Today I want to introduce another one of the Erwin Park Summer Series sponsors. Elect Wellness, owned by Tom and Jamie Jenson. Elect Wellness is a local McKinney business run by some amazing mountain bike riders and racers.

Here’s one of several pictures I took of Tom and Jamie just before they took off at RCP in last Fall’s DORBA Fall XC Series.

Elect Wellness – Find Life

Elect Wellness specializes in actual personal training. This isn’t the kind of training that you find at some big chain gym, but instead it is custom tailored to your needs, your body, your goals and done in your own home.

Here is how President and Owner Tom Jenson describes Elect Wellness.

Elect Wellness improves the quality of life for DFW residents through home-delivered personal training and nutrition coaching. Their team of registered dietitians and certified fitness experts comes directly to you, bringing both the physical and mental tools you need to reach your full potential. The mixture of caring professionals and a comprehensive methodology has not only resulted in thousands of pounds lost, but also numerous stories of natural health success – like the 23-yr old featured on ABC News for overcoming cerebral palsy, and the 46-yr old who rid herself of type II diabetes. With clientele ranging both in age: from 18 months to 82 yrs, and ability: from challenging special conditions to high-level athletes, Elect Wellness has the experience necessary to help you reach the next level, no matter where your starting point.

Now I’m going to pull out a piece of what was said there.

The 23-yr old featured on ABC News for overcoming cerebral palsy, and the 46-yr old who rid herself of type II diabetes.

That in itself is AMAZING. a 23 year old overcoming cerebral palsy is incredible. But seriously, check out this massive change in his life as his family talks about the life change it provided.

I have to divulge that I am lucky enough to have been good friends with the owners, Tom and Jamie, for several years. They are wonderful Christian business owners who put their clients first. In fact, Tom even helped me cover the topic of dehydration last year.

Dehydration While Mountain Biking

If you are looking at improving your quality of life and reaching the next level on the bike this year, give Elect Wellness a call. You can work with the best in Dallas in-home personal training.

The post Elect Wellness appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

This list of mountain biking tips for beginners comes directly from the Texas Mountain Bike Trails community. If you’re not already a member, then click the like button below to join our active Facebook community.

What Mountain Biking Tips Do You Suggest?

On Tuesday I asked the TexasMTBtrails communities “What is the one piece of advice you would give to a brand new mountain biker?”

The responses were awesome, a lot of stuff I hadn’t even considered. Here is a list of each of the mountain biking tips for beginners that our community members shared.

Everyone was a beginner at some point. The frustration, anger, difficulty, and learning curve that exists for a beginner, every single mountain biker has been on. Every one. No exceptions. That means, that no matter who you look to as a better rider, they all started in exactly the same spot you are in. Every one of them.
-Rich Szecsy

Take it day by day….and Enjoy Your Ride.
-Loving The Bike 

Don’t look down at the front wheel!! Look ahead!!!! In almost all situations your bike will follow your eyes!!!
Ilies Razvan Andrei

Take a class for beginners. Don’t try to do to much if it is your first time on a trail. Learn the route.
-Jovito Herrero Emmanuelli

Speed is your friend.
-Jerry Friedman

Get yourself a bike helmet!
-Alan Lee

Get padded gloves.
-E.J. LEVY

It’s okay to walk the bike.
-Jacob Furchak

Nice tips! I’m a noob here and have recently got into this and it’s tons of fun!
-Ruben Martinez

Ride with someone who has experience or take a class!! Will make cut easier and you will have more fun and less injuries.
-Brooke McCormick Sample

Hold on and follow your wheel!
-Jean-Pierre Berentsen

Eat, hydrate, and wear your helmet!
-Brent Neufeld

Get rid of the shin busting (gonna make you bleed) metal pedals and go plastic/nylon until ready for clipless.
-Keith Hammers

Just ride to have fun at first. Make sure you have a good helmet and just have fun!
-Chris Baab

Take your time, and have fun. Get two riding partners one better than you so you progress, the other on or below your level, better when you have a friend to progress with.
-Don Bullard

Get a helmet and watch for snakes! And have fun!!! 
-Brooke McCormick Sample

Ride, ride, ride. Let the small crashes happen, but don’t put yourself in a position of taking a big hit. Let the bike handle the trail, you just tell it where to go and how fast it goes. That being said, learning that the bike doesn’t need to be directly under you is huge. It never gets easier, you just go faster/take harder lines. Have fun and enjoy being outside. Hmm, I wonder if my wonderful girlfriend Ashley will read this?
-Jack Sullivan

Buy a good close out or used bike. Use the money you save to go biking!
-Rob Clark

HAVE FUN! 
-Jay Carlson

Don’t look where you don’t want to go.
-Paul Fontenot

Watch for that tree
-Roberto Rosario

You don’t have to go fast….you just have to GO!!!
-Brian McFarland

Your Tips For Mountain Biking?

