As the Wheels Turn

Moab is largely known as a holy spot in this religion of mountain biking, one in which people often get lost and need rescuing. Because of only collecting tax from 8500 residents in that county, search and rescue teams will be billing the rescued people. $275 to send a rescue team out, $75 for an ATV, $350 for a boat, and $10,000 for a helicopter.

Mark Mechau had to pay $650 to be rescued after becoming lost one night in his Jeep. He complained that too many people were sent out to find him.

“I’m a little upset about it,” he said. “The bill was exorbitant, and I really didn’t feel that it was equal to the task.”

Search and rescue commander Rex Tanner defends his decision to send five rescuers.

“If we had not been successful in rescuing him, somebody in the family probably would have questioned or, you know, responded with the fact that you didn’t send enough people,” Tanner said.

So he’s complaining about a $650 bill after these guys probably saved his life?

Others are completely ok with the search and rescue bill, saying “And it’s worth every penny . . . These guys earned every bit of it.”

Tour operators are said to have started search and rescue insurance for $15.

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Beware: there is some technical stuff and some of it can be considered TMI

Haven’t updated this since this past Tuesday because I’ve been spending all my free time on getting the new forums setup. Well they’re up now and I think reactions have been mixed. Some really like it, some are skeptical. I knew there would be a time period while everyone gets comfortable with the new forums, all the bugs are worked out, and everything is customized to how we want it.

The transfer of data from the old forum went fairly smoothly. All members, avatars, posts, threads, forums came over easily and accurately. Since the photo gallery we had was an add-on hack, the importer software didn’t work with it. I just finished uploading the photos to the new gallery, which is run on the Photopost PHP software. All photos have username ‘admin’ and ‘imported’ as the title. If i find a way to spend less then 2 hours changing the username and description to the 200+ photos, I’ll do it.

My two next things I want to concentrate on are the calender and trail conditions reporting/forum. The old calender was a great tool to easily view upcoming rides - I want the same functionality in the new forums. As far as the trail conditions go, it has to be easy, simple and effective to share information on trails and view that information.

After all the basic functionality and stuff is in place, I can put some more attention on the details such as custom buttons and colors and stuff like that.

visit STR forums powered by vBulletin and Photopost PHP

“I grabbed my gun and as I looked back, I’m looking about 20 feet, 15 feet from this cat and it sees me, crouches down, bares its teeth,” he said. “I don’t hear any growling or anything and at that time it started to move and I just instinctively cranked off two rounds at it. The first one I know I hit it because … the way it jumped.”

I know there are two different opinions on this. If indeed this was self defense I’m not too angry about this, although I know some people will be. Since mountain lions are protected, an investigation will determine whether or not this shooting was legal.

Article

PRESIDENT BUSH: You’re probably wondering what the Prime Minister is sharing with me. First of all, welcome. We’re talking mountain biking — actually, he’s talking about the Tour de France. He’s a huge advocate and a follower of the bike scene around the world. He’s also an avid mountain biker. And one of these days he and I are going to ride; he’s going to give me a lesson on how to ride a mountain bike.

Article Warning: Most of it is not bike related.

Some guys from a shop in Florida setup Ned Overend’s bike for the 50 miles of the Tour de Felasco and snapped a new photos of it.

2006 Specialized S-Works Carbon Epic

More Pictures

STR will undergo some large changes soon. First of all we’ll be moving away from the current forum software to the awesome message board system utilized on socalmtb. Second of all there will be 10 more ads, all of them popups and some of them covering over 50% of the screen. And last but not least, Steven Jackson will be given administrator status!

But seriously . . . some changes are coming. But they will be good changes though!

Don Boehly has been riding his bike for 16 months now in an effort to raise money for policemen, firemen, and American troops. He’s promoting his website www.9-11usa.com which directs people to charities. So far he has logged 15,092 miles and hopes to reach New York on September 11th.

Boehly says, “If I didn’t have a gel seat I’d be in big trouble.”

Article

What? You mean you don’t know who Michael Eckert is?!?!

I have a skinny-tired road bike that I’ve ridden thousands of miles - but only on pavement.

What’s even stranger is how I’ve avoided the mountain-bike craze. I’m worried I might like it too much.

Sure, I worry that once I start off-roading, I would like it too much and never actually ride fast again. And then my road bike would resent it, I’d feel guilty and there’d be bad feelings all the way around.

Read the Article Here

Yes I know this has nothing to do about biking, but I just thought it was pretty neat.

This is a 6000×6000 image of the Orion Nebula. If you click the Hubblesite link below, you’ll have the option of a 18,000×18,000 resolution image!

In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star formation region is one of astronomy’s most dramatic and photogenic celestial objects. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars.

Full Resolution Image at HubbleSite