Galbraith Mountain....trail I must do before I die.

Galbraith Mountain is near Bellingham, Washington and it has a series of great trails for freeriders and cross country riders alike. It is well known for the Pacific Northwest mountain biking. For the freeride trails, there are many wood bridges, jumps, and trial stuff for the freeriders. For XC trail riding, there is plenty of singletrack riding with climbs and descents in the beautiful Northwest. I served in the Bellingham area for 4 months of my LDS mission and there were maybe two guys who talked into us to go riding with them at Galbraith but I guess it never happened. Now I need to try it! I would do just the XC trails though because I am not crazy like those guys in the video above. Now talk about craziness, those guys are good. Check out the video, it's amazingly well put. There is another video on mountainbikebill.com with Galbraith Mountain and a bunch other trails like in Utah for a more clearer, crisp picture. I need to try this trail next time I go up there! For sure I will take my bike.

Who's faster? A roadie or a mountain biker?

A while ago, they did a test of who is a faster rider, a road biker or a mountain biker. They chose Andy Schleck(last year's second place Tour de France winner), and Burry Stander(mountain bike under 23 world champion). The course was in a ski resort in Spain. A 7.4 mile pavement climb and a 5.5 mile singletrack climb(steeper). The riders would race each course individually and their elasped times up both of the climbs would be added together. The rider with the lowest elasped time would be the winner. They each had their own Specialized mountain and road bikes. Weather conditions were less than ideal, with high winds, cold temps and sporadic rainstorms.
The winner was the mountain biker. Burry Stander's 36:29.8 road stage time was less than a minute shy of Andy Schleck's winning time of 35:47.8. Burry powered up the off-road climb in 36:39, distancing Andy by almost ten minutes. Andy said he had more fun on the mountain bike than on the road and is planning to get a mountain bike of his own.
So, on paper, mountain bikers are in better shape than roadies, in my own opinion, when I am training on the hilly trails, it is higher in intensity and I can get in better shape than I could on the road. On the mountain trails, the pulse is high and you have to use technique to get up.