Ruthie Matthes will highlight ROMP’s holiday party.

Jacquie Phelan reviews Thirty Ears of Appetite Seminars.

After a friend is killed on a bicycle, a 10-year-old invents a new bike-safety device.

A Yankees pitcher hurt his shoulder riding in Mexico, but no details on how. Let’s hope he was ripping it up in, say, Copper Canyon at the time.

In the Seattle cycling community, CBC usually stands for Cascade Bicycle Club. It could also stand for Cyclists Behaving Cluelessly.

All in 2010. Remember that Rusch, who started out as a rock climber and dominated adventure sports before moving to endurance mountain biking in 2001, is a three-peat 24-hour solo world champion. Her full list of accomplishments makes you want to sit down and take a breather just reading them.

Then again, Rebecca Rusch is the kind of person who would be stoked at meeting you or me, or walking down the street, or watching paint dry. She’s stoked at everything life has to offer. That’s just one reason why she’s everybody’s favorite champion.

Climbing at 2010 Leadville 100. Todd Meier photo.

“I just love to ride,” she said in a telephone interview after her Leadville win.

Notably, Rusch finished a remarkable 22nd overall at Leadville, passing half a dozen guys on the fearsome Columbine climb up to the race’s highest point at 12,550 feet. Rusch is matter-of-fact about it: “For the most part the guys are super cool. Especially in an endurance race, everyone is working super hard — everyone’s in their own little suffer fest.”

Women racing in male-dominated mixed events has come a long way from the early days, when just a couple of female names would show up in mountain biking competitions. Back then, a lot of guys weren’t particularly keen about getting passed by someone like Jacquie Phelan, winner of the first three NORBA nationals who had to endure a lot of pushback and ostracism on the trails.

With trophy next to men's winner Levi Leipheimer. Todd Meier photo.

Today, “I think the guys have changed,” Reba said. “What can they say? You’re beating them fair and square, they have to kind of take their hats off to you and say, OK, good job! Nobody likes to be chicked maybe, but people are more used to seeing fast women. The overwhelming majority of them are willing to shake your hand and give you a pat on the back.”

They call her the Queen of Pain, but it’s unclear whether the reference is to her own threshold or what she inflicts on the competition. At last Saturday’s Leadville, Rebecca not only won for the second year in a row, she beat by 11 minutes the course record set in 1997.

She credits women’s silver winner Amanda Carey with pushing her early and often.

“For the first 40 miles I couldn’t shake Amanda. I was thinking OK, OK, gotta keep at it. We were in the Top 25 of the men so obviously both pushing it.”

Then, after the Twin Lakes Dam aid station and start of the 3,200-foot Columbine ascent, she “decided to put the hammer down and mini-time trial. It was make or break at that point for me. I put six minutes into her on the climb up and another few on the descent, so by the time of the Twin Lakes return I had about 10 minutes on her.” She ultimately finished 25 minutes ahead of Carey, who was 42nd.

It wasn’t a cakewalk. She was cramping on the Columbine descent and almost slid out on a couple of corners. “I was like, OK, OK, take it easy,” she said. “It ended up being a clean, solid race for me.”

It helped that the crowd this year knew her name. “You hear people shouting out your name all along the course, it’s definitely super inspiring.”

As strong as Rebecca is, she admitted you always need a bit of luck to win an endurance race. No flats. No mechanicals. No bonking.

“I was prepared, but you have to have a little luck to get through 100 miles without something going wrong.”

Crediting the 29er. Todd Meier photo.

Rusch rode a Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper 29er hardtail. Although she’s “barely 5-foot-7, I’m sold on the 29er, especially on that course with its fire road sections.” All Specialized riders, including men’s bronze medalist Todd Wells, were on 29ers, she said.

She arrived 10 days before race day to get acclimated and meet the locals.

“What’s really cool about Leadville (race) is the sheer amount of people there. They all love to ride bikes, it’s definitely the biggest mountain bike race I’ll ever attend. It’s hanging out with your tribe.”

Rusch is a bit of a jill-of-all-trades on the racing landscape. Asked to characterize her forte, she answers, “Endurance.” “I’d get really bored doing just one thing (discipline),” she said. “I think it comes from my adventure racing background and doing other sports, like skiing in the winter. I like to mix it up.”

Asked which male counterpart comes closest to her style, she says Adam Craig. “He does Super D and World Cup cross-country stuff. He hasn’t done 24-hour racing but he’s a really good technical rider as well as an endurance guy.”

Another one: Mark Weir. “He’s super technical too and loves the downhill.” We would love to see Mark and Reba sit down together over a couple of beers. He Stoke meets She Stoke.