What about you? What kind of mountain biking tips would you give to a rider who has just started? Leave your advice on being a better mountain biker as a comment below!

The post Mountain Biking Tips For Beginners appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

Today I want to say thank you to the very first sponsor that came on board to help support the Erwin Park Summer Series.

Rock Solid Heating & Cooling, LLC of McKinney Texas.

Rock Solid Heating & Cooling provides both residential and commercial service for McKinney heating and cooling maintenance, repair and replacement.

Summer is coming quick, if you want to keep your home cool, give Rock Solid a call. They are owner operated and focused on building relationships with their customers.

Rock Solid is owned by John Reid, a local mountain biker himself who you can frequently find riding at Erwin Park or Northshore Park. He’s a downhill enthusiast and an all around great guy.

So if you find yourself in need of heating or cooling service, reach out to John & Rock Solid Heating & Cooling for their personal touch.

The post Rock Solid Heating & Cooling LLC appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

Less than 2 weeks till we kick this thing off!

Click To Tweet –> “#GetPumped – Erwin Park Summer Series course number 3. Check out this video! http://youtu.be/UrWNClSKy70″

If you are in North Dallas, keep an eye out for these flyers around town.

In case you missed the big reveal last week, May 23rd is the start of 16 weeks of summer mountain bike racing! The Erwin Park Summer Series is two 8-week series of mountain bike races taking place every Thursday night at Erwin Park in McKinney. Two races per night, a beginner race at 6pm and a more advanced or experienced race at 7pm.

These are going to be short track courses. So you may be wondering what that means.

Short Track courses means we are running multiple laps on small 2-3 mile segments of the trail. This gives us some variety on a week to week basis, plus helps allow the trail some recovery time by not using it every single week. There are three different courses we will be racing on. Some of the courses will be focused toward technique, some of them toward climbing, and some of them toward speed.

Today I’m putting the spotlight on course #3 of the Erwin Park Summer Series. Check this bad boy out!

YEEEAAAAH! Party Rockin!

Here’s the Strava details for this course.

Did you check out that elevation to mileage ratio? We are right at 100 feet of climbing per mile!

WOOOO! #GetPumped

The course will start at the bridge at the bottom of the park road. You’re going to take off like a rocket and climb the road up the hill to the left before jumping onto the trail just after the end of the infield (the large inner field, not used in this course). This section is on the more technical side and includes the Screaming Drop, the wooden berm and the full expert section.  Once you’re through the expert section, you’ll climb the hill to the old trailhead, take a right to jump back on the road and scream down the road to start your next lap. Finish line will be after your final lap at the bridge at the bottom of the road.

I’m so pumped! You better be too!

The post Erwin Park Summer Series Course #3 appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

I’ve been building the anticipation about this for the past 2 weeks and I’m super pumped to finally announce it to the world.

2013 will be the beginning of the Erwin Park Summer Series! See the video below!

More info can be found by visiting the Erwin Park Summer Series page on the site.

How cool is that!  Now we’ve got racing all summer long!

Erwin Park Summer Series 2013

In January I began making plans and arrangements to hold a summer mountain bike race series at Erwin Park in McKinney Texas. Finally, yes… FINALLY I have everything approved and it’s time to share the details with you.

I first had the idea for a mountain bike race series in April of 2012. I had just signed up for Bike The Bricks which is a national level crit race that happens in McKinney every May. I hadn’t ever done a crit race before, and for those that aren’t familiar with it, a Crit is a very fast paced road bike race that lasts between 30 minutes and 2 hours.

Since I hadn’t ever done a crit race before I needed some practice and I found out about the Wednesday Night Crit here in Dallas. So I began going and racing in these and LOVED IT. It was great to get out on a weekly basis, improve my skills and be able to compete at something I love doing.

But there was a problem…

The only thing I kept thinking at the time was

“How the heck is there not a weekly mountain bike race?“

Once summer hits in DFW the mountain bike races stop. DORBA only has a few late night endurance races and TMBRA goes on hold for the summer. So from the end of May through August there is almost zero mountain bike racing to be done. Is it hot, yeah… but that doesn’t stop our road racing brethren and I don’t think it should stop us either.

Seeing this huge gap, I knew I had to give it a try. In January 2013 I started putting the pieces together and contacting people I consider to be experts in organizing and promoting races. A huge thank you to each of them, without their help this never would have been possible.

Finally, after spending the past 4 months working out details and getting approvals, the Erwin Park Summer Series is ready to get going on May 23rd 2013.

This is going to be a really unique race series because we will be doing short track racing. This means that instead of using the entire 8 mile course at Erwin Park we will use a 2 mile closed off section that will rotate each week. This gives us a great opportunity to race a new course each week!

