Submitted for Specialized's Approval

Okay, this post is my official entry into the Specialized Trail Crew contest. Why I should win and all that good stuff.

My first mountain bike way back in 1987-88 was a Specialized Rockhopper. I went away to a boarding school in Vermont where I started to learn how to ride on trails. I'd already done several long biking trips, tours through Maine and across sections of New Hampshire and Vermont. But it was an entirely different experience riding my bike through the woods, shushing my way down a pine needle padded fire road or grunting that bike up sharp hills.

And in the winter, I made my own ice tires by screwing wood screws through a tire and mounting it on the back. I wasn't smart enough to make a front right off so I spent a lot of time just cruising down frozen streams with the studded back tire as my only lifeline to something resembling control.

I rode that Specialized as hard as I could. I treated it badly because I didn't know any better and it really never let me down. Sure, I flatted out but the bike never just flat out broke.

Since then I've owned a good number of other bikes, mostly Ibis Cycles but with a Fisher, a Diamondback and Mongoose in there too but I will always fondly remember what a great fun bike that Rockhopper was.

Nowadays I get to ride in some of the finest areas in America. My regular trail is through the redwood trees in Nisene Marks. In the next year we plan on doing an epic Nisene to the Demo Forest and back down.

I also have outfitted my bike with a handlebar mount to shoot video while riding which has resulted in a few good videos. I'm very interested in mountain bike photography as well.

www.flickr.com

Here's what it boils down to. I love to ride my bikes. I would ride everyday if I possibly could. I write a bicycling blog (yes, with motorcycles too because I love riding my motorcycles). I am in the planning stages of a new and much more specifically bicycling dedicated website/blog. Being part of the Specialized Trail Crew would be great fun, I'd love having an awesome excuse to go out and ride my (well, your) bike, tweet about it from the trail and then come home and write up some sick trail tails.

If I don't win then no worries, I'll still be hitting the trails as often as I can and doing an awful of grinning along the way.

Here are some videos and photos I've created, videos were shot from a homemade handlebar mount with a Canon pocket camera.

Donate Your Mileage

Ever since the Sea Otter Classic I've been donating my mileage through a cool site called Plus 3 Network. You select a charity to donate to, I'm donating to the IMBA (International Mountain Bicycling Association) and, because I don't have a swank GPS unit to do it for me, I enter my rides in by hand.

But if you've got a supported Garmin GPS unit, the system does it all for you AND donates triple the amount of a hand entered ride.

It isn't hard to do either way though and it makes the rides that much more worthwhile.

I am Erik Orgell on the site, join up and we can become pals. Or just join up and put your mileage to better use. And, oh yeah, free to join, free to be a member of and free to donate, as in someone else makes the donation based on the number of miles that you ride, run, swim or walk.

Get to it!

What if a Motorcycle has 4 Wheels?

That title could have just as easily been, Is a 4 wheeled motorcycle still a motorcycle? What makes a motorcycle a motorcycle, is it the number of wheels or the way that it moves on the road? If it is the latter than the 4MC is definitely a motorcycle and maybe even a game changer of a motorcycle at that.

Gizmag does the 4mc test ride and reports that this crazy contraption has much to offer the traditional two wheel motorcyclist. The short answer is that it has a ton to offer, as in, nearly impossible to lose traction and wipe out. The four tires offer a crazy amount of contact patch with the road and the mechanical system makes it full leanable even at a standstill without falling over.

It is a pretty amazing machine and I'd love to check it out first hand by giving it a test ride. It could very well change the face of motorcycling and make it way safer. The other interesting bit in the story is that it is classified as a trike (despite the clearly visible fourth wheel) which opens it up to operation by people with regular car licenses.

Now imagine this motorcycle with a big old screamer engine like a Hayabusa or V-Max in it! It could cook like nobody's business! Coolness indeed!