Now before the protest mail from the good people at Cascade Bicycle Club starts flowing in, we’re happy to acknowledge that Bike Expo includes mountain biking as well as road.

But everyone knows that road dominates Expo. Newly named interim director of Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Glenn Glover, noted recently the blank stares he got from way too many Expo-goers at the EMBA booth — even from mountain bikers.

The reason? First was context. Surrounded by roadie booths, demos, personalities and lycra, even mountain bikers weren’t expecting to find an mtb advocacy group in the mix.

Second is emphasis. A glance at the list of exhibitors this year — a record number, btw — shows only a handful of mtb-focused vendors. Missing were some of the hottest names in mountain biking circles, Evil Bikes, Obtainium, Transition. Even IMBA, a mainstay at mountain biking fests, was not on the list.

It’s true, as Glenn pointed out, that Evergreen can do much more to promote its image in the mtb community. But that could be Argument No. 1 for hosting a local mountain bike show.

Bike Expo aside, has not the time come for something along the lines of a Sea Otter North (Sea Wetter?), or Fruita West, Crankworx South (Dankworx?) or even Bike & Brew (Leavenworth) on the wet side of the state? Seattle deserves a signature mountain bike event to call its own.

Visiting in northern California we recently had the good fortune to attend the first Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival, a two-day event highlighted by an in-town jump jam and the California premiere of “Women of Dirt” (which premiered worldwide in Seattle earlier in February). Although unseasonably wet and cold weather forced cancellation of a big group ride, the event packed Santa Cruz’s Rio Theater and, despite inevitable glitches with a first-time venture, was a roaring success.

Mark Davidson, President of sponsoring Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz, said the festival galvanized the cycling community in Santa Cruz — a significant accomplishment given the seaside city’s bigger reputation for surfing — and has led to a number of unsolicited “we want to be part of this next year” queries from major bike names. His group will have an Interbike representative this fall to solicit sponsors and raise awareness in the festival, and at least one internationally known mountain bike manufacturer is knocking on its door.

Davidson does not minimize the huge challenges associated with staging a festival. Months of organizing, mounds of communication and hour upon hour of meetings and phone calls and emails are required to pull the thing off right.

But the rewards are not only commensurate, Mark noted, they go beyond the organization and event itself to permeate the community at large.

Ironically, cycling in Santa Cruz is still kind of ‘underground’ as a mainstream activity, despite the huge number of enthusiasts and a vibrant bike industry. People who are cyclists know that Santa Cruz is a mecca, but non-cyclists are not aware (i.e., Chamber of Commerce, tourism/visitors center, local paper).

The Amgen “Tour of California” is helping to raise awareness. So did the mountain bike fest.

The current (March 2010) issue of BIKE magazine, in a page-long feature, “7 Reasons Why You Should Host Your Own Event,” notes “it’s an effective economic stimulus” and cultural catalyst:

Greg Williams, one of the Downieville Downhill race’s founders, says that the weekend of that race is ‘the biggest for restaurants and grocery stores in the area by far for the whole year.’

There’s potential payoff for bike vendors as well. It’s starting to dawn on the industry that if it’s going to keep selling its wares, it had better get behind building new places to ride. The style of riding preferred particularly by younger riders — bike park, jump jam, pump track and other more structured, less open-country — needs bikes designed for specific purposes. That’s a huge market potential — but only if the places to ride exist.

The new generation of dirt boyz n grrrlz deserves an event to call their own. At the Santa Cruz fest I noticed how across-the-board the age group was. And in fact it was a great family event, with freeride groms and their parents alike eating it all up.

The explosion of freeriding in Seattle environs deserves a special gathering to coalesce its energy and enthusiasm. A local mtb festival would be just the ticket.

The Association of Pedestrian and BIcycle Professionals is urging women and girls to fill out this survey/

Bicycle Retailer’s report from Taipei: “Andrea Wu, press coordinator for Taipei Cycle organizer TAITRA, said early numbers indicate the show has been well attended with a 9.3 percent increase in international visitors on the first day and a 7 percent increase on day two. The number of foreign journalists covering the show has increased as well, Wu said.”

Tribute to Phil Wood; memorial service set for Los Gatos on April 17.

There’s nothing quite like the Bend Big Fat Tour, for which registration just opened.

The full video of the California premiere of “Women of Dirt” last month in Santa Cruz is out…my favorite part being the panel discussion.

The Top 10 facts from America Bikes and other goodies from Transportation for America are available.

An uncharacteristically grumpy Fat Cyclist deconstructs the Lance Armstrong appearance on Tony Kornheiser’s show (our take).

