Author Archives: "Sal Ruibal"

7 Reasons why…You Should Not Worry About It

11.05.2012 //

Your iPhone is broken. Your face is broken. Your friends have deserted you. The police are coming. The cheese and ground beef you ate is about to mix with the vodka in a vomit geyser of epic proportions. You also have peed your pants. Don’t worry about i

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In Praise of… Going Bananas

11.05.2012 //

Guys are pretty much one-trick ponies, and once you’ve seen the Shetland do the hokey-pokey, there isn’t much mystery in the Mister. So, as reticent as I am to pull the sword from the scabbard in public, I must offer faint praise to those
individuals who feel that their shortcomings are worthy of displaying on the airwaves.

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Dirty Words: A Look Back at Lance

10.19.2012 //

We come not to bury Lance Armstrong, but to review some of the weird, awkward, crappy and embarrassing moments that I spent while following Lance and his ilk around the world.

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Dirty Words: “All creatures great and hidden.”

10.12.2012 //

By Sal Ruibal Seeing (on video and still photos) the tremendous leaps and bounds of freeriding at RedBull Rampage this week was very exciting. The boundaries of what can be done on a bike are expanding every day. The athletes who perform those mountain bike gymnastics risk their lives in the pursuit of perfection. I [...]

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Back Page: To the Drunk Guy from Last Night

10.05.2012 //

You were pretty wasted last night when you left the bar. That’s why it was so
easy for me to follow you home as you wobbled through town on my bike. I thought about smacking your head with the piece of wrought iron fence you broke to steal my bike, but that would have been too easy.

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Dirty Words – “Here’s mud in your pie-hole.”

10.05.2012 //

By Sal Ruibal After a long, hot summer on the East Coast that began in April and appears to be finally turning into autumn, we are getting rain. Lots of rain. I can’t complain because the dry streak gave me many more days to ride in the woods. When I first started riding on Flintstone [...]

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Dirty Words – Riding for the Common Good

09.28.2012 //

Sometimes a bike ride is just that–a ride. Other times, it’s something far more important and personal.

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Tom Ritchey’s 40 Year Ride honored with film and fanfare

09.26.2012 //

By Sal Ruibal Tom Ritchey celebrated his 40th year in the cycling industry Sept. 19th with a keg of beer, a crowd of admirers and a movie—created by his filmmaker son Jay—that examines the creative processes that led him to build some of the first true mountain bikes in the early 1970s in Marin County, [...]

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Dirty Words – Fondomania

09.14.2012 //

The beauty of fondos is that you don’t have to race. You can go for a nice ride followed by the copious consumption of beer at the finishing line picnic.

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Dirty Words – Picking My Team of All-Star Mountain Bikers

09.07.2012 //

What will the next generation of elite mountain bikers look like? Sal has a unique spin on what we should be looking for when it comes to recruiting the cream of the crop.

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Dirty Words – Eat me! Or how I Learned to Love 7-Eleven Burritos

08.31.2012 //

At least once a year, I really, truly get my ass kicked on the bike. This year, I was lucky that The Knock couldn’t find me until August 25. It usually happens in the first race of the year, but since I haven’t raced a lick so far in 2012, I lasted until late summer [...]

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Dirty Words: The Miserable Champion(s)

08.24.2012 //

In 1998, I wrote a front-page cover story for USA TODAY that posed the question: “Is this man the world’s greatest athlete?” That man was mountain bike-snowboard-motocross-punk rocker Shaun Palmer, and that story shocked the sports world.

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Deep Summer Photo Challenge: Justa Jeskova, Third Place

08.22.2012 //

Photographer Justa Jeskova’s Deep Summer entry, Generations, she seeks to capture the spirit of the sport in the form of five riders, ranging in age from eight to 71, male and female.

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In Praise of…True Grit

06.04.2012 //

Grit bounces up from the trail and launches sharp-edged rocks into your shins, taking bloody flesh samples from your body and then slowly, lovingly converts the damage into smooth, translucent scar tissue that resists tanning rays and tattoos.

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