It’s officially August. Trail time at Palos has been bided by mother nature’s temperament, and the summer feels like it’s just started to get on it’s roll, now. In the heat’s nadir and the incredible summer days experienced recently – I had been traveling to visit family in the way down south – way down. I packed the “cuttin’ edge” up and drove 20 hours south to San Antonio, TX. Some road hazards proved to be a minor delay and annoyance on the voyage, but in the end the trip was safe and successful. The downer – I was racing against the clock to get back to Chicago for the grand opening of it’s first dirt bike park. Nevada Dave was as enthused as I was to watch the opening of this event and addition to the cityscape we live in. He’ll be vetting out an article to give all of you a view of what this great event was. Photos forthcoming as well.

August will be off the hook to say the least – why? Because the Chicago World Championship of MTB will be coming on August 22nd. It is known as the Palos Meltdown and it is now in it’s third year running, with this year being one of the final stops of the Illinois Homegrown MTB Series. This is an incredibly important event, because it highlights the best and awesome efforts of CAMBr and local racers getting together to showcase a true dirt gem in the Chicago-land area. I am elated to participate and help out in this event because for such a grand metropolitan area that we are – we have a chance to get dirty in it on the trails.

Six years ago, I bought a race bike that I raced throughout the WORS series for at least a couple of years. A 26″ Gary Fisher Paragon. I naturally trained and cavorted around Palos throughout that time as well and logged some serious dirt mileage on it throughout the midwest. When I had relegated it to the ‘b’ bike also known as the commuter, I decided to give it a facelift and had a nice singlespeed wheelset built for it and I made it a great singlespeed – and I gifted it to my younger brother who lives in San Antonio. On this recent trip, I was looking forward to riding with him at Government Canyon which is located a few short miles away from his home. Unfortunately, the bike was disassembled and sitting in a storage unit, unused, and unloved. I was bummed to hear that the bike was relegated to storage fodder. My brother told me how he had been trying to mountain bike but the state park was intimidating and in addition the weather just makes it unbearable to ride the shadeless region of rocky terrain. I had spied lots of bike lanes around the neighborhood, in fact, just about every area had a painted bike lane – I first thought progress was being made. I also noticed that I counted ’0′ individuals riding those bikes lanes in every part of the city I was in. I asked my family about the lanes and they just laughed and said they were a joke for the poor souls who would dare try to ride their bike in the mecca of of F150 bubba trucks. I had immediately become happy to live in Chicago again.

Chicago has it’s contention with the weather – yes. But I haven’t seen or heard of any of my friends giving up on keeping knobbies on the dirt. Even if it is at the expense of a few gallons of gas, and hours of driving to other dirt destinations – we ride. Despite the chaotic nature of the Chicago-land traffic, we still find our paths to work and beyond. Even if we felt slightly intimidated about riding new trails or trying new challenges at our trail systems, there are the teams and organizations and community of dirtbags who are there to help us give it a shot and encourage the sport to grow.

These are all assets I’m happy that Chicago has – and in the coming month of dirt activities – it will show in the exuberance of all the dirtbags, happy to finally have our time on the dirt in front of our friends, with our friends, and even with our families.

August – dirtbags toll for thee. Don’t forget to register, and if you dont’ race – come cheer us crazy bastards on.