As for her goals, Rebecca says she accomplished 2010′s No. 1 with her win at Leadville. She’ll be back in sky country in a couple of weeks for the 24 Hours of Leadville (Sept. 4-5), but beyond that she’s still mulling over the rest of the racing season. And 2011? “That’s too far away to plan,” she said with a laugh.

Bike sharing in Boston gets a $3 million boost.

A wi-fi bicycle lock that beeps you when your bike is being stolen is an interesting concept with a lot of caveats, the first being: You must lock your bike in a public wi-fi area.

You thought Alberto Contador showed poor sportsmanship not waiting for Andy Schleck? Check out Joe Papp’s analysis of John Gadret’s treatment of teammate Nicolas Roche.

What happens when two bike legends run into each other unexpectedly? If one happens to be Jacquie Phelan, well … read for yourself.

If Floyd Landis were to pick a place, any place, to return to public visibility following the Landis-Lance affaire de doping, he could do no better than Bend OR.

Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz are doing yeoman work to promote trails in a heroin-infested park called Pogonip. For more, check out its Facebook page.

Now it’s back to the Tour!!!!

Excerpt:

My high school civics teacher drew a pie chart to illustrate what share of our time and energy would be devoted to care and maintenance of a car (about a third of the pie). In the spirit of smart-ass teendom, I snarked, “What if we ride a bicycle?”

Bike commuting was unheard of in Los Angeles, but I knew I could save wages and work fewer hours than my classmates. The same teacher informed us that the U.S. automobile death and maiming toll is around 5 million people per year, dwarfing the devastation of the Vietnam War. Thirty-five years later, the statistic has hardly changed. This situation is considered “normal.” That’s why you don’t know it.

Whistler opens Saturday!

Washington State premiere of “Follow Me” is Sunday!

The 30th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption is Tuesday!

The roster for the Tour of California announced.

Bikes and bananas go together, always have, always will.

Jacquie Phelan turns her poignant prose to the passage of Conrad Isecke.

Everyone had fun at the Tacoma Bike Swap.

There is such a thing as a bike sleuth.

San Francisco gets a “green lane” for cyclists. Let’s hope it stays green. At Green Lake in Seattle, the green lanes have already (after less than a year) faded to something kind of gray-green. A few more months of Seattle rainfall and they’ll hardly be noticeable.

Not that green lanes aren’t a good idea, especially physically separated ones like these. But hopefully S.F. has better followup maintenance.

Jason Alexander may have played the bumbling schmuck George on the Seinfeld TV series, but he shows how a class act handles things when he hits a kid on a bike.

It’s not your grandfather’s, or even father’s, bike company, but Schwinn is alive and kick…er, pedaling!

Five Ten shoes had its new line of SPD compatibles at Sea Otter. This is a bit of a puzzler, since you don’t particularly want a sticky sole if you’ve got cleats installed. And if you don’t, you won’t get the sticky sole effect because the cleat cap is lacking. One for the Five Ten rep next time we run into him.

Bicycle “Hollow Famer” Jacquie Phelan on the Hall of Fame’s move to Davis CA.

Nice signage added to Wilder Ranch State Park, courtesy in part to Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz and you, the gang who attended its big festival in February.

Ignoring the Gap: In San Francisco they’ve started a “turn ‘em in” campaign to report potholes to the city. Which reminds me, as I try to dodge the fresh crop of cavernous spring potholes in Seattle, didn’t we pass a special tax to fix these things?

Wenatchee’s Tyler Farrar continues to tear it up on the world circuit. One to watch in the majors for sure!

Idaho mtb license plates: Use ‘em or lose ‘em!

The specialty plate law in Idaho clearly requires that in years 4 and 5 after the plate goes on sale that there are at least 1,000 plates in circulation in both of those years, or they terminate ALL the plates – not just stopping sales of new ones, but canceling registration of existing ones!!

Trying to save the world’s most famous jump park in Aptos: “Skating’s kind of faded away, and cycling is huge in Aptos,” said Shawn Wilson, 22, owner of Epicenter Cycling in Aptos Village and one of those former teens who built the first jumps.

Banshee Spitfire first-look review.

What happens when a dog forces a cyclist to crash and go to the hospital with multiple injuries? Sympathy for the dog, of course: “Can you imagine that poor dog that ran down the road,” said Hernando Sheriff’s Sergeant Donna Black. “Getting caught in the bicycle like that?” LOL!

Can’t sleep, gotta ride, we’ve all been there: Another lyrical essay from the unquiet mind of Jacquie Phelan.

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.”

VeloNews: More on the LeMond—Trek legal spat, this time with backstory of Greg dissing Lance.

The secret is out! Lance and his new Team Radio Shack are training on mountain bikes!

Cyclelicio.us: The Million Car Challenge to allow bikes to use the full right lane.

Happy birthday Jacquie Phelan!