weather race . . . ever maybe ? Anyway, check out this thread on MTBR for race reports and photos.
The course followed that what appears to be largely the same course as last year, with about the same distance.

Congratulations to Sierra's local Katherine Nash who won the Women's Pro/Expert over Heather Suahn and Aren Timmel who beat out David Yakaitis for the Men's Pro/Expert.

UPDATE (03/14/07): The folks over at Team Motionbased have also blogged their race report.

2007 Cool MTB Race Scheduled

A slight change from the previous rumor on the Cool MTB Race dates: Auburn Bike Works, the organizer of the race, has announced that the 15th Cool Mountain Bike Race is set for March 11th, 2007 (not March 10th as previously rumored).

As last year, the race will cover approximately 10 miles of fire roads (85%) and singletrack (15%) on the Olmstead Loop in Cool, CA (six miles south of Auburn, CA). Begineers will do one lap, sport two laps and expert/pro will do three laps. Singlespeed, Clydedales, tandems and expert women will do two laps. As the promoters warn, "the course will be muddy." Or snowy. Be warned.

The ride is capped at 425 riders. Awards will be given three deep and the expert/pro purse starts at $200. Race registration starts at 8 AM (you can also check-in the day before at Auburn Bike Works) and the pre-race meeting commences at 10:30 AM. Awards and prize raffles will be held immediately after the race.

See coverage of last year's event in the archives.

Event: Cool Mountain Bike Race
Dates: March 11th, 2007
Location: Cool, CA [ Map ]
Competition: XC
Cost: TBD (last year was $40)
URL: http://auburnbikeworks.com/coolrace.html
Registration: http://www.auburnbikeworks.com/form.html (via paypal)
License: None

2007 Cool MTB Race

According to the Auburn Endurance Capital events calendar, the Cool MTB race will be held on March 10th, 2007 in Cool, CA. No news of this on the official website, but you can check out last year's shenningans in the archives.

UPDATE (12/06/06): The date is actually one day later. It will be held on MARCH 11th, 2007. See the full story here.

2006 Cool MTB Race Photos

Since I posted the race report for the 2006 Cool MTB Race about as soon as I got home from Cool yesterday, I didn't get a chance to link to any photos. But I must; Some of the diggers and endos are nothing short of EPIC. Start with this thread at MTBR (gotta read all two or three pages to see the good photos), then proceed to Brian Joder's photos over at racemtbikes to truly understand the race.

Technorati Tags: mtb, mtb-xc, mtb-race

RACE REPORT: 2006 Cool MTB Race

So I knew that I was in for a long day as soon as I got to Darrington Trail on Salmon Falls Road. It was obvious that Friday's scouting report of the Cool MTB Race was not quite correct. To illustrate the difference, on Friday the trail looked like this:

Whereas today, by the time I parked, Cool looked like this:

While the weather had obviously not cooperated, the Cool MTB Race crew had organized a nice race. The course layout was swoopy with some long uphills, they had an efficient registration and an enthusiastic crowd (more cowbell!). But wow, today's weather really made for a miserable race. In fact, the organizers even acknowledged the fact by asking the racers if they really wanted to do more that one lap (not that any group was willing to cut their race short).

The trail was quite simply a mess. What was a mudfest became unrideable for large parts - either it was a actual stream or unclimbable due to the snow and mud. Stream crossings were sketchy at best and it seemed like almost everyone had some kind of mechanical problems (sidenote: shimano components really don't like freeze mud). It's really too bad that the weather went so south -- I think this would have been a great race, in say May. UPDATE: Someone posted two great photos over at MTBR (they are near the bottom of this thread).

As you can imagine from the general demeanor of my report (and past races), I didn't have a good race. By the end of the first lap, I had broken two fenders (front and back, at mile 1 and 4), suffered two epic diggers (complete endo into the water on one), burned through my back brake, lost all feeling in my feet and iced up my rear derailleur. And posted a sweet 1:33 lap time. For ten miles. Needless to say, I racked up the first DNF of my year and my career today.

Race results are posted ( PDF ).

SCOUTING REPORT: Cool MTB Race

I took a quick drive out to Cool today to check out the course conditions before Sunday's big 14th Annual Cool Mountain Bike Race. And I can truthfully report, it is going to be one muddy ride.

The course is a rolling ten mile loop in the Auburn State Recreational area off HWY 49 just south of Auburn, CA. The course has no major hills (probably a couple hundred feet of vertical climbs per lap) and seems to be mostly well maintained single and doubletrack (fireroad). The course conditions today were a mixed bag. In most places, it was moist, hard pack with a bit of gravel (i.e. really nice and fast). But in place where water has pooled, the mud took on a consistency of quicksand. And deep quicksand. In

some muddy areas, I saw horse hoofprint that sank 4 or 5 inches. I don't know how much worse this will get, but it just started raining here, so it certainly isn't going to get any better before Sunday morning.

The other striking point of today's trip up to Cool was the temperature. While my two pictures don't show it, even the Louie dog was freezing his ass off. There were flurries of snow in the air and the trusty coatpull thermometer said it was 39F. Looking at the weather forecast, I don't see it being much above the high 40Fs for Sunday morning.

Sunday's race registration starts at 8 AM (you can also check-in on Saturday at Auburn Bike Works [ MAP ]) and the pre-race meeting commences at 10:30 AM. Awards and prize raffles will be held immediately after the race. The organizers were just setting up the race registration area while I was walking the trail today and the one thing that struck me was the complete lack of parking. A word to the wise, be looking for parking spots well before you get to the firehouse in Cool.

Bottom line: bring your mud gear (I'm sporting fenders), warm clothing and possibly even some warm beverages for Sunday's race.

P.S. It appears that online registration is closed.

Technorati Tags: mtb, mtb-race, MTB-XC, norcalmtbracing

Cool Mountain Bike Race Updates

Since the 14th Annual Cool Mountain Bike Race is coming up (March 12th) and our previous post details were somewhat lacking, here are some more details on the race:

The race will cover approximately 10 miles of fire roads (85%) and singletrack (15%) on the Olmstead Loop in Cool, CA (six miles south of Auburn, CA). Begineers will do one lap, sport two laps and expert/pro will do three laps. Singlespeed, Clydedales, tandems and expert women will do two laps. As the promoters warn, "the course will be muddy."

The ride is capped at 425 riders. Awards will be given three deep and the expert/pro purse starts at $200. Race registration starts at 8 AM (you can also checkin the day before at Auburn Bike Works) and the pre-race meeting commences at 10:30 AM. Awards and prize raffles will be held immediately after the race.

Event: Cool Mountain Bike Race
Dates: March 12th, 2006
Location: Cool, CA [ Map ]
Competition: XC
Cost: $40
URL: http://www.auburnbikeworks.com
Registration: http://auburnbikeworks.com/form.htm
License: None

Technorati Tags: biking, endurance, mtb, MTB-XC, mtb-race, norcalmtbracing

Cool Mountain Bike Race Scheduled

The 14th Annual Cool Mountain Bike Race has been set for March 12th, 2006 near Auburn, CA (actually Cool, CA although it isn't even marked on google maps). The race is a cross country (XC) race through the Sierra Foothills on the Olmstead Loop Trail. The trail is part of the extensive trail system near/in Auburn State Recreational Area.

Although the date is different every year, I've never seen a picture of this race where it wasn't completely frickin' pouring rain. I'll have more information about this race as the date draws near.
UPDATE (03/13/06): Check out the race photos and results.

Technorati Tags: cycling, mtb, mtb race, MTB XC, norcalmtbracing