Answers to your deepest and most troubling questions (about the US Open Relay)

A couple q's have come my way in the past few days that are worth passing along.

1. Is the farm open for pre-riding? No. The farm is private property and is not open for pre-riding for the Team Relay. Please respect this rule. Anyone caught pre-riding the course will be barred from future competitions at the farm. The boys and girls on the Mountainside racing team will be organizing some rides at the farm this spring and summer with all the appropriate insurances and what-not so catch up with Mike Laub or Andy Hoover or one of the other team members for more info. These Mountainside led rides will be the only opportunity to ride on this course outside of races. Also, please be sure to thank these folks for all their help in getting the farm ready for the relay - they've basically done all the trail clean up and prep and saved me a ton a travel time and work. Thanks Mountainside!

2. Can we park next to our pit? Maybe. This is going to depend on weather and ground conditions, but obviously your cool pits are going to be far easier to set up if you can get your vehicle in close. What I will plan for is that teams may bring ONE vehicle in to their pit - so, if you show up in two vehicles put all the stuff in one to bring it to your pit. Easy enough.

3. Hows come there are different prices on mountainbikeracer.com/mbcx.com and bikereg/highspeedcycling? I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this. I think Bill was helping me out by putting more info up about the relay on his site and grabbed some 2007 info off my site to enhance my posting on his. I tried to fix this and can't actually change the text on mbcx so I've asked for his help in doing so. The correct prices, much to the chagrin of my anonymous friends, are on bikereg.com.

4. Will there be a kid's race? I wasn't planning one, but can add it if people want me to. Todd is putting up a survey on the board at the series site so chime in there if you want to bring your kids and watch them race around a bit.

More later. Thanks for tuning in.

We're just over a week out now and registrations are starting to roll for the visitPA.com US Open Mountain Bike Relay. Thirteen teams so far - two visitPA.com squads to add with a guest appearance from Cannondale's regional rep and supporter of all things good in cycling Brian Kremmer since Ray and Nancy are headed south for a little training and racing vacation. Get your team registered through BikeReg.com and join us for a fantastic kick off to the season.

New Look Site!

The visitPA.com Team's new race promotion site is up and active thanks to visitPA.com Team racer Ryan Leech, who in addition to be pretty fast happens to make some very nice websites. Information about the US Open Relay has been posted to the site and registration is live on BikeReg.com. Info about the Rocktober Challenge Marathon will be up with in the next week. Thanks for your patience while we redesigned the site, we think you'll find it a much nicer place to visit!

Updates to VisitPA.com Team Events

We're working hard to bring our 2008 events together. We have a goal of not only putting on high quality bike races, but creating great experiences for our participants and coming up with events that are a little outside the usual xc bike race. The VisitPA.com Team's events for 2008 are:

Sunday, April 6 - US Open Team Relay
- A four person four hour long super sweet way to kick off the 2008 season!

Saturday, May 17 - Rocktober Challenge Mountain Bike Marathon
- 100k mountain bike marathon through gorgeous central PA and the Bald Eagle State Forest

Friday, July 4 - Sunday, July 6 - VisitPA.com MTB Stage Race and Festival Weekend
- Quite possibly the most fun event ever with great racing, camping, a beautiful setting, bands, beverages, expo, fun races, and whatever else with think to add! Includes an XC, STXC, Hill Climb, and Night Time Trial

Sat, Oct 11- Sun, Oct 12 - Iron 'Cross
- The longest cyclocross race in the USA and an event gaining an international following coupled with a fun "short course" cross race and a chance to ride in some stunning fall scenery through the ridges and valleys of Michaux State Forest in south central PA.

Visit out race promotion site at www.highspeedcycling.com for more information on these unique and fun events!