The Erwin Park Summer Series is also set up to help ease new riders into the sport of mountain bike racing. With 2 races per night, a beginner race at 6pm and a more advanced and competitive race at 7pm both newbs and high level racers will be able to enjoy this series.

Also, I’ve managed to keep the costs very reasonable at only $15 per rider per night or $20 to do both the 6 & 7pm race. This covers insurance, land access, scoring & timing and a host of other small expenses that hosting an event like this incurs. And no need for a USAC license making this even more accessible for beginners and also saving you even more money.

The summer will be split up into two 8-week points series with awards going to the highest scoring riders. The best 6 races will be counted towards your point total.

One thing is for sure, this series is going to be FUN!

Check out the Promotion Page

Erwin Park Summer Series

The post Presenting The Erwin Park Summer Series appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

Super simple question, and I want to hear your story.

Watch me tell why I started mountain biking in the below video.

Why Did You Start Mountain Biking?

Now it’s your turn, share your story about how you started mountain biking or even road cycling. You can leave it as a comment below, or bonus points if you upload a video and share it as a video response on the YouTube channel!

Can’t wait to hear why you started mountain biking!

The post Why Did You Start Mountain Biking? appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

Race #9 of the TMBRA Race Series is his weekend with my personal favorite of the series the Prayer Mountain Pedal. My favorite pretty much only because it’s the only one close enough for me to make… Definitely check out my first hand thoughts on this course following the race information.

The 2013 TMRBA Big Cedar race will be held on May 4th at Big Cedar Wilderness Trails in Cedar Hill Texas.

To register for this event, click below.

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/18904

The Big Cedar Prayer Mountain Pedal race course will cover 8.3 miles with roughly 975 feet of climbing according to my Garmin GPS. That’s 117 feet of climbing for each mile, not too shabby at all! Race course data listed below from my Strava profile.

To view the 2013 TMBRA Big Cedar race course, view the video below. This is the entire course but highlights you may want to watch are listed on the YouTube channel, just click through on the video below and read the notes in the video description on YouTube.

Big Cedar Wilderness Trails will be open all day Friday before the race, since this course is hosted by Mountain Creek Community Church the race will be held on a Saturday instead of the usual Sundays. The expo area opens for vendors and sponsors at 5pm Friday May 3rd and a first time racers clinic will occur at 7pm.

For overnight guests there are many hotels in the surrounding area, just use Tripadvisor.com to find one nearby at a desired price. For those looking to camp, Cedar Hill State Park is located 2.2 miles away and has primitive sites available for $10 nightly. To make a reservation contact the Ceder Hill State Park office at 972-291-3900.

There will be a $5 per car parking fee on race day.

2013 TMBRA Big Cedar Prayer Mountain Pedal Schedule of Events

2013 TMBRA Big Cedar Prayer Mountain Pedal Race Distances

Awards & Prizes

• Pro & Cat 1 – 75% payout of entries
• Cat 2 – Merchandise and Awards to top 5
• Cat 3 Prize Raffle and Awards to top 10

Directions

View Larger Map

My thoughts on the course

Since this race is actually close enough that I can make it to I am really excited to share a lot more information than I have been able to for the past races. Including a full course video above as well as the Strava reading is great but for those that can’t make it for a pre-ride there is more information you may want to know.

The 2013 TMBRA Big Cedar course is very focused on singletrack, roughly 85% of the course is nice and tight. The remaining 15% is wide singletrack and occasionally jeep road. The start line will have maybe 300 yards of open sprint before ducking into the first piece of singletrack. Because this course is so tight getting hung up behind the slower crowd at the start is going to be big. Start out in a full sprint, hit the singletrack in top 3 if you plan to podium.

The trail stays pretty well confined to singletrack aside from the long downhill you can see at the 18:55ish mark in the video, a place where everyone pretty much sprints anyway. The only other real passing spot is with 1.5 miles left in the race. The singletrack opens up and you have nice wide singletrack and jeep road to the finish line.

If you can get into a top 3 position and can ride comfortably behind the person in first without losing ground to them then that is the strategy I would use. Conserve some energy and tail them up until that last 1.5 miles. Then hit the turbo button and sprint to the end.

There is a lot of climbing, but because it is mostly singletrack the passing lanes just aren’t there. If you can easily ride away from the person in front of you then do it, but if it is going to be a back-and-forth, position trading, gun-fight till the end, the better approach is to let them lead and then jump them in the final mile.

I also have a detailed outline of all of the course highlights listed in the YouTube video description if you go to the channel. There are a couple of interesting bridges and drops around the 21-34 minute mark, 2 of which are brand new this year.

Good luck to everyone at the Prayer Mountain Pedal! I will be there racing Cat 2 and likely finishing last since I’m not at all in racing shape. But dangit it will be fun!