Sylvia Paull’s lyrical encounter with Google Maps’ new “Bike There” feature, more or less reiterating our call for some kind of context re Google’s recommendations (“hilly, less hilly, flat”, etc.). Also, it appears from numerous real-life tests that the much ballyhooed algorithmic weighting of Bike There for hills just plain ain’t working… Like we said earlier, this could be one of the longest betas in software history.

Tomorrow night (Thursday) is Women on Wheels at Gregg’s Greenlake Cycle. Raffles, clinics, talks and presentations — it all gets rolling at 7 p.m. More here.

And just for reference purposes, BonesOverMetal has posted a full (and growing) calendar of “Women of Dirt” showings all over.

Spokespeople will ride from Wallingford to U Village this Saturday starting at 2 p.m. Much of the ride will be on the Burke-Gilman Trail. Ride leaves from south end of Wallingford playfield at Densmore and 42nd. If you haven’t made the acquaintance of Spokespeople yet, these are really great social rides, especially for riders just getting into the Seattle scene or back to cycling in general. More here.

Looking ahead to the following weekend, March 13-14 will mark the return of Seattle Bike Expo, this time to a spanking new location near the Magnolia Bridge (Smith Cove Cruise Terminal 91). Following the smash turnout for the Seattle Bike Swap meet last weekend, the Expo should really rock in its new venue.

And jumping even further ahead, Portland’s first ever Trail Fest will be April 22 to 25. Great idea at just the right time, given the sorry state of Forest Park advocacy.

We’ve often noted that the way to get away with the Perfect Crime is to run over someone and claim you didn’t see him or her. The only catch being that the victim has to be riding a bicycle at the time. There is one exception, though: You can’t be drunk when you do it.

What’s up with The Stranger? We appreciate its shall we say rarefied sense of irony, even when it is misdirected. But to call cyclists “self-satisfied turds,” even if the reference is just to Critical Mass, and to “fantasize about mowing down” any cyclist, even if it happens to be in your way while driving, promotes the kind of stereotype phobia that, with most other prefixes, The Stranger rightly rails against.

Speaking of irony so subtle as to entirely escape detection, BikeSnobNYC explains himself, in his own exasperatingly desultory way, re the case of the mistaken Craigslist ad. [Update: Snob just tweeted that all's cool now.]

More Ultegra chain failures, which means more buzz in the Beehive!

Cups for boyz? Really? So how are you gonna enforce that one?

Angela taming a log roll in St. Ed's

Why are fewer women cycling? asks BikeRumor. Well, er… are there actually fewer women riding? Most data in urban areas suggests the opposite. And on the trails, there’s a real explosion in women mtbers (granted the base was small). On Twitter and Facebook, more women riders all the time. Still, it’s worth a read…

Case in (counter)point: Angela Sucich takes the Diamondback Lux Sport out for a thrash.

Gregg’s Cycles in Seattle has reprised W.O.W. — Women on Wheels, a Ladies Night Out. Mark it down: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 4, at the Green Lake store.

And at 86, still pedaling.

Then again, Martin Krieg, the “FarthingPenny” guy, checks in with this report:

“Who should roll up but Ellen Fletcher, America’s first politician/bike activist. And the woman for whom America’s first bike boulevard here in Palo Alto was named. Ellen asked me how our ride to Boston was coming along, and among other things, told me she had seen our bus parked on the other bike boulevard, Park Blvd, at Park Automotive Services. And as she pedaled off, I felt the need to corroborate her age for Chris and Caroline, the passer by who took the below photo. Ellen had to stop to get enough wind to answer me. She was still on the mend from having had a cancerous part of her lung removed.

“Eighty two”, she answered. She got back on her bike and pedaled away!!”

Alice Telford rides like ... a girl!

A less encouraging case in point: Woman rider clotheslined in steep gully.

Don’t forget the always cyclesque Kate Hudson!

And then there’s “Women of Dirt,” which is getting premieres all up and down the West Coast. The Cali premiere is this Sunday in Santa Cruz, rain or shine.

Which brings us to the subject of the bizarre dreariness and slop of this winter. In Vancouver they’re sweating in sunshine but the SF Bay Area can’t buy a ray. The big question-mark this weekend is the Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival. “Women of Dirt” will show, but the rides and events planned around the festival aren’t being helped by the wet. Mark Davidson & the gang at Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz have put together an incredible weekend, with more than $15,000 worth of merchandise to raffle off. At last tweet everything is still on, Soquel Demo ride and Jump Jam included! Got my ticket from Another Bike Shop in Santa Cruz and am ready to rumble!

