Washington State mountain biking public and supporters:

As of January 1999, the Washington State International Mountain Bike Association representative is Michael N. Curley of Tacoma, WA. Some of you may or may not already know me. If you made it to this years Seattle Greater Bike Expo, you may have met me at either the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club (BBTC) or the Single Track Mind Cycling Club (STMCC) booths, or maybe on the Expo floor. I was asked to fill this representative position because of my participation as an advocate or representative of Washington States singletrack mountain biking public. Although I have represented mountain bikers for years, I do not consider myself as a mountain bike advocate but more of a multi-use veteran, which is a stance all trail users should take since the natural areas should not just be for limited use but for everyone.

As mountain bikers we are highly unorganized as a user group. Many of the individuals from our group prefer to ride with their close knit circle of friends. In Washington State the largest club, BBTC, has only 500 members. For a city the size of Seattle those numbers to me seem low. Even with the addition of STMCC’s 200 members, the accumulative total of 700 hardly competes against the tens of thousands that the other user groups claim to have. As a user group we need to align ourselves with other multi-user groups and increase our political pull at the bike accessible trails table.

My multi-use list of recreation vehicles includes: racing with snowmobiles, four-wheel and motorcycles (which the latter brought me back to bicycling off-road). Other forms of recreation are snowboarding, cross-country skiing, hiking and backpacking. First and foremost, I have raced and ridden mountain bikes in Washington State since the early 90’s. I was so involved with off- road bicycling that I, with four other enthusiasts, formed STMCC for which I was the president for the first two years and have been the trail maintenance/advocate person since the clubs inception. Through STMCC we have donated thousands of volunteer trail maintenance hours all over the Puget Sound, put on several successful fund raising events like the annual Beartrax and Beeswax Race, the Annual Tahuya MTB Poker Run and last years IMBA Pacific Region Summit Conference. Along with all these accomplishments I also sit on several governmental recreational trails advisory committees including the National Recreational Trails Program, Advisory Committee which distributes the TEA-21 funds through the Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation, and the Washington State Trails Conference Follow-up Group Task Force.

With all my exposure to the processes involved in running our public lands and funding them it has become quite obvious that for our use to flourish we will need to join together as a group of mountain bike users and multi-users. We are basically out for the same experiences, we just have different means to achieve this goal. My biggest project this year is to promote the formation of a Washington State Mountain Bike organization. Craig McKinnon, current President of BBTC, is in the process of forming such a communications network and I encourage all to join a local mountain bike club or IMBA, our national organization, and through this group be a part of the Washington State organization. I would like to also spend my time promoting trail maintenance as a valuable advocacy tool for all my Washington mountain biking friends to use. Along with this, I hope you will consider me as a source of information to help you promote your areas mountain biking opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

With the arrival of spring officially past us now, it is time for us to look at the racing season.

When planning your competition phase for the year, remember the formula "Volume=Quantity+Quality" applies. This means that during the base phase you will systematically increase the time spent on the bike (quantity) while keeping the intensity (quality) low. Next comes the specialization period where anaerobic-threshold, anaerobic-capacity, and sprint training is added. Volume continues to increase because we have not decreased any time (quantity) we've simple added intensity (quality). Now we enter the competition phase by exchanging quantity for quality. We'll spend less time on the bike; however, it's going to be a lot faster. The first peak of the season should occur when the quantity hits the first planned low while the quality is increased to net a zero gain or loss in volume.

Today you're going to do (a) a 34-mile cross-county race, (b) a 12-mile back-country trek with a 40-pound backpack, or (c) an all-day, all-terrain mountain bike rally.

You've been training and carboloading for a week. But at the last minute you realize you have nothing to sustain your energy during the outing. What to do?

Many would run to the nearest store and stuff their pocket with energy bars. That's not a bad idea, Michael Segell, Sports Afield fitness and health editor writers. But it is better to first understand how the body plans to use that food and how to work with it to maximize endurance and performance.

Glycogen is the fuel source your body uses first. Glycogen, packed into the cells of the muscles and liver, is derived from carbohydrates you've consumed in the past day or so and powers you through the fist 20 to 30 minutes of strenuous, sustained exercise.

After about a half-hour, the body supplements the fuel stored in the muscles with glucose released from the liver into the bloodstream. In the next hour, as the muscles exhaust their energy supply, fats and blood glucose begin to take over as major energy suppliers.

Even a lean, highly conditioned athlete has a virtually inexhaustible supply of fat. But fat won't burn unless there are carbohydrates in the blood. You have to refuel with carbs or risk petering out long before you reach your destination. And once your energy stores are depleted, it can take up to a day to replenish them.

The quickest way to replenish energy is to consume carbo-replacement drinks like Gatorade, Hydrafuel or Powerade. In less than 20 minutes, your body will convert the carbs into glucose and dump it into the bloodstream.

Sports nutritionists advise choosing a drink that tastes best to you and has no more than 6 percent or 7 percent concentration of carbohydrates. A higher percentage is absorbed more slowly and can cause upset stomach. If you're in for a long day, start sipping about 30 minutes into your activity, drink small quantities at a regular pace, about a liter (32oz) per hour. More than that can lead to cramps.

You can also maintain your pace with energy bars like PowerBar, Tiger Sport and Clif Bar, but they can take up to an hour to convert into usable glucose. For long hauls, sports nutritionists advise taking a bite of energy bar every 10 minutes until the bar is gone, roughly 90 minutes into your activity. The bar helps prevent exhaustion even if you're consuming sports-carb drinks. And don't forget water, the simplest energy source and the most commonly ignored, according to sports nutritionists. Even mild dehydration causes a loss in efficiency, primarily because the body as to work harder to cool itself, burning precious glycogen stores in the process. Drinking plenty of water on a regular basis also speeds digestion, turning food into energy more quickly.

Before hitting the trail head, drink a half-liter of cool water, which empties from the stomach faster than warm water. Then, replenish fluids with water or energy drink at the rate of 1 liter (32oz) per hour for the duration of your race, bike, or hike.