The post 2013 TMBRA Big Cedar Race: Prayer Mountain Pedal appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

I’m kind of a sweaty guy, and that’s a little embarrassing to say so publicly, but its true. I sweat a lot, especially when I’m out riding my bike in this Texas heat.

One of the things I hate the most is getting sweat running into my eyes while I ride. It blurs my vision and often times stings. It kind of sucks.

So when I found a couple of products made for the sweaty cyclist I had to pick them up and try them. Here’s my review of the Sweat GUTR Sweatband and Halo Headband.

The Sweat GUTR Sweatband

Overall impressions of the GUTR sweatband is pretty great. I really liked the fit and all around use of this sweatband and it has seriously a ton of adjustability to it. The Sweat GUTR sweatband is made of medical grade silicone or rubber and fits comfortably about a half inch above your eyebrows.

There is a small gutter or channel that is on the front lip of the Sweat GUTR and works just like the gutter on your home does, it forces the sweat to the sides where it drains off away from your eyes. I did find that there is some sweat that will drip over the top of the channel if your head is looking down.

For instance, if I am really pushing myself up a long grinding hill or cranking out a really hard effort trying to catch up to someone my head will drop toward the handlebars as I try to use my body as leverage on the climb or get aero to catch someone. This means that the angle of the Sweat GUTR channel is pointed in the wrong direction and instead of having the sweat run off the sides it will pool in the middle and run over the top on your nose and into your eyes. See my below recommendation about a particular instance that I still prefer my Halo headband.

The Sweat GUTR uses velcro closures and essentially rubber hair bands to make it a fully adjustable and able to fit any size head. Whether you have a giant noggin or a little bitty cranium, this thing is pretty much guaranteed to fit. The velcro closures are easy to reach even when you have a helmet on over the top of the sweatband.

Prior to using the Sweat GUTR sweatband I used a Halo Headband for about the past year. The Halo is a really great quality product that does a good job of keeping sweat out of your eyes and I really enjoyed using it.

The Halo is a full on sweatband made out of performance materials that help wick sweat away from the skin. It has a very tiny rubber strip embedded at the bottom to help channel sweat to the sides similar to the Sweat GUTR.

The only reason I prefer the Sweat GUTR to this Halo is because I feel like the Halo insulates my head which I don’t want in the hot Texas summers… even though it’s really incredibly minimal and most likely imagined instead of real.

I do think that there is one instance in particular where the Halo Headband is the better sweatband to use. If I race in a road crit I will use the Halo headband instead of the Sweat GUTR. In a crit I spend a lot of time with my face shoved into the stem of the bike eating handlebar while trying to keep up or stay semi aero while drafting. This means that the channel is pointed in the wrong direction and gravity is not pulling the sweat to the sides of the channel but instead over the top of it. With the Halo Headband the performance fabric headband helps to trap the sweat and spread it out along the band. This means instead of it pooling and dripping over the top it just pools on the fabric and slowly evaporates.

Interested In Purchasing A Sweat GUTR Sweatband?

Sweat GUTR Sweatband – SMOKE

Interested In Purchasing A Halo Headband?

Halo II Headband

The post The Gutr Sweatband: The Sweaty Cyclists Best Friend appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

Race #8 of the TMBRA Race Series is this weekend with the fantastic 2013 Pace Bend Race & MTB Festival.

The race and festival will be held at Pace Bend Park on Lake Travis roughly 30 miles west of Austin.

To register for this event, click below.

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/18414

The Pace Bend Race course will cover an 8.5 mile route with approximately 500 feet of climbing. The majority of which comes in at the 4.5 to 5.5 mile point.  Race course GPS data is listed below.

The trail will be open all day Saturday April 20th for pre-riding, registration and packet pickup as well as expo area setup. As well as holding the Bike Texas Kid’s Kup and First Time Racer Clinics (for times see schedule of events below).

There is a $10 per car parking fee and camping is available for primitive sites at $15 per night. No credit cards accepted so please bring cash.

Pets on a leash are welcome, but please keep them safely away from riders.

RV sites and motel rooms can be found at the nearby Highland Lakes Camping Area, a private campground within the park. Contact Jackie Albright at 512-264-1777 extension 1180 to make a reservation.

2013 Pace Bend Race Schedule Of Events

2013 Pace Bend Race Distances

Awards & Prizes

• Pro & Cat 1: 75% payout based on TMBRA payout structure
• Cat 2: Awards and merchandise
• Cat 3 & Juniors: Awards and raffle items

Directions

View Larger Map

The post 2013 Pace Bend Race & MTB Festival: TMBRA Race Series appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.

So I have been riding on these Maxxis Crossmark tires for a good long time and I am really happy with them overall. But I am getting anxious to try a new set of tires and so I am putting this out for you guys to help me decide what I should try.

Please leave me a comment with your recommendation on it.

The post Help Me Choose A New Tire! appeared first on Texas Mountain Bike Trails.