Could be yers, ALL yers, dude...or dudess!

The big “Women of Dirt” California premiere is two weeks away, and Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz keeps sweetening the pot. Titus has emerged as the lead sponsor and is offering up a killer bike, the El Guapo, for raffle giveaway. Plus Black Market Bikes is offering 10 percent off in-stock items purchased from its online store. And the general raffle includes “an Intense 5.5 EVP frame donated by our good friends at Trailhead Cyclery, a Fox 36 Talas RC2 donated by Fox Racing Shox, a BlkMrkt Bike Mob frame donated by Black Market Bikes and many, many, many items,” MBOSC says. Tickets are at most area bike shops, grab ‘em before they sell out like they did in Seattle Feb. 5th!

How the premiere of “Women of Dirt” in Seattle last Friday evening went, here and here.

Banshee Bikes, winner of our Top 10 Bike Names of All Time citation, has a killer new Web site. Unfortunately, someone forgot to renew the bansheebikes.com URL. We’ve messaged them and will alert when back up (unless they’re changing domains, but even then they need pointer).

You’ve felt it, I’ve felt it. You lower the travel on your fork on a long fire road climb and immediately the bike feels more sluggish, like brake drag. RC speculates on its origins but, like every other explanation I’ve seen, doesn’t quite nail it down. Should be a simple matter of physics. Get MIT on the case! Why is this so hard?

Where does your stolen bike go? Trek-Livestrong theft shows up in flea market in Mexico, sans wheels.

Normally when a car runs down a cyclist, it’s by accident. But not always.

BOOKMARK this link: Bike footrests not same as metal knuckles, court finds. For the next time you get stopped for carrying assault weapons on your BMX.

Can the Prime restore Hayes’ disc-brake glory? I rode Hayes, the industry standard, for years till their weight, grabbiness and lack of adjustability drove me to Magura. Plus they really needed to do something about ease of pad replacement. Lots of buzz about Prime, which seems to address most of these issues, but we’ll remain skeptical till we see the things. Strokers just did not turn the trick, and at this point it’ll take a lot to win me back from my Martas and Louises.

Bicycles should have their own freeways? Why, certainly. With a car lane on the right-hand shoulder of course.

But one point needs clarifying. There’s a general perception that this is the first film about women and mountain biking. That’s not true: Nearly a decade ago, there was “HardiHood.”

The title came from a Susan B. Anthony quotation about women being persons — something no

Mountain biking suffragists

These women — Jacquie Phelan, Missy Giove, Cheri Elliott, Elke Brutsaert and others, but especially Phelan — had to endure a lot of second-class treatment in a male-dominated sport. Without them, the generation of younger riders featured in “Women of Dirt” might never have gotten exposed to mountain biking. In many ways, “Women of Dirt” and its cast are the children of “HardiHood.”

“HardiHood” got minimal attention when it was released (there’s not even a mainstream publication quote on the case) and sank like a stone. A Google search turns up a lot of linkrot. I managed to track down a copy on Amazon but had to wait three weeks to get it.

In contrast to most — make that pretty much all — mtb films, “HardiHood” focuses on (as the title quote suggests) the person, not the athlete. The opening sequence shows Phelan philosophizing about breast cancer and life’s meaning. The always voluble Giove is shown chatting and chopping veggies far more than riding her bike. Elliott talks about what it’s like being a mom and caring for a child while on tour.

Although the feminist undertone is there, “HardiHood” isn’t dogmatic. Its director, Nicole Hahn, uses the film as a vehicle to get into the minds and lifestyles of the riders — the whys and wherefores that led them to get involved in such a male milieu in the first place, how they stuck with it, and what it’s meant to them. Phelan, winner of the first three NORBA national women’s titles, especially comes across as ruggedly dedicated. Her cameos teaching women mountain biking in Marin, playing banjo and revealing what it took to beat most of a male field of riders are priceless.

While a lot of mtb DVDs over the past couple of decades have promised this kind of behind-the-scenes look, the fact is that the riding action always dominates. If a male rider has ever discussed cancer, fatherhood, or the rigors of travel on any of them, I missed it. However spectacular their aerial and speed skills are, male riders are like Her Majesty in the Beatles song: Pretty nice guys, but they haven’t got a lot to say. At least, that’s the way they come across in the films.

One problem may be the predictable, formulaic script of mountain biking/freeriding films. You get stunts, stunts and more stunts, accompanied by music soundtracks that range from awful to pretty good. You’re in awe of the action, but like too much of anything, it gets repetitive and humdrum. To some extent the Collective films, especially “The Collective” and “Roam,” step back for a reflective look. And Clay Porter’s perennial series on the World Cup, particularly “The Tipping Point,” captures more culture than most. (Not to neglect either “Klunkerz,” Billy Savage’s superb historical documentary on the roots of the sport, or “Tread,” the first and maybe best mtb film ever, which had women and men.)

But the focus is generally on the riding.

Would it be possible to get into riders’ heads today the way “HardiHood” did? “HardiHood” not only captured women’s perspective in a sport, it captured a moment of time in an ongoing evolution. Mountain biking was something no girl had grown up ever thinking she would compete in. There were no role models, there wasn’t even a sport. Phelan studied medicine; Marla Streb was a biomedical researcher. Streb has even written an autobiography, something few other riders male or female can claim (Phelan is working on one). The “HardiHood” riders had depth, character and life views shaped by a whole set of issues and values that were considered passe by the time their successors came along.

Several upcoming mountain biking DVDs are being promoted with the line that they’ll break the mold and bring us a much-needed alternative perspective. Nothing new there, it’s been promised annually since most of us tired of gap jumps and back flips. Whether the focus is on women or men riders or both, a mountain biking film today that incorporated the sensibilities of “HardiHood,” released way back in 2001, would indeed represent something “new.”

Elly Blue: “My year as a woman in a city of bikes.”

Washington’s “Vulnerable User” legislation is already further along than a similar bill made it last year.

Jonathan Maus at BikePortland.org raises the question of why a local newspaper seems deliberately provocative (one might say antagonistic) on the issue of the city’s 2030 Bicycle Plan:

“Instead of helping to foster civil public discourse about a very important plan for our city’s future, I’m afraid this story will only serve to intensify the “bicyclist” versus “motorist” sensationalism that The Oregonian has admitted to “overplaying” in the past.”

As newspapers (the ones that survive) continue to focus on their natural constituency, that being local communities, our hope is that they’ll show more sensitivity and receptiveness to the bicycling community in the transportation matrix. The perplexing irony in this case is that The Oregonian has on staff one of the nation’s experts on just this subject — Jeff Mapes, author of “Pedaling Revolution.” Maybe he could persuade an editor or two at his newspaper to read his book?!

For your good deed of the day — heck, the whole weekend — take the Bicycle Leadership Conference survey.

We like Ryder Hesjedal for two reasons: First, his mountain bike heritage. Second, his first name. Keep an eye on him in the 2010 season.

Have a great weekend! Hopefully the weather will let you Get out ‘n RIDE!

Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz have finalized plans for their two-day Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival on Feb. 27 and 28, capped with the California premiere of “Women of Dirt” at 7 p.m. Feb. 28 at the stately Rio Theater in Santa Cruz.

On hand will be riders Lisa Myklak, Emily Johnston, Tammy Donahugh and Kathy Pruitt, as well as filmmaker Mark Brent. A Q&A session will be moderated by Karen Kefauver, a freelance sports and travel journalist who authors the cycling column, Spin City for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and an outdoors blog.

There will also be a group ride at Soquel Demo Forest on Feb. 27 along with a Demo Day at Bike Station Aptos. A pump ‘n jump jam in Aptos will precede the film on the 28th.

(We sure hope the weather has cleared up by then!)

The film’s worldwide premiere is Friday in Seattle. Previous Bike Intelligencer coverage.

In L.A., a booming promise that “The culture of the car ends now!” No throwing projectiles, no verbal abuse, no cutting within 3 feet … and yes! No strangulation! “(No) making physical contact with a bicyclist from a moving vehicle on the roadway either by physical person or use of an implement.” Yay!

I remember when I was this anal about my ride logs…but it was a long time ago.

Reminder that the Marin County Bicycle Coalition’s “Dirt Bowl” fundraiser is Sunday, Feb. 7.

(Two) wheels ‘n feet account for 9.6 percent of all trips, but just 1.2 percent of federal funding. Other goodies as well in the Alliance for Biking & Walking “Benchmarking” report.

Add mtbchick to the growing list of hosts for “Awesome Land: Women of Dirt” showings .

Alan at EcoVelo looks at the iPad’s potential for mobile blogging.

Nothing to do with cycling, other than Yokota’s involvement, but a wild story nonetheless. So wild that the Man Himself, Gary Fisher, retweeted it.

Have a great weekend! Winter’s on the decline, time to get out ‘n RIDE!