Author Alex Hutchinson

Cycling is booming in south Sarasota County. The busy winter season has filled the Legacy trail with snow birds, the Carlton Reserve with mountain bikers and now the events are stacking up. The good people at Liv/Giant have teamed up with Real Bikes Venice for not one but two cycling related events specifically for women. The first is a basic bicycle maintenance clinic. Jen Audia of Liv/Giant will be teaching participants about basic bike parts & how to perform a safety check. How to fix a flat & remove/re-install a rear wheel plus troubleshoot basic mechanical issues at home or on the road. It's a good place for locals to eat, drink, & make new friends to ride with! There will also be give-aways! The clinic takes place Thursday, Feb 20th, 6pm at the Real Bikes Venice store. 581 US Hwy 41 Bypass N, Venice, FL. 34284 - (941) 485-3113 Liv/Giant Women's Bike Maintenance Clinic During the same week local women can join a No-Drop fun ride at the T

Every once in a while I dream about what it must be like to live the life of a Professional Mountain Biker. Traveling around Europe to all the big events, exploring new places, new trails, eating new foods and of course riding those amazing top of the line machines. While most of these things can be achieved with the right amount of money, one of them can be experienced for FREE! On February 4th, 2014 the Specialized Mountain Bike company sent one of their trucks to Venice, Florida. They met up with the local riders at Sleeping Turtle Preserve for one of our Tuesday night rides . You wouldn't normally see a truck show up for a group ride but ours has been growing in size at an amazing rate. Last year we drew in 10 to 15 riders per night but now the norm is more like 25 to 40 riders. It is a perfect place for a big bike company to lend out their new models for demonstrations. As the parking lot slowly filled to the brim, the big red Specialized trailer swung open i

Southwest Florida's newest off road system lies at the heart of the T.Mabry Carlton Reserve on the outskirts of the city of Venice. The lead trail has become known as "BoldlyGo" and in the short span of one year it has attracted the attention of countless visitors. At the parking lot is a kiosk with a map that displays this long span of singletrack snaking its way through the woods for almost 4 miles. As of now, this popular trail has been made even longer. The Sarasota County Off Road Riders (SCORR)  are the group responsible for trail building and maintenance. They created BoldlyGo and over the past couple weeks they extended it to complete a loop that is easily accessible for the public. SCORR started the new year by hiking through the brush, flagging new paths. This required traversing deep woods and fields of palmetto while picking appropriate routes. Mountain bike trails are usually narrow and often swerve back and forth giving riders the illusion of

It wasn't until I completed the 40 mile version of Piggy's Revenge, my first endurance mountain bike race that I realized how much energy cyclists use. Nutritionists say that you must ingest 200-300 calories for each hour spent on the bike. That's 3 snacks for a 3 hour ride. Since that race I have been running out of money buying bars and gels just to stay fueled on the trails. There must be a cheaper way. My lovely wife Terri B had the great idea of making our own energy bars. She looked up a recipe online and said it would be easy. If it had been anyone else I would have been skeptical but Terri is a trained pastry chef with a decade of experience so she knows food. It was time for an experiment. I'm not much of a cook so whatever Terri had in mind needed to be easy, cheap and plentiful. We took a trip to the Richard's Whole Foods store on Indiana ave right next door to Real Bikes Englewood . Richard's had the perfect selection for our needs.