Here’s what pro mountain bikers Harlan Price (Independent Fabrications), Robert Marion (BMC) and Beth Frye (Look) are racing…

Ever think of something you’d like to ask the people behind the bike brands you ride and lust after?

Here’s your chance!

Nic Sims, Specialized’s Global Marketing Manager is off to le Tour for the next couple of weeks.  While he’s away, he’s invited you all to submit your questions to us…we’ll compile them and put them together for an interview.  No holds barred, ask whatever’s on your mind.   Just add your questions as a comment on this post and we’ll do the rest

All questions should be submitted by next Friday, July 3, for inclusion. Bring it on!

This is what parking lots look like in Moab.

We found this picture parked on GnatLikesBikes photostream on Flickr.

Check out what the Niner / Ergon pros ride and race.  We caught these three (Rebecca, DJ and Fuzzy) at the Cowbell Challenge and had them run down their bikes for you.  One interesting thing to note:  Every pro we interviewed was running the Rotor Q-rings…interesting, no?

Editor’s Note: Normally, we’ll try to edit down or simply provide the highlights of stuff we get, but this is pretty cool.  Yes, it’s from Gate’s PR firm, but it proves the concept…now, if they could just make an internally geared hub that could stand up to the gear range and abuse of mountain biking…

PRESS RELEASE: In conditions that destroyed equipment, shredded even seasoned racers and caused a late race course change at the recent 5th annual 18 Hours of Fruita bike race at Highline Lake in Fruita, Colorado, the Oskar Blues Belt Busta’s team of Scott Hicar, Dale Katechis, Troy Mandery and Jeremy Rudolph took the overall victory thanks to the consistent performance and mud-shedding capabilities of their Gates Carbon Drive™-equipped Spot Brand single speeds.

With little more than two hours left in the race that had started under clear and cool skies at midnight on Sunday April 26, the 85 competing teams were thrown a curveball in the form of a late spring storm that turned the dusty, rolling, six-mile course into a nearly unrideable patch of goo. Aided by the spring rain, the area’s infamous bentonite clay changed from a fine white powder into a sticky mud of peanut butter consistency that ripped off derailleurs, gummed up traditional chains and coated wheels with pounds of muck.

Thanks to the foul weather performance of their carbon-reinforced, polyurethane Gates belt drive
as well as Gates chainrings and rear sprockets with patented Mud Portsâ„¢, the Oskar Blues team
was able to click off consistently fast laps while their competitors struggled to complete a lap in
two or three times their normal rate. “There were no worse conditions that I’ve ever ridden in,” said
42 year-old Oskar Blue’s rider Hicar. “The Gates Carbon Drive system just pounded right through
it, allowing our guys to keep riding fast while everyone else was literally just trying to survive!”

Denny at Manitou has started offering daily (or at least frequent) 50% off deal codes for online Manitou purchases.  First come, first served, the codes only work for the first purchase of the day.

How do you get it?  Follow them on Twitter.  Not sure what to get?  We’re reviewing their Sun-Ringle Black Flag wheels w/ ceramic bearings and they’re sick…sick, I tells ya!

Via Carlton Reid’s twitpic stream comes the all new Scott 29er mountain bike, being shown at Press Camp (again, guys, you may wanna check the tracking number for our invite…) this week.

Straight outta Hawaii (or where ever it’s actually made) comes Okole Stuff.

Okole (oh-koh-lay), which means “butt” in Hawaiian, is the product of pro endurance mountain biker Pua Sawicki.  When we interviewed her, she said her motivation in creating her own chamois cream was to make something that would last for the duration of 24 hour solo races.

And, actually, chamois “cream” is a bit of a misnomer.  The stuff is like thick, more like chamois putty.  It’s certainly different than the myriad other chamois creams out there.  It doesn’t claim to be all-natural, biodegradable or anything else.  It just claims to work.

How? Petroleum and Lanolin.  It’s thick, it sticks and it doesn’t go away. It also has Allantoin, Tea Tree Oil, Aloe and Love, so it’s not necessarily  bad for your skin.

Hit ‘more’ to see what we thought of its performance and a full ingredient list with descriptions of each…

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I’m almost embarrassed by the source of this post, but Perez Hilton had this up yesterday:

“Lee Crider is looking at a solid three years behind bars at his sentencing in Sacramento next Monday. The bike thief pled no contest to burglary and theft for stealing the Tour de France champ’s time trial bike along with two other bicycles back in Februrary.

Dung Hoang Le, the man who purchased the $10k bike from Crider for a measly $200 is also looking at 90 days in the slammer.

We believe in paying the time for the crime, but three years??? That’s the same sentence as Grand Theft Auto!”

ESPN added this:

A police report says (Le) bought Armstrong’s $10,000 bike, a Trek Livestrong 1274, from Crider for $200. He later turned it in to police.

Yep, that’s the bike model alright…A Trek Livestrong 1274.  Look it up, it’s in their catalog.

Been having fun lately uploading our pictures to Flickr and have come across lots of neat and pretty things to look at. We thought we’d start a new post called the “Bikerumor Pic Of The Day”. If you want to send us your picture for future posts, click here. In the meantime, please enjoy our first “Pic Of The Day”:

This photo comes from Walkers Cycling Club’s photostream and is titled: “Distant Rider”. Walkers Cycling Club happens to be in Scotland and this picture was taken in Torridon.

Cadence, and the ability to show what gear your’re in without looking back, is one of the overriding reasons why I chose Shimano for my newest road bike: FlightDeck.

If you don’t have FlightDeck on your bike or aren’t familiar with it, here’s the deal…one sensor, no wires, handles everything you could likely want, and shows Cadence and (because it taps into the shifters) what gear you’re in.

Now, Cateye’s latest iteration of the Strada Double Wireless would free up my decisions if I were building another road bike.  Their new SDW computer uses a single, wireless sensor to provide speed and all the other basic functions and Cadence.  This means a very clean design without multiple sensors and all those wires running down the downtube, under the bottom bracket and across the chain stays, with another set of wires running down the fork. U-G-L-Y.

The Strada Double makes a nice clean presentation by building both the cadence and speed sensors into a single transmitter that clips to your chainstay.  No fuss, no muss, and theoretically, it could work for mountain bikes, too but it is not recommended for mountain bikes.

Hit ‘more’ for  a list of features and more pics…

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From 5050bmx.com, posted on BroadbandSports.com.  Still not as good as this one, but worth 1:31 of your time.