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Showing posts from 2016

My favorite MTB short and yes it is badass too

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Its makes me super happy that these days there are many good options for women specific mountain bike shorts. I wrote about this topic before ( here ). Bicycling magazine even published an article describing 8 Badass Women's MTB shorts (link here: 8 Badass Women's Mountain Bike Shorts ) recently. Being a gear-head, I was a little disappointed that my favorite women's MTB shorts did not make the list. I decided to rectify the situation by telling you all about my favorite shorts and why. Full disclosure, I like it them much that I now own 4 pairs and just ordered my 5th.  Why I need so many?  Is reason #1 of why they are my favorite. They come in so many awesome colors and patterns. They look so cool that I started wearing them as regular shorts off the bike as well. Looks are important but there is more. Starting with the perfect fit and many well thought of features (coming next). Combine all those together and you have a winner.  The Shredly booth in Sedona

My Race Across the Sky (Leadville 100 MTB Race) - Part II - Fight Till You Die (or close to it)

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As I move up Columbine one pedal stroke after the other, all I can think of as I grasp for air is "how the hell did they carry all this mining equipment up so high back then", I guess the prospect of gold or silver can make us all do crazy things ... So here is my story. Race day is ON! Welcome to Leadville - Who's Ready to Roll?   This is the 3rd and last installment of my Leadville 2016 adventure. To read the previous 2 posts - click  here for the first  and  here for the second .  The Start Line At 5:30 am the line of corrals (which is about a mile long) is already packed with races. I head slowly to my assigned corral, the Blue corral. It is the second to last corral and the only reason I was lucky enough not to be in the last corral was due to me being a member of  Team World Bicycle Relief . The White corral is last corral and this is where those unlucky races who do not have qualifying times from previous races are staged. Why unlucky you'll see

My Race Across the Sky (Leadville 100 MTB Race) - Part I - Face Your Fears

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The bottom of Powerline. Pushing it to make the cutoff I have been sitting on my Leadville 100 MTB Race blog posts since August. "I don't have time" was my excuse. Travel, more races, training, more travel. At least this is what I was telling myself. Then I realized that I was spending more time on catching up on my favorite TV shows than on any on the above list of excuses (well almost). It was time to admit to myself that those were just excuses for my lack of motivation to sit down and write my story. The truth is that every time I sat down to write it I felt stuck. It wasn't "flowing" like the first part ( here ). I was struggling with telling my story, or more with what/how to tell it. So like anything else in mountain biking (and life), you gotta keep trying until you find the flow. Once you do you gotta keep going with it or keep looking. So here goes. No excuses. About 10 days before my big day, my A race for the year, August 13, 2016 - Lead

My Road to Leadville - from Triathelete to Mountain Biker

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From my past blog posts you probably already realized that I have a loose screw when it comes to epic cycling event. I'm on some kind of a “suicide mission” to find the craziest and most challenging rides with as much elevation gain as possible. Sometimes I think to myself: when did it start? How did I catch this bug? Because let's face it, we are not talking about a super climber like Contador or Quintana. We're not even talking about a gifted racer, not even at the local racing level. To be honest, we are talking more about a less that average rider. Colorado Trail - July Mini Training Camp The Breaking Point – Where it All Started When I think to myself “Where did it all start?” The moment that I keep going back to is to my first mountain biking trip when I still lived in Israel to Lago di Garda. To that miserable rainy and cold day that started in an endless climb on the road and then trail. Somewhere in the middle, or probably closer to the start, I found my

Fundraiser - Racing Leadville 100 with Team World Bicycle Relief

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I love bikes and I love riding them. Cycling completely changed my life and made it much more interesting. Cycling gives me the freedom to embark on new adventures, discovering new places and conquering new challenges. So, when this year I decided to go back to where it all started for me, mountain biking, and tackle one of the toughest one day mountain biking races in the world, Leadville 100, I couldn't possibly think of a better way to do it and a better team to do it with.   I am supporting World Bicycle Relief, an organization providing access to independence and livelihood through The Power of Bicycles, with a personal fundraiser ( Team World Bicycle Relief - Sharon Shachar ). The money raised through my fundraiser helps to provide specially designed, locally assembled bicycles to students, healthcare workers and entrepreneurs in rural Africa; connecting them with education, healthcare and economic opportunities. While for me cycling is about life changing experien

Running in New Places - My India Running Adventures

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I have been fortunate this year to have some exciting travel opportunities for work. As I wrote in my past post ( here ) such travel can be disruptive to my training (oh yeah, of course to family life as well, but this blog is all about my adventures so I'm leaving that aside, at least for now).  On my  morning run - Jal Mahal, Jaipur, India  My goal has been and still is to not let my travel schedule interrupt with my training. In fact, I feel that I need to run, bike and yes probably even swim to be able to stay focused and in good mood especially while traveling. Those of you who do a lot of work travel know that when traveling we tend to spend long hours in meetings or other work commitments and usually don't really get the opportunity to actually see more than just the meeting room. This is exactly the reason why I view my workouts when traveling for work as an opportunity to explore and discover new places. It's a little brake in the long days of